ABSTRACT
Archaeology in the Americas was initially structured around culture history’s drive to define bounded areas in which cultural cores were identified. Concepts such as style, type and pattern were keywords. The diffusionist notions underlying much of this work are no longer subscribed to, but the importance of economic cores as trade centres did become a strong emphasis. Ultimately, regions were perceived as consisting of hierarchical trade networks (cf. Sanders and Price 1968). Theorizing as to the reasons behind these networks has been varied, but much falls under the rubric of systemic economic exploitation for purposes of acquiring and maintaining (political) power (Schortman and Urban 2012). Such studies are nearly exclusively restricted to the investigation of socio-politically complex societies, leaving ‘non-complex’ social entities largely out of view (Silverman 2008: 19).
