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Emblems, Leadership, Social Interaction and Early Social Complexity: The Ancient Formative Period (1500 bc–ad 100) in the Desert of Northern Chile

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2015

Francisco Gallardo
Affiliation:
Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Studies, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860. Instituto de Sociología, 3er piso. Macul Santiago, Chile Email: fgallardo.ibanez@gmail.com
Gloria Cabello
Affiliation:
Centro de Investigaciones del Hombre en el Desierto, Av. Holanda 1745 # 304, Providencia, Santiago, Chile Email: glcabello@gmail.com

Abstract

Social complexity is synonymous with inequality, a political form whose origin is associated with a reduction in residential mobility, the intensification of production, craft specialization, long-distance exchange, public architecture, the proliferation of prestige goods and ceremonial feasts. Archaeological evidence of these processes, however, is insufficient without the identification of practices related to prehistoric leadership. In the early Andean area, this social distinction was deposited in emblems or insignias of authority, objects of visual prestige whose value resided in myths and divinities. Similar arrangements of material culture, around the first millennium before Christ, appear contextually related with the first village-based communities in Northern Chile.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2015 

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