Christian E. Peterson - Archaeology Communities, Settlements, Sites, And Surveys Regional-Scale Analysis of Prehistoric Human Interaction

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    Society for American Archaeology

    Communities, Settlements, Sites, and Surveys: Regional-Scale Analysis of Prehistoric HumanInteractionAuthor(s): Christian E. Peterson and Robert D. DrennanSource: American Antiquity, Vol. 70, No. 1 (Jan., 2005), pp. 5-30Published by: Society for American ArchaeologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40035266 .

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    COMMUNITIES, SETTLEMENTS, SITES, AND SURVEYS: REGIONAL-SCALE ANALYSIS OF PREHISTORIC HUMAN INTERACTIONChristianE. Petersonand Robert D. Drennan

    ^^KTMIIMWHS

    Thestudy of developing complexsocieties canfruitfullyfocus on the human interactions that define communities,whichhavealways been at the heartof settlementpatternresearch. Yet ittle attention has beenpaid to how communitiesof vary-ing scales can actually be identifiedin archaeological surveydata. Most often sites have simplybeen assumed to corre-spondto communities,althoughthispractice has been criticized.Methods are offeredto delineate communitiesat differentscales systematicallyin surveydata, and their implications or field data collection strategiesare exploredcomparativelyfor casesfrom northeastChina, Mesoamerica,and the northernAndes.Lasinteraccioneshumanasque definen as comunidades iemprehan sido undamentals para las investigacionesdepatronesdeasentamiento, conformanunenfoqueproductivoparael estudiodel desarrollode las sociedadescomplejas.Sinembargo,los metodospara identificar as comunidadesde variados tamahos con datos de reconocimientoarqueologicono han sidomuydiscutidos.Generalmentee asumequeun sitio arqueologicocorrespondea unacomunidadhumana,aunqueestaprdc-tica ha sido criticada. Este articuloofreceunaperspectivabasada en la representacionde distribucionesdepoblacioncomounasuperficiecuyaaltura variasegunla densidadde ocupacion.Asumiendoquela interaccionengeneral disminuye on dis-tancia, las comunidadesde interaccionpueden ser delineadas sistemdticamente omo las bases de picos aislados en estatopografiaartificial.Se exploran os requisitosque tiene estaforma de andlisis en cuanto a la recoleccion de informacion nel campo.Ejemplosdel andlisis depatronesde distributionde ocupacionen China(regionChifeng),Mesoamerica ValledeOaxaca),y los Andes colombianos(AltoMagdalena)demuestranque el metodosugerido ayudaa delinear comunidadesdeuna variedadde tamahosy que tiene la capacidadde no delinear comunidadescuando esta estructuraespecificade interac-cion no estapresente.

    areconstitutednthepatternedCommunities

    interactions etweenhouseholds,whicharecentral o everyday ife in manysocietiesin allpartsof the world.It is inthis matrixof inter-actionthat the forces thatproducesocial changearegenerated,and the qualitative ocial changesoftenstudiedby archaeologists an be viewed astheemergenceof newwaysof structuringnterac-tion in communities.This has long been recog-nized in archaeological analysis and recentlyrenewedattention o communitiesdemonstratesthe continuedrelevanceof this perspective e.g.,CanutoandYaeger2000;Flannery1976;Hegmon2002; Kolband Snead 1997;Kowalewski2003;Kuijt2000;RogersandSmith1995;Schwartz ndFalconer1994;Trigger1968;Wilk and Ashmore1988).The word"community"asbeentaken o mean

    a numberof different hings, ranging rom Mur-dock's (1949:79-90) classic definitionbased onco-residence and face-to-face interaction, to"ideational,"imagined,"r "emic"communities(Hegmon2002;Knapp2003;Isbell2000;Marcus2000; Preucel2000; Yaegerand Canuto2000).Whateveraspectof community s focusedon, itsstudyin prehistoryrequiresa means to identifycommunities n the archaeological ecord.This isespeciallychallenging or the kind of emic com-munitydivorced romresidencediscussedbyMar-cus (2000). Our focus here is on behavior,notbeliefs;what we offer is an approacho delineat-ing communitiesof social interaction ather hancommunitiesof the mind. In the absenceof mod-erntechnologiesof transportationnd communi-cation,the costs and inconvenienceof interactionincrease substantiallywith distance. Economic

    Christian E. Peterson and Robert D. Drennan Department f Anthropology,Universityof Pittsburgh,Pittsburgh,PA15260 ([email protected],[email protected])AmericanAntiquity,70(1), 2005, pp. 5-30

    Copyright2005 by the Society for AmericanArchaeology5

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    practicalitys not the only basison which house-holds make theirdecisions,but facilitatingdailypatterns f activities s among heirchiefconcernsindecidingwhere o locatetheirresidences.To theextent thatdaily interactions reimportant,hen,householdscan be expectedto locate their resi-dences close to those of otherhouseholds withwhomthey frequentlynteract.Althoughmisgiv-ingsaboutsuchprinciplesarecommon, hose whohaveexpressedsuchmisgivingsoftenin factrelyheavilyon distance-interactionssumptionse.g.,Yaeger2000:126, 130-131). It is reasonable toexpectthat,especially npremodernontexts,pat-ternsof interaction, nd thus social communities,will be broadlyreflected n patterns f spatialdis-tribution f residence.Murdock's ocus on dailyface-to-face nterac-tion providesa logical pointof departureor thearchaeologicaldentification f social interactioncommunities, lthoughhe existenceof suchsmalllocal communities cannot simply be assumed.Rather,their presence must always be demon-strated.When they arepresent, they are entitieswithinwhichvariationsnthe nature fhouseholdsand nhouseholdactivitiesand nteractions an beinvestigated, and much that has been labeled"householdrchaeology"onsistsofprecisely uchinvestigation.At the sametime, small-scalecom-munitiesbecome the units of analysisat a largerscale, wherestudycan focus on variations n thenatureof communitiesand thepatterns f interac-tionsbetween hem.Thesepatternsmay permit heidentification f yet largersocial communitiesentities to which we are accustomed o applyingtermssuch as "district," polity," ndothers,butwhich exist in fact,like small local communities,inthepatterns f interaction etweensmallerunits.Inconsidering istricts rpolities,weapproachhespatial cale of regionalsettlement tudy.The notion of community, hen, as we use ithere, s notstrictly ound o aparticularpatial calebetween that of the householdand theregion.Itsessence, rather,s in patternsof intensityof inter-actionacrossspace.Thesepatternsof interactioncome into focus at differentscales to revealspe-cific structureshatexistsimultaneouslynagivenregion.This s not to say,however, hat here s anystandardet of scales atwhich suchstructuresmustexisteverywhere. ndeed, hevery processof dis-covering he scales atwhichcommunity tructures

    of interaction orm in different imes andplacesmakes a majorcontribution o the comparativestudyofcomplexsocietiesand heir ormation.Ouranalysisbegins by investigating mall local com-munitiesof people in virtuallydaily face-to-faceinteraction; t proceeds to progressively largerscales.

    Although t has not been framed n quitethisway,such familiaranalyticalools in regionalset-tlementanalysisas rank-sizegraphsandsite-sizehistograms rereallyaimedatstudying hevarietyof local communitiesandthe natureof their nter-actions.These andother uchanalysesmakesenseonly if the units of analysiscan be meaningfullythoughtof as humansocial communities.A one-for-onecorrespondencebetween archaeologicalsitesandsmall ocal communitiess oftenassumed,andarchaeological ites have oftenbeen used asthe basic unitsfor suchanalyses.Criticshave con-vincinglyunderminedhe automaticassumptionof site-communityorrespondenceponwhich hispractices based(e.g.,Dunnell1992;DunnellandDancey1983;Ebert1992).Sincesuchcorrespon-dencemayormaynotexist,the delineation f localinteraction ommunities s an analyticalquestionin its own right,answerableby focusingon howpeopledistributehemselvesacross helandscape,as bestreflected rchaeologicallyn how theirmate-rial remainsaredistributed crossthelandscape.This reflection s, of course,distortedo vary-ing degreesby a numberof factors.Humanactiv-ities in laterperiodscan alterthe material ecordleft from earlier imes.Changesoccurringduringasingleperiod anproducepalimpsestshataredif-ficult odisentanglend nterpret. atural rocessestransportmaterial traces of humanactivity anddepositsediments hathide such traces.These andotherprocessesobscureandconfuse theregional-scale patterningwe need to recognizeandcreatepatternson their own. The more ephemeral hearchaeologicalemains, hemore ikely theyare obe severely affectedby such factors.Efforts tounderstandand cope with these problems (e.g.,Ebert1992:27-34;HoldawayandFanning2004;papersin Rossignol and Wandsnider1992) areworthwhile,but are notthesubjectof thispaper.Inapreindustrialgrarianociety,oneaspectofeconomicpracticalityanconsistentlybeexpectedtospreadhouseholdsbroadlyacross he andscape:the abordemands f cultivation.Considering nly

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    Peterson and Drennan] REGIONAL-SCALEANALYSIS OF HUMAN INTERACTION 7

    this factor, households might reasonably beexpectedto placetheir residencesdirectlyon theland thatthey farm so as to minimizethe effortinvolved ntravelingrom heirhomes o their ields(Chisholm 1970; Drennan 1988; Stone 1993).Pulling ntheoppositedirectionarethe economicpracticalitiesf interactionswithotherhouseholds,which are facilitated f theinteracting ouseholdsare located in close proximity o each other.Thisis true egardlessf theprecisenature f these nter-actions.They may have an economic character,such as specialized productionandexchange,orcoordinationfagriculturalabor f this s notorga-nized entirelyat the household level. They mayinvolveparticipationnreligious itual rotherpub-lic ceremonies.They mayhavepolitical implica-tions, or they may be social in the most directsense forexample,maintaininghebondsof kin-ship, findingmates,exchanging nformation.Wehave this broadrangeof activitiesof diversekindsin mind when we refer, oosely, to social interac-tion.A localcommunitys formedwhen thisrangeof social interactions is intensely concentratedwithin a singlewell-definedgroupof householdsthat nteract nly much less intenselywith house-holds outside hegroup.Such a pattern f interac-tions wouldencourageall households nthegroupto locatetheirresidences n closeproximity,orm-inga spatialclusterseparaterom othersuchclus-ters acrossa region.Thesewouldbe recognizablein thearchaeological ecordas a series of clustersof material emainsof habitation.While this is notthe only way interactions between householdsmightbe patterned,t is certainlya commonpat-tern.The presence of such a patterncannot beassumed,but it can be soughtas a fundamentalanalyticalask.

    Small Local CommunitiesThe prehistoric Hongshan period (4500-3000B.C.) in theChifengregionof eastern nnerMon-golia, northChina,providesanexampleof a dis-tribution f occupationn which a pattern f localcommunities ppearsoexist,butthe exactwayinwhich they should be delineated s not obvious.Systematic archaeological survey of 765 km2between 1999 and2001 has provideda basis forreconstructingnformation boutprehistoric op-ulations and their distributions Chifeng 2003a,

    Figure 1. Distribution of collection units in the Chifengsurvey area which contained Hongshan ceramics. Theinset shows individual collection units.

    2003b; Chinese-American2002; Linduff et al.2004). Both relativeandabsolutepopulation sti-mates or thissurveyareahavebeenproduced, ndthe methodology utilized has been fully docu-mented(Drennanet al. 2003a). These estimates,calculatedfrom areasof surface artifactscattersand surfaceartifactdensities,are the basis for allstatements elowaboutpopulationsntheChifengregion.TheChifengsurveyrecovered urfacearti-factsbycollectionunitsconsistingof areasof 1 haor less defined n the fieldaccordingo fieldbound-aries,streams,roads,or otherconvenient eaturesof the andscape. ometimes collectionunit s spa-tially separateromothers,butsometimesseveralarespatiallycontiguous.Such sets of contiguouscollectionunitsarewhatarchaeologistssuallycall"sites,"but the unitof datacollectionandanalysisin Chifengis not the site but the collectionunit(Drennan t al. 2003b).

    Figure 1 shows the distributionof collectionunitswhereHongshanperiodartifactswere recov-eredin the Chifengsurveyarea.Figure2a showshow contiguouscollection unitscombineto form"sites" as usually defined. By this traditionalscheme,one wouldidentify34 sitesin thispartofthe surveyarea,and sites so definedhave oftenbeen implicitlyassumedto representmeaningfulhumancommunities.Amongthese 34 sites,how-ever,somepairsareseparated y distancesof only50 m, which is surelynot farenoughto createanyimpediment o face-to-face nteraction n a dailybasis. Facedwith such a situation, ome analysts

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    Figure 2. Subjectively defined clusters of collection units at increasing scales: (a) groups of contiguous collection unitswould traditionallybe called "sites";(b) clusters of very closely spaced "sites"might better representlocal communities;(c) more inclusive clusters of "sites"could also be interpretedas local communities;(d) such clusters also appear to existat an even larger scale.have felt the needto combine suchclosely spacedoccupationareas in pursuitof more meaningfulunits of analysis.InFigure2b, we have combinedoccupation reasseparated y onlysuchshortdis-tances nto largerunits,in much theway Blantonet al. (1982:40)combined"sites" n theValleyofOaxaca oranalysis.Thesecombinations educe henumberof analyticalunits to 26. It would be pos-sible tocontinue o formmore nclusivegroupingsfromoccupationareasseparatedby only slightlygreaterdistances. The 12 units in Figure2c areeach almost 1 kmacross,andthe four nFigure2dare over 2 km from one end to the other.Theselargestclustersprobablyexceed the size withinwhich daily face-to-face interaction s likely tooccuramongallhouseholds,but heclustersnFig-ure 2c may well represent mall local communi-ties of no more hanroughly40 households based

    on the meansof estimatingpopulationseferredoabove).LikeBlanton t al.(1982:40),wehave den-tified these clustersin purelysubjective ashion,relying primarily on distances of separationbetween collection units, a process that can beaccomplished fficientlyand moreobjectivelybydrawingbuffersaround ollectionunitswith a GISprogram.Evenwithanexplicitlydefinedbuffer,however,the choice of buffer distance remainsarbitrary.Moreover, eparation istance s not theonlyrele-vantvariable.The interaction pull"of a commu-nity with a large numberof inhabitantswill begreater han that of a smallercommunity Anayaetal. 2003:181;HodderandOrton1976:188;Ols-son1965;Plog1976).Thisresults rom hefact hat,other things being equal, more people producemore interpersonalinteractions.Whatever the

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    Peterson and Drennan] REGIONAL-SCALEANALYSIS OF HUMANINTERACTION 9

    Figure3. Four topographicsurfaces producedfrom the same set of measurementsby differentinterpolationalgorithms:inverse distance squared, kriging, Shepard's method, and minimum curvature (left to right).natureof suchinteractions,he odds arethat herewill be more of them across spatial separationswhenthe number f people nvolved s larger.Thisobservationdoes not dependon assumptionsoffunctionalpecializationnlarger ommunities, utrather s a simple numericalexpectation.Func-tional specializationor various kinds of central-ization ould,however, trengthenhe effect.As weattempto clusterarchaeological bservationsntomeaningfulhuman interactionunits, we should,then,seekanalyticalools thatreflectnotjust sep-aration istancesbutalsopopulationizes. Herewedo not assumethat interactionunitsmust exist atany particular cale; the presenceor absenceofsuch units at different cales is an essentialques-tion o beinvestigated. hus heanalytical pproachtakenmustbecapableof failing o find hemwherethere snotactuallyanyevidence hat heydo exist.The approachollowedherebeginsby represent-ingthedistributionf peopleacrossalandscapeasa surfacewhose elevation s proportionalo localpopulationdensity.

    Programshatproducesuchgraphicrepresen-tationsarewidelyavailable ndused napplicationsthatrangefrom datadisplayto topographicmap-ping.Users, however,often seem unawarehat hecomplexity of the interpolationand smoothingalgorithmsmakes tpossibletoproduce atherdif-ferent urfaces rom he samedata Figure3) dif-ferences that would be worrisome enough inmappingandtruly frighteningas a basis for dataanalysis.If the features of a surfaceare used todefineanalyticalunits,as below,we must be surethatthey represent eal data structure ndare notsimplymathematical rtifactsof the interpolationalgorithm producing the display. Ebert(1992:173-185)makesa similarpointabout hez-scales nsuchrepresentations,utwe thinkhegives

    up too easily in the effortto makesystematicuseof them see below).Intheanalysespresented ere,we use a straightforwardndtightlyconstrainedapproachto smoothing. The approachis bestexplainedby continuingwith the analysisof theHongshanexamplefromabove.Figure4 showsa surface hatrepresentshe dis-tribution of Hongshan occupation across theChifeng survey region thatappears n Figure 1.Similardisplayshavepreviouslybeen usedin set-tlementanalysis,althoughheydo not allrepresentthe data n the samewaysnordotheyeven allrep-resent he same kindsof data.Forthisreason, t isimportanto bequiteclearabouthowsuchsurfacesare derived.The surface n Figure4 is basedon aregularlyspacedgridof z-values at 100-minter-vals. Thesevalues are surfacedensitiesof Hong-shanceramics sherds/m2)ecordedn systematicsurvey.ThehypotheticalxamplenFigure5 showshowsherddensitiesn three ollectionunitsbecomez-valuesat 100-m ntervals, ffectivelyrasterizingthe sherddensitydata.The valuefor each 100-mcell is the sumof theproductsof the surface herddensitiesby collectionunitand thecorrespondingareas of fractions of collectionunits in the cell.Cellswith no collectionunitsorpartsof collectionunits (whereHongshansherdswere found) are,naturally, ssignedvalues of 0.00.Areasanddensitiesof surface herdshaveoftenbeen used as archaeologicalproxy measures oflocal populationdensities,and the applicationofthisprincipleotheChifengregion s discussedbyDrennanet al. (2003a).Followingthisreasoning,we take surfaces ike that n Figure4 to representregionaloccupationaldistribution.The series ofisolatedsharpoccupation eaksrising roma com-pletely lat i.e.,unoccupied) laneshown nbird's-eye view in Figure4, couldalso be represented s

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    Figure 4. Unsmoothed surface representing Hongshan occupation in the Chifeng region. (See Figure 1 for scale.)a contourmap (Figure6), whichprovidesa basisfor systematically lusteringcollection unitsintomeaningful groupings. Occupational peaks aresometimessingle, contiguousoccupiedareasandsometimesclustersof separate ollectionunits.Anappropriatelyelected low contour evel will out-linethebasesof thepeaksandshowclustersof mul-tiplecollectionunits.Theheavy ine inFigure6 isa cutoffcontour hatdefinesclustersranginguptonearly1 km across,which would seem near theupperlimit for daily face-to-face interaction.Alower cutoff contourwould form groupingstoolarge o interpretn these termsas local communi-

    ties. The heavy line also satisfyingly groupstogetheroccupationsseparatedby distancesthatwould seem only trivial mpediments o frequentinteraction; highercontourwould fail to do this.Visualizing ccupational istributionssdensitysurfaces, then, can facilitate the recognitionofpeaksthatreveal he interaction atternshatcon-stitutesmall local communities.The correspond-ingcontourmapsmake tpossible o delineatehesecommunitiesin a systematicway. The analysisremainssubjective,n that t providesno absoluteorobjectivecriterionorselectingacutoffcontour.This selection, however, s not entirelyarbitrary.

    Figure 5. Three hypotheticalcollection units rasterized into 100-m cells. Final values appear in the center of each cell onthe right, based on the surface sherd densities and collection unit areas indicated at the left.

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    Peterson and Drennan] REGIONAL-SCALE ANALYSIS OF HUMAN INTERACTION 1 1

    Figure6. Contourmap of the occupational peaks in one section of Figure4. Collection units with Hongshanceramics arein gray.The chosen cutoff contour is the heavy line, which indicates clusters of collection units.

    Just as differentphotographersmightnot focus acameraidentically,differentanalysts might notchooseprecisely he samecutoffcontour.Contourstoohighor too low toplausibly dentify ocal com-munities,however,areaseasilyandsurelyrejectedas arepicturesbadlyout of focus.Thereare 125 local communities o defined nthesurveyarea,whose totalpopulations estimatedat 4,000 to 8,000 inhabitants see discussion ofpopulation stimationn Drennan t al. 2003a).Intermsof spatialextent,these communities end tobe a few hundredmetersacross; he smallestcon-sistof singlecollectionunits,whose ongestdimen-sion is less than 100m, while a few areas muchas800mfromone end to the other.Thelargest, hen,approachhe maximum easible areawhichdailyface-to-face interactionmight cover. Most havefewer than 50 inhabitants Figure7). We mightcharacterize hem as hamlets or small dispersedvillages, althoughmanyareclearlyno morethanthe isolated farmsteadsof single families.A fewstandout as exceptionally arge,withpopulationsof up to perhaps500 people.Patterns ike thatin

    Figure7 are sometimestaken to indicate settle-menthierarchy ndsome measureof regional en-tralization.A rank-sizegraph or these 125 localcommunities Figure8) shows a very significantdeparturerom og-normality,ut ts convexshapeindicates heoppositeofregion-wide centralization.The A value(see Drennanand Peterson2004) forthis rank-sizepatterns .301 (p < .01). Suchcon-vex shapesare oftenproducedwhen several nde-pendent systems are combined into a singleanalysis.Wemightattempto look for evidenceofthese ndependent ystemsataspatial cale smallerthan the whole region,but largerthanthe localcommunitygroupingswe havejustdefined.

    Larger-Scale StructureIf the surfacerepresentedn Figure4 were mathe-matically"smoothed,"hebasesof alloccupationalpeaksmightexpand,allowingnearby nes tomergeinto just such more inclusive groupings. Oneapproacho smoothingwould be to resample herastermagediscussed boveat ncreasingell sizes.

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    Figure 7. Histogram of estimated populations for the 125possible Hongshan local communities in the Chifengregion.This wouldproducea smoother urface,butonlywith considerable oss of detail.A more effectivemeans of smoothing one thatretainsdetail vitalto the analysisbelow is a weightedaverage nwhich the value for each 100-m cell becomes theaverage of all the values of all the cells, eachweighted ccordingo some nversepowerof its dis-tance.Ifthe chosenpower s high,then heweightsdecrease apidlywithdistanceand ittlesmoothingoccurs, while a lower power produces strongersmoothing. There is no meaningful differencebetween surfaces or powers greater han about4because, or allpractical urposes, owers hishighrepresentno smoothing.At the other end of thesmoothingcale,apowerof 0producesheultimateinsmoothing, flatsurface.Figure9 illustrates ar-iousdegreesof smoothingof theHongshanoccu-pation,with powers ranging rom4 (virtuallynosmoothing)o .001 (very strong moothing).As we look at the increasinglysmoothedsur-faces, we begin to see the emergenceof spatialstructure t a largerscale. At a powerof 2, smallbasalflanges beginto appeararound he occupa-tionalpeaks.These broadenat a powerof 1 intodistinctly unnelshapesthatmight helpus definethe more inclusive clusters referred to above.Choosinga verylow contour evel on this surfaceagaindelineatesclusters of occupation,althoughthepatterns morecomplicated Figure10).Towardthenorthwest f thesurveyarea, hiscontourdelin-eates clustersof the small communities dentified

    Figure 8. Rank-size graph for the 125 possible Hongshanlocal communities in the Chifeng region. A value and 67percent confidence zone are determined as suggested byDrennan and Peterson (2004).

    in theless-smoothed opography.t seems reason-able to take these as communitiesas well, in thesame social interaction enseas we haveusedtheword "community" efore,but at a largerscalethanthe small local communitiesalreadydefined.Toward he southeastone very largecluster sdelineated,but a look atthe detailsof thepower1surfaceFigure )reveals hat his s notaveryaccu-rate characterizationf thispartof the landscape.Infact,occupational eaksverysimilar othose ofthe northwestoccur n the southeastas well. Theyare, however, close enough together that thesmoothingof thetopography asresultedn averyslightgeneralupliftof the "flat"urfaceromwhichthe peaksrise sharplyup. Becausethe "flat" ur-face is slightlyhigherin the southeastern artofthesurveyarea,we canchoosean additional ighercontour evel to definethe bases of the six majoroccupational eaks n this sector Figure11),againleavinga scatterof smallHongshancommunitiesnot combinedinto the largerscale clusters.Thespecificdetailsofthetopographyetween hese wocontour evels in the southeastern artof the sur-vey area Figure9)reveal"valleys"hatdivide hisareabetweenthe majoroccupationalpeaks.Tak-ingthesevalleysasboundaries, e canassignmanyof the smaller scatteredsettlementsto clusters

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    Peterson and Drennan] REGIONAL-SCALE ANALYSIS OF HUMANINTERACTION 1 3

    Figure 9. Surfaces representing Hongshan occupation in the Chifeng region. Smoothing increases from top to bottom,with inverse distance powers of 4, 2, 1, .5, .25, and .001, respectively.(See Figure 1 for scale.)around he largerpeaks, formingwhat mightbecalled "districts" units of social interaction ikethe largercommunities n thenorthwest,but withan added erritorialimension Figure12).We thusinterpretheoccupational alleysas low pointsinthe interactionandscape,producedby less inter-

    action between clusters thanwithin them. Thesevalleys,then,areanalogous o theflat areassepa-rating helarger ommunitiesnthenorthwest, uttheymake tpossibleto delineatemoresharplyheterritorial oundaries etweenthe communitiesnthe southeast.

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    Figure 10.A very low contour line for the Hongshan power1 surface (Figure9) encirclesthe bases of the occupationalpeaks where they rise from the flat unoccupied plane.

    Figure 11. A higher contour line delineating the bases ofHongshan occupational peaks rising from the upliftedsoutheastern corner (dashed line) of the power 1 surface(Figure9).

    Figure 12. Contours describing the topography betweenthe lower and higher lines of Figures 9 and 10, and "dis-trict" boundaries following the occupational "valleys" inthe southeast.

    The distribution f the estimatedpopulations fthe 65 communities r districts efinedn thepower1smoothed urface hows a largenumber f com-munitieswithquitesmallpopulationsFigure13).These51 communitiesargelycorrespondo smalllocal communities as originally defined in theunsmoothed urface,modifiedonly by a few clus-teringsofpairsof neighboringmallcommunities.The 14 largestof the 65 communities withesti-matedpopulationsver150)areclearly etoff fromthe smaller ones in the frequency distribution(dashed ine in Figure13). It is these 14 thatsug-gest the existenceof further ommunity tructureabove the level of the small local communityinvolved n face-to-facenteractionn adailybasis.Itappearshatnotall theHongshannhabitants ftheregionwere involved n such arger cale com-munities. The 51 smaller communities rom thepower 1 surface,which do not cluster stronglytogether,althoughsubstantiallymore numerousthan he arger ommunities, ccountoronlyaboutone-fourth f the estimated egionalpopulation.nmostof thehigher-orderommunities,nto whichthe otherthree-fourths f theregionalpopulationareorganized,he small ocalcommunities ccupy

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    Figure 14.Rank-sizegraphs for 11 of 14 Hongshanhigher-order communities (those comprised of three or moresmall local communities).A values and 67 percent confi-dence zones are determined as suggested by Drennan andPeterson (2004).

    Figure 15. Rank-sizegraph for 14 Hongshan higher-ordercommunities. A value and 67 percent confidence zone aredetermined as suggestedby Drennan and Peterson (2004).

    A = .614,p < .01). Thismightbe interpreteds alackofintegrationta scalethatencompassedmul-tiple higher-order ommunities.In occupationalsurfaceswithevengreatermoothingup o apowerof .001areshown nFigure9)the ndividual igher-ordercommunities emainclearlyevident.Justastherank-size raphwould eadus tobelieve,no sin-gle large community orms a much higher peakwhose basal area"captures"thers,even thoughthe peaks do blend together more from thesmoothing.An alternativenterpretationmightbe that thehigher-orderommunities n the southeasternor-tion of the surveyregionwerepartof a yet largersystemwhose center ies well outside he areasur-veyed.Evaluation f thisinterpretation,f course,would requireadditional nformation. f a muchmorepopulouscommunity xistedoutside he sur-vey area to the southeast one whichmighthaveserved as a center ntegratinghe communities nthe surveyarea), ts addition o the datasetwouldcreate a higherpeakin the smoothedsurface apeakwhose slopeswouldengulfthehigher-ordercommunitiesalready dentified.If such structureexisted, hen hehigher-orderommunitieswould,in turn,have become buildingblocks in thatyetlarger-scaletructure,njustthe samewaythat hesmall ocal communities f daily ace-to-facenter-actionwerethebuildingblocksof thehigher-ordercommunities nddistricts.Thedelineation f com-munity nteraction tructuren smoothedsurfacesrepresentingoccupationaldistribution, hen, cancontinue tepwise nthis fashion olarger cales ofanalysis,with greatersmoothingof the surfacesallowingdelineationof unitsforanalysisatlargerscales.

    In a studythat, ike thisone, focuses on delin-eating spatialpatterning t different cales,Ebert(1992:173-185) discourageswhat he calls "semi-analysis"based on surfacesor contourmaps rep-resentingartifactdensities. He worriesespeciallythatshorter rlongerz-axesshow detailsof spatialpatterningt different caleswithoutproviding nyway to differentiatebetween them. Varyingthescale of thez-axisis indeed a clumsywayto seeksuch patterning;progressive smoothing,as sug-gested here, reveals the phenomenaof differentspatial scales much more effectively. Like thechoice of cutoff contours ordefiningclusters, hedecisionas to whichdegreesof smoothingo focus

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    on is subjective,althoughby no meansarbitrary.Thetwoleast-smoothed urfaces nFigure9 showessentiallythe same small-scalepatternof localcommunities. hethirdand ourth hrow he arger-scalepatterning f higher-orderommunities ntosharprelief. In the fifth surface, he higher-ordercommunitiesbeginto bluras the still larger-scalestructurextendingbeyondthe surveyarea,moreevident in the sixth surface,begins to come intofocus.Comparinghesesurfaces rovides reliablewayto homeinonphenomena t threeclearlydif-ferentsociospatialscales. That these phenomenaarenotjust structuresnventedandimposeduponthe data is shownby the followingexamples,inwhich surfaces with different characteristicsunequivocallyeadtoverydifferent escriptions finteraction tructure.

    A Highly Integrated SystemWe can only speculateaboutthe possibilityof alarger-calecentralized ystem extendingbeyondtheChifeng tudyarea,butone is actually bservedfor earlyhierarchical ocieties in the (2125 km2)Valleyof Oaxacan the southern ighlands f Mex-ico (Blantonet al. 1982;Kowalewski t al. 1989).Theunsmoothedpower4 orgreater) ccupationalsurfaces or Rosariophase(700-500 B.C.) Oax-aca showclearlydefined mall ocalcommunities,eachconsistingof a single contiguousoccupationarea,oroccasionallya combination f two or threenearbyareas,at considerabledistances rom oth-ers (Figure16). Much like the set of Hongshanlocal communities, he vast majorityof those inRosariophaseOaxacaaresmallhamletsor farm-steads Figure17)withfewerthanabout50 inhab-itants,accordingo thepopulation stimatesmadeby Blanton et al. (1982) and Kowalewski et al.(1989).Oneespecially argecommunitySanJoseMogote)standsout in the Rosariophasedistribu-tion, with over 500 inhabitants. tspopulation ssimilar o thatof thelargestHongshanocal com-munity,but,while thereare otherHongshanocalcommunitieswithpopulationsnthehundreds, anJoseMogoteis unique n Oaxaca;no other com-munity venapproachests size.Although tspop-ulation is similar to the largest Hongshanlocalcommunity, anJoseMogote s a clusterof 10sep-aratearchaeological ccupationareasspanningadistanceof roughly2 km,morethan wice the dis-

    tanceacross the largestHongshan ocal commu-nity.Thiswouldsuggest hat he nhabitants f SanJose Mogote were not as tightlyboundtogetherthrough interaction as those of Hongshancommunities.

    Larger-scaletructures alsovisible nthemoresmoothed surfaces representingRosario phaseoccupation. nthe surfaceproducedby aninversedistancepowerof .5 (Figure16),San JoseMogote"captures" 8 smallerlocal communities n onearm of the roughlyY-shapedvalley.This larger-scale interaction ommunityhas the sameterrito-rialcharacter s the Hongshandistrictsdiscussedabove; tsboundaries reeasilydemarcatedwith acontour ine atthe evel of the nflection ointwherethesurface isesupfromthenearly latzero-occu-pation-levelplane (Figure18).Theestimatedpop-ulationof this San JoseMogotedistrict s almosttwice that of the largestHongshandistrict 1,100versus650), but its constituentocalcommunitiesarespreadovera muchlarger erritory some25kmfromone end to theother, omparedo no morethan5 kmforHongshan.Thecharacteristicsf theHongshan urfacehatenabledus to identifydistrictboundaries realto-getherabsent rom theRosariosmoothed urface:the San Jose Mogote district akes the form of asingle very tall occupationalpeak,not of severalpeaksseparated y lowersaddlesandvalleys.Thisindicationof awell-integrated ystem s bolsteredbythelog-normaloprimate ank-sizegraph Fig-ure19;A - -.674) for the29 localcommunities nthe San JoseMogotedistrict. n terms of internalintegration,hen,theSan JoseMogotedistrictandtheHongshan istricts resimilar.Unlike heHong-shandistricts,however, he San JoseMogotedis-trictdoes nothaveneighborsof comparable ize.The only other clustering suggested by thesmoothedsurface s a combinationof two localcommunitiesnthesoutheasternartof theValley.Whilethishigher-order ommunityhasa popula-tion in therangeof Hongshanhigher-orderom-munitypopulations,he San Jose Mogotedistrictis more han ivetimes arger Figure20),and heseare the only two higher-order ommunities thesmoothedRosario surfacesuggests.The remain-der of the local communities,like a substantialnumber fHongshanocalcommunities, resmall,do notcluster,and areapparently ot involved nany larger caleinteraction tructure. hispicture,

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    Figure 16. SurfacesrepresentingRosariophase occupationin the Valleyof Oaxaca. Smoothingincreasesfrom top to bot-tom, with inversedistance powers of 4, 2, 1, .5, .25, and .001, respectively.(See Figure 18 for scale.)

    of onlytwo higher-orderommunitieswithvastlydifferent opulations,s at variancewith the notionof three competing chiefdoms at a standoff inRosariophaseOaxaca,althought is perfectly on-

    sistent with warfareand raiding(Blantonet al.1999:42-44;MarcusandFlannery 996:139-144;Spencer and Redmond 2003:32-34). Rivalrybetween multiple higher-ordercommunities of

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    Figure 17. Histogram of estimated populations for the 65Rosario phase local communities in the Valleyof Oaxaca.

    roughlyequalstatuswould be a much moreplau-sible nterpretationf theHongshan ettlement is-tribution hanof RosariophaseOaxaca.Data Collection, Sites, and Landscapes

    There s precedentnarchaeologyoranalyses ikethe one described here. Cherry(1983:395), forexample, maginedusingdensity urfacesordefin-ing"sites" roma continuousdistribution f arche-

    Figure 18. Rosario phase local communities with contourcutoff showing how they combine into higher-ordercom-munities.

    Figure 19. Rank-size graph for the 35 local communitieswithin the San Jose Mogote district.A value and 67 per-cent confidence zone are determined as suggested byDrennan and Peterson (2004).ologicalremains.At a slightly arger cale,Parkin-son(2002:409^15) has dentified settlementlus-ters" rom such surfaces.Theapproachakenhereis more like thatenvisionedby Cherry n thatitrelies not onpoint ocationsof sites butdirectlyonareasanddensitiesof surfaceartifacts.Larger reasofhigherdensityoccupation roducearger, igherpeaks,whichmorereadily"capture"maller,essdenselyoccupiedoutlyingunits, hus ncorporatingthehigher evels of interaction roducedby largerpopulations.RenfrewandLevel(1979)recognizedtherelevance f larger opulationsndefiningpolit-icalboundaries,ssuminghat arger enterswoulddominateargererritorieshan maller nes would.

    Theproductionfoccupational ensity urfacesfor multiscalaranalysis requirescertainkinds ofdata,and hishas mplicationsorhowdataarecol-lectedin the field on archaeological urvey.This,in turn,raises somecontentiousssues of concep-tual,analytical,and observational nits.The aimsandvocabulary f ouranalysis hus farwill surelyhave causedadvocatesof siteless surveyor land-scapearchaeologyo class it asjustanother xam-ple of outmoded settlementarchaeology. t maycome as a surprise hat,while we wouldunhesi-tatingly abel theapproach resentedhere "settle-mentarchaeology,"e alsosee it asfullyconsistentwith"landscape" pproaches.t is alsoinharmonywith rejectionof the "notionsite" as the funda-mentalunitof observation ndanalysis.

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    Figure 20. Stem-and-leafplot of estimated populationsforall communities defined in the Rosario power .5 surface.The San Jose Mogote district, with its very large popula-tion, is at the bottom.TheChifengdataset s not builton theconceptof archaeological site," itheras observational ranalyticalunit.Rather,he dataconsist of a set ofcontinuousartifactdensityvaluesspreadsystem-aticallyacross a landscape,quite comparable othose usedby Ebert, orexample, n theapproachhe wastemptedo call "antisiterchaeology"Ebert1992:70).Regionalsurvey nChifengconsistedof

    completeand systematiccoverage,not implyingtotalrecoverybut simplythat the entire area(asopposed o scatteredampleblocks)wassurveyed.

    Asusual nsuchsurveys,worknormally roceededby walkingfrom one cultivated ield to the next,andthe next,and so on. These fields,alongwithothergeographic eatures,providea naturalandconvenientway to partitionthe landscapeintorecordableunits.The landscape s the objectofstudy,and thesespatial ractsbecomethe units ofobservation the standardized hacollectionunitsthatappear n theprecedingdiscussion(Drennanet al. 2003b).Theprocedureollowedin Chifengamountsto superimposingan irregulargrid ofapproximately -hasquareson thelandscape.Theboundariesof collectionunits indicatedby solidlinesinFigure21 delimit he actualextentsof sur-face artifacts ecoveredon survey. n each collec-tion unita systematiccollectionwas madeof allartifacts n a measuredarea,so a density valuecouldbe calculated or each unit.If artifactswerepresentbuttoo sparse orsystematiccollectingtobepractical, uniformvery ow densityvalue wasassigned(Drennan t al. 2003b).This procedure s precisely analogousto thecommonpracticeof excavatingby grid squares.There s no reasonwhy an excavationgridcouldnotbe made of a seriesof irregularlypacedwavylines, exceptthat it would be extremely nconve-nientto do so. At theregionalscale,however, t isthesurveyingaskof layingoutregular hasquaresacrosshundreds f squarekilometershatbecomesinconvenient ndtime-consuming.Fortunately,tthe regionalscale, this is not necessary,becausemostregions, ike ChifengandOaxaca,are natu-rallydivided nto irregular ridunitsby the fieldboundaries,treams, oads,andother eatures hatform the fundamental rganizationof collectionunits.It is only necessary o record hem as theyareencounteredquitequicklyandeasily on aer-ialphotographsr satellite magery)andonlythenif archaeologicalemainsareactuallypresent. ustas excavation grids sometimes consist of 1-msquares, ometimesof2-msquares, ndsometimesof smalleror largerunits,surveycollectionunitscould be smallerorlarger han 1ha,depending nthe level of resolutionattainable nd neededfor aparticular tudy.Ouranalyseshavevariedn scale from helocalcommunity, o higher-orderommunitiesor dis-tricts,to structurenvolving multipledistricts. nChifengand Oaxacaat least,the local communi-ties we have identifiedarevariable, ndgeneraliz-

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    fact densities. Survey of the Nemea Valley inGreece Cherry t al. 1988;Cherry t al. 1991)alsoproceeded y"tracts" spatialunitspreciselyanal-ogous to "collectionunits" n Chifeng.As in theBasin of Mexico andValleyof Oaxacasurveys,Cherry t al. defined"sites"posthoc. Systematicsurfacecollectingwas also incorporatednto theNemeaValleysurvey,althoughn a somewhatdif-ferent orm thanused in Chifeng.To be sure,many,andperhapsmost,regionalsettlement urveyscarried utinrecentyearshaveslippedbackward nto uncriticalutilizationof thenotion "site" n ways thatdegradedatacollectionandconceptuallyundermineanalysis:by record-ing only point ocations or sites in the firstplace,by failing osystematicallyxamine heentire and-scapeforarchaeologicalemains,bynotassessingartifact ensities,and n otherways.Suchpracticeshaveperhapsbeenencouragedby publicationsnwhichsites arerepresented s dots on mapsevenwhen field surveywas not a processof "findingsites"(e.g., Sanderset al. 1979).None of the set-tlement tudies eferredoaboveusedsites asa unitof observation; sites,""settlements,"r"commu-nities"were n allcases delineated osthocasclus-tersof high-density rtifacts f aparticular eriod.In this light, the fundamentaldistinctions somehave made between settlementarchaeologyandvariousapproaches o siteless surveyseem con-siderablyoverdrawne.g.,Wandsnider 998).Along similar ines,we find no necessarycon-flictbetweenthe kindof studywe engagein hereandavarietyof landscapeapproachesnarchaeol-ogy. If, in landscapearchaeology,"ourgoal is todistinguish, rom amongthe manysimultaneousdances hathaveoccurred,hosespecificdancesofinterest o a particularesearchquestion" Wand-snider1998:87), henpatterns f socialinteractionare one of those dances. This dance is differentfrom hoseofconstructed,onceptual, r deationallandscapes e.g.,Anscheutz tal.;KnappandAsh-more 1999),but in no way denies their existenceor importance. t is just different simultaneous,but different.

    Although he level of resolution s lower(andthescalelarger),heanalysispresented ere s fun-damentallya clusteranalysisbasedon a continu-ous scale of artifact density values, like the"siteless" or "antisite"approachesof Dunnell(1992), Ebert(1992), and others.Communities

    haveappeared s clustersof higherdensityvalues.Wehave also seen largetractswhere artifactden-sities are effectively zero. These "vacant"areasseparatewhat archaeologistshave traditionallycalled sites. These areasare,of course,not trulyvacantn the strictest enseof theterm. f we lookedlongenough npractically nyfield nChifeng,wecouldprobably ind at leastone artifact.There s,however, a very real and dramatic differencebetween fields where artifactsare exceedinglyscarce and otherswhere densitiesare substantial.These latterarethepotentialsettlementocationsamong sedentarypeoples,while the formermaywell representnteresting ndimportantvidenceof "off-site" i.e., awayfromresidence)activities.It shouldcome as no surprisehat he archaeo-logicalrecord or a sedentarypopulationhas thischaracteristic.edentary eoplescanbecounted nto disposeof sizeablequantities f garbagen andaround heirresidences.The contrastbetweenthedensityof remainsaroundedentary wellingsandthoseproducedby scattered ctivitiesat somedis-tance from them will be sharp.Forthisreason,alow-resolutionarge-scalepictureof artifactden-sities provides primarilyan indicationof wherepeople lived. The whole issue of where people"lived" s much morecomplicated or residencepatternswith a higher degree of mobility.Thearchaeological ignaturesof residence are muchmoreephemeral, ndlargerproportions f mater-ialremainsaregenerallydepositedawayfromres-idential ocations.As Cherry 1983:396)implies,it is no coincidencethat concern aboutan unduefocus on "settlements"ndaboutnadequatetten-tion to remains outside settlements, howeverdefined,has comeprimarilyrom hosewhostudylesssedentary eoples Chang1992;Dunnell1992;Dunnell and Dancey 1983; Ebert 1992; Foley1981)."Settlements" nd"communities"renot,however,"crippledanalyticunits"(Wandsnider1998:101),but insteadare realphenomena, ead-ilyobservablenethnographicontext.Their racesarea fundamental artof the andscape evidenceof critical importance to the study of socialinteraction.

    As noted above,communities,as a particularway of structuring uman nteraction, an neversimply be assumed to exist, nor can they beassumednot to exist.Thequestion s anempiricalone. If tracesof communitiescan be found,then

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    somethinghas beenlearnedabout hestructure fsocial nteraction.WehavearguedhatbothHong-shanChifengandRosarioOaxacashow clearevi-dence of a structure f small local communitiesembeddedin larger-scalepatterning.If we hadfailedto findsuchcommunity tructure,we wouldalso have learnedsomethingaboutsocial organi-zation in these two regions.The conclusion wearrivedat is only convincing if the analyticalapproachwe employedcould have failed to findevidence of community tructuref none existed.A finalcase shows thatprecisely his is possible.

    Failing to Find CommunitiesThe surfaces nFigure22representRegionalClas-sic period(A.D. 1-900) occupationn a 317 km2surveyregion n the AltoMagdalenan theAndesof southwesternColombia Drennan 000; Dren-nan,ed. 1985;Drennan t al. 1991;DrennanandQuattrin1995). In contrast o the cases we havelooked at thusfar,the unsmoothed power4) sur-facedoes notconsistofwidely separated eaks,butrather f denselyconcentratedccupational pikeswhose bases are crowdedso closely together hatoftentheycannotbe separated. hus t is impossi-ble to definesmall ocal communities ike those ofChifengor Oaxaca romthis surfacewith a cutoffcontour.The low contournFigure23 delineatesawidevarietyof differentkinds of phenomena.Ofthe separateoccupationareasdelineated,a verylargeproportion reso small thattheylikelyrep-resentsingle isolatedhouseholdsor groupsof nomore than two or three households. Some areascouldplausiblybe interpreteds small local com-munities,mostlyin theperipheralones of sparseoccupation,butother argeareasof uninterruptedoccupationeachover9km2andsome6.5km fromone end to the other fartoolarge orepresenthesortof small ocal communitiesoeasilyidentifiedforChifengand Oaxaca.Selectinga highercutoffcontour high enough to fragmentthese largeareas resultsn theomissionof numerous malleror shorter pikes.The Alto Magdalenaevidence,then,providesno indicationof the kindof supra-household nteraction tructure een to be centralto local social organizationn Chifengand Oax-aca.It s thusclear hatouranalysisdoes notassumea priori the presenceof a particular tructure fsmall local communities. n the Alto Magdalena,

    we havefailed to consistently indtheclustersofhigh artifactdensity values arguedto representsmalllocalcommunitiesn ChifengandOaxaca.The power 1 smoothed surface (Figure22),however,does showlarger-scalenteractiontruc-ture,aswas the case withChifengandOaxaca.Theoccupationaltopographyof this survey regionresembles that of the southeastern ector of the

    Chifengexample,and "district"boundariescanagainreadilybe definedalongoccupational alleys(Figure24). In thisinstance, heentiresurveyareaiseasilydivided ntodistrictsalthoughomeappar-ently extendbeyondthe surveylimits);there arenoisolatedhigher-orderommunities s therewereinthe northwesternector nChifeng.Reinforcingourinterpretationhat suchoccupationalopogra-phy representserritorialocialunits,a singlecen-ter with architectural nd sculptural vidence ofpolitical eadership ccurs neach of the fourmoreor less completedistricts dentified n Figure24(Drennan2000; Drennan and Quattrin1995).Unlike the Hongshanhigher-order ommunitiesand districts n Chifeng,the Alto Magdalenadis-trictsdo notappearobe constructed f small ocalcommunities, utrather uiltupdirectly rom ndi-vidualhouseholds.Forboth heAltoMagdalena ndChifeng,mod-ernoccupational istributionndcommunitytruc-turerelate o each other n ways verylikewhatwehavearguedor thearchaeologicalases discussedhere. ForChifeng,the separatepeaksrisingfromtheflatplane n the unsmoothed urface n Figure25 reflect the well-definedsmall local communi-ties visible on the modern andscape Figure26).Evenwhere hesecommunities remostnumerousandmostclosely spaced, heyremain eparate ndidentifiable.Social,political,and economicinter-action s todaystrongly ocusedwithin hese com-munities, where the local representatives oflarger-scale oliticalorganizationre ound,withinwhichland tenureandagricultural roduction reorganized,and wherespecializedproduction ndexchange akeplace.Residentsof these small ocalcommunities rebound ogethernrelationshipsfeconomic interdependencethrougha vigorouscommerce n local goods and services includingfarm produce, repairsto industrially producedgoods, and even restaurants.For the Alto Mag-dalena,on the otherhand, heunsmoothedmodernoccupationalsurface(Figure27), much like the

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    Figure 22. Surfaces representing Regional Classic period occupation in one survey area of the Alto Magdalena.Smoothingincreases from top to bottom, with inverse distance powers of 4, 2, 1, .5, .25, and .001, respectively. SeeFigure23 for scale.)

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    Figure 23. Cutoff contour that fails to delimit clear local communities in the unsmoothed surface for Regional Classicoccupationin the Alto Magdalena (Figure 22).RegionalClassicperiodone fromFigure22, hasamultitude f tiny separate pikes,whichrepresentindividual armsteads Figure28). The kinds ofinteraction hatproducethe Chifeng communitypatternare absent or attenuated.Landownershipand heorganizationf agricultural roduction renotcommunity unctionsbutinsteadare centeredinindividual ouseholds.Modernpoliticalauthor-ity has effectivelyno representation t this verylocal level in theAltoMagdalena,nsharp ontrast

    toChifeng.And small-scaleocal commercesverypoorly developed.Larger-scalenteraction atternsdo existtodayin both Chifeng and the Alto Magdalena. InChifeng,districtsare builtup of small local com-munitiescenteredon alargevillageor town.Thereis thusa three-tiered ierarchy f interactiontruc-ture n the modernChifengsurveyregion:house-hold, small local community,andlarge village ortown. In the Alto Magdalena, n additionto the

    Figure 24. Contour map of Regional Classic power 1 smoothed surface (Figure 22). District boundaries along occupa-tional valleysare indicated with heavy lines.

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    Figure 25. Unsmoothed surface and contour cutoff delimiting small local communities for modern occupation in theChifeng region.

    widely dispersedoccupationof familieslivingonthe landthey own andfarm,there are two smalltownswherecommercial ndpolitical unctions reconcentrated. ome of the functionsof thesetownsare ike those carriedout atvirtuallyallvillagesinChifeng. Interchange f locally producedgoods,however,s minimal;most commerce nvolvesthedistribution f manufacturedor distilled)goods

    fromthe cities andthe sale of the local coffeecropto outsidebuyers.The residentsof these townsdoform local communities,which can be seen aslarger lustersof occupationnFigure27. Outsidethese towns, however, here is little sign of localcommunity tructure;uralhouseholdsparticipatein town functionsdirectlyandindividually.Theydo not cluster nto small local communities hem-

    Figure 26. Small local communities in modern Chifeng.

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    Figure27. Unsmoothed surface and contour cutoff that fails to clearly delimit small local communitiesfor modern occu-pation in part of the Alto Magdalena.

    selves, since their level of interactionwith theirneighborss low.(And heydo notform hesprawl-ing areasof contiguousoccupation een in Figure23, which areprobablyattributableo thegradualshifting f surface rtifacts nd hepalimpsest ffectof shifting dispersed household locations overtime.)Thus he hierarchicaltructure f interactionin the AltoMagdalena urveyregionhasonlytwotiers:householdand small town.

    Communities and Prehistoric Social ChangeThe surfaces orChifengand theAltoMagdalena(Figures25 and 27) represent he distribution fmodernoccupation cross helandscapenexactlythe samewaythe surfacesdiscussedearlier epre-sentprehistoric ccupation.Thepatterns f inter-actionthat can be directlyobservedtoday agreewell with the structures evealedby applyingdis-

    Figure 28. Modern dispersed settlement in the Alto Magdalena.

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    tance-interactionrinciples o these modernsur-faces. The approacheswe haveproposed orpre-historic cases rely on precisely these sameprinciples.There s no reason o suppose hat heseprinciples reany essapplicablenprehistoryhanin modern-day uralChina or Colombia; n fact,thecompleteabsenceof modernransportationndcommunicationechnologieswouldonlymean hatdistance-interactionrinciples adagreatermpactonhowpeoplechosetodistributehemselves crossa landscape.Distance-interactionrinciples, hen,canplau-sibly andusefullybe applied o the interpretationof prehistoric ettlementdistributionsor thepur-poseof defining nteraction ommunities t differ-ent scales. The result is not only to provideaninterestingbasis for substantivecomparisonofancientcommunities Drennanand Haller2004;Drennan ndPeterson 005),butalso tobringmoresharply nto focus the need to understandmorefully the natureof the interactions hatproducedand sustainedthese communities. As has oftenproved o be the case, regional-cale analysishasenlightened s about he nature fprehistoricoci-eties while simultaneouslyhelpingto formulatequestions hatcanonlybe answered hroughmoreintensivestudyat smaller scales. While we havesuggestedgenericdescriptions f interaction at-terns, he ow-resolutionegional-calepicturewillnottell uswhatactivitieswereorganizedandhow)withincommunities, r howthese led toparticularkindsof interaction,n turnproducinghe interac-tionstructures eculiar o differentkinds of com-munities. Answering these questions strikesdirectlyat understandinghe forces thatproducesocialchangeandrequiresmore detailedbut stillfairlyextensivemeansof samplingndividual om-munities,combinedwith stillmore ntensivestud-ies of their constituent household units. Theemergenceof large-scale ocialformations thoseoften referred o by terms such as "chief om" or"state")s aprocessof differentiation,t the heartof which is change n the natureandoperationofthe smaller-cale communitiesand householdsofwhich they are composed.Comparingand con-trastinghese arge-scale ocialformations, stheyhaveexistedthrough ime andspace, dependsonourability o find hesecommunities n the archae-ologicalrecord if theyexisted)by recovering heinteraction tructures hatconstituted hem. The

    relevant vidence s partof theregional-cale and-scape, available for archaeological study withappropriatenalytical ools.Acknowledgments.We thankStephenKowalewskifor pro-viding data from the Valley of Oaxacasurveyin electronicform and GregoryIndrisanoand William Honeychurch orinvitingus to participaten the electronicsymposiumat theSociety for AmericanArchaeology meetingin Montreal orwhich thispaperwas originallywritten.Additional houghtswere provoked by Simon Holdaway, Jeffrey Parsons,andotherparticipantsn the discussion at thatsymposium.

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    ReceivedApril21, 2004; Revised October13, 2004;AcceptedOctober21, 2004.