ABSTRACT
The survey program was particularly designed to determine how ancient populations adapted to the Naco Valley's natural environments. Causation was sought in relations among material and cultural factors—in particular, how people adapted to their physical environments determined the course of human history. Pat was borrowing ideas from distinct sources to address different questions, without devoting much thought to forging a coherent approach to Naco Valley prehistory. The leaders of one of the Early Classic centers, La Sierra, won out against their competitors and established control over the entire valley. The apparent centralization of control over the Naco Valley represented by Santo Domingo was shattered during the Early Classic. Processes of political fragmentation in the Naco Valley continued unabated through the Early Postclassic, when La Sierra was largely abandoned. The valley's residents had the archaeologically frustrating tendency to reuse old trash when raising later buildings.
