Nature and Development of Indigenous Socio-political Organization

The concrete objectives of this project are to identify the Postclassic Mixtec political centers (with their settlement patterns and surrounding cultural landscapes), to analyze their historical depth, their political networks, as well as their interaction with major centers in the Valley of Oaxaca and Central Mexico.

The presence of ancient architecture, pictorial manuscripts, painted ceramics, colonial chronicles and contemporary oral tradition, make it possible to combine a focus on the socio-political and economic developments with one on the questions of meaning, symbolism and cosmology. Special attention will be paid to contemporary manifestations of (vertical) economical interaction and the market system.

Research Leader 
Prof. Dr. M.E.R.G.N. Jansen
email: m.jansen@arch.leidenuniv.nl

Support:
NWO (Programmatic Research Humanities)

Research period: 2000-2007