The Harvey Lecture Series. The Concept of the "Disembedded Capital" in Comparative Perspective

IN HIS RECENT MONOGRAPH, Monte Alban, Settlement Patterns at the Ancient Zapotec Capital, Richard E. Blanton (1978) explains the functions of that major Precolumbian Oaxacan site as those of a "disembedded capital." By this he means one where political and decision-making activities have been set aside from the society's mainstream commercial and socioeconomic functions, separated and segregated in a center established for political administration. AcCording to Blanton's interpretation, Monte Alban was founded by the mutual consent and collaboration of a number of preexisting Valley of Oaxaca polities and centers, and, as such, had been placed in a centrally located and "neutral" spot in the valley for purposes of confederated governance over the whole. This was done in the 5th century B.C., in Middle Preclassic (or Middle Formative) times; and the confederative purpose behind this action was mainly that of military unification and defense against the threats of other rising states in neighboring regions outside the valley. Monte Alban maintained this "disembedded capital" role, growing and thriving in it during the ensuing Late Preclassic and Classic Periods, until it was largely abandoned in the 8th century A.D., as a result of the decline of external military pressures. In Blanton's opinion, a number of lines of evidence offer test support for this "disembedded capital" hypothesis. One of these is the geographic centrality of the site, its strategic central location in the Valley of Oaxaca. Such a defensible site supports the inference of a militaristic and competitive sociopolitical environment. Germane to the idea of the collaborative nature of its sponsorship is the fact that Monte Alban was founded relatively late in the chronology of the Valley of Oaxaca Preclassic cultures, antedated by several other centers. After the founding of Monte Alban, these other centers continued to be active, at least in some cases; and it is Blanton's belief that they also maintained a socioeconomic independence from each other as well as from the new "disembedded capital" in whose de novo establishment they had collaborated. Added to all of these factors, and in Blanton's opinion the most crucial to his argument, is the lack of evidence in Monte Alban of an "embeddedness" in an in situ economic matrix. He feels that the signs of manufacturing and trading functions within the precincts of the city are slight; there is no specialized and identifiable marketplace, as at Teotihuacan, and, in his opinion, only a small volume of craft items and manufacturing debris at the site. Moreover, it is his

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