Kenneth Hirth
Biographic Data
| ID | 80238 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kenneth Hirth |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kenneth |
| FAMILY NAME | Hirth |
| SIGNATURE | HIRTH K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pennsylvania State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4856-5647 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 53 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 658 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 52 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
Archaeological charcoals from El Gigante Rockshelter, Honduras, reveal the 10,000 year-long postglacial ecological dynamics of the Central American pine–oak forest
Present-day vegetation in the Central American highlands is dominated by pine–oak forests, whose postglacial and Holocene ecological dynamics remain poorly understood. El Gigante Rockshelter (1300 masl, La Paz, Honduras), with its exceptionally long occupation history starting from the Paleoindian period, allows us to examine these dynamics using archaeological charcoal. We present a detailed wood anatomical analysis of 24 taxa from 1401 charcoal…
The Legacy of Ann Cyphers for Olmec Archaeology: Ann Cyphers (1950–2023)
Ritual and Economy in a Pre-Columbian Chiefdom: The El Cajón Region of Honduras
The Paleoindian to Archaic Transition in Central America
The El Gigante point morphology has similarities with approximately contemporaneous and well-known (though not well-dated) late Paleoindian projectile point traditions and reflects important differences that may be consistent with a pattern of diversification of point styles across the Central American region which include the establishment of a related subregional tradition. This study looks at the Paleoindian-Archaic transition at the El Gigant…
New Perspectives on Migration into the Tlajinga District of Teotihuacan: A Dual-Isotope Approach
The city of Teotihuacan (AD 1-550) was a major multiethnic urban center that attracted migrants from as far away as west Mexico and the Maya region. Past research in the Tlajinga district at Teotihuacan using oxygen isotopes from human remains estimated that nearly 30% of the population of Tlajinga 33, a single apartment compound, were migrants. This study takes a dual-isotope approach (87Sr/86Sr and δ18Op) to reevaluate the proportion of in-migr…
Aztec and Tlaxcalan Economic Interaction: Blockade or Interregional Exchange
This study investigates the impact of the Aztec Triple Alliance on trade and economic activity in the region of Puebla-Tlaxcala during the Late Postclassic period (AD 1200-1519). Ethnohistorical sources describe the Aztec Triple Alliance as constantly at war with settlements in the Tlaxcala region. To weaken their Tlaxcalteca rivals, the Aztecs imposed a trade blockade to reduce the flow of resources into Puebla-Tlaxcala. This article uses archae…
The Organization of Ancient Economies: A Global Perspective
In this book, Kenneth Hirth provides a comparative view of the organization of ancient and premodern society and economy. Hirth establishes that humans adapted to their environments, not as individuals but in the social groups where they lived and worked out the details of their livelihoods. He explores the variation in economic organization used by simple and complex societies to procure, produce, and distribute resources required by both indivi…
Organization of Ancient Economies
Excavation of an Obsidian Craft Workshop at Teotihuacan, Mexico
The original research by the Teotihuacan Mapping Project (TMP) identified a large number of obsidian workshops within Teotihuacan based on surface concentrations of production debris. Clark (1986b) questioned the validity of these identifications and called for subsurface excavation to confirm the presence of in situ workshop locales. This article summarizes the results from the excavation of one of the obsidian workshops identified in the Tlajin…
Altica, Coapexco, and the Role of Middlemen in Formative Obsidian Exchange
Altica's location in the Patlachique Range, 10 km away from the Otumba obsidian source, suggests its potential role in the distribution of Otumba obsidian. Altica may have been an important Formative middleman and processing site for obsidian exchange within the Basin of Mexico. To the south, Coapexco's position along a natural, restricted inlet to the Basin of Mexico may have enabled it to function as a node for pooling and distributing material…
New Research at Teotihuacan’s Tlajinga District, 2012–2015
Teotihuacan's Tlajinga district is a cluster of neighborhoods on the southern periphery of the city best known for earlier investigations at Compound 33:S3W1. New research includes excavations at two other apartment compounds and along the southern extension of the Street of the Dead. Excavation contexts, major finds, chronology, and preliminary interpretations are the subject of this article. We highlight evidence attesting to a major obsidian-b…
Formative Period Obsidian Exchange along the Pacific Coast of M esoamerica
Long‐distance networks for the transport of exotic goods and the beginnings of specialized craft production first appear in M esoamerica during the Formative Period. The results of portable X ‐ray fluorescence ( pXRF ) analysis of 456 obsidian artefacts imported to the Pacific coast site of L a Z anja ( G uerrero, M exico) indicate that long‐distance exchange of finished obsidian blades along the coast began during the Early Formative ( c .1400–1…
Early Olmec obsidian trade and economic organization at San Lorenzo
Economic Consumption and Domestic Economy in Cholula's Rural Hinterland, Mexico
The limited excavation of rural houses in the Mexican highlands has made it difficult to understand the structure of urban-rural economic relationships during the Classic period (A.D. 150 to 650), when many of the large cities at Teotihuacan, Cholula, and Monte Albán first developed. This paper examines economic consumption at Operation 7, a Late Classic rural residence located 11 km outside of the large center of Cholula, Puebla. The results sho…
Redistribution and Markets in Andean South America
Discussions of Andean economy have traditionally emphasized the role of redistribution and other noncommercial forms of interaction in Inka society. The discussion presented here suggests that the model of centralized, noncommercial distribution does not accurately reflect the variation of economic structures present across the Inka empire or the diversity of economic practices in pre-Inka periods. Forms of reciprocal commercial exchange and even…
Markets, Merchants, and Systems of Exchange
The production and exchange of goods and services is a fundamental feature of all human societies, and this certainly was the case in ancient Mesoamerica. Complex forms of exchange linked every level of Pre-Columbian society from simple households to the king's palace. Trade was important for two reasons: meeting the needs that people had for specific goods and reducing subsistence risk and resource shortages. This article examines systems of exc…
Terrazguero Smallholders and the Function of Agricultural Tribute in Sixteenth-Century Tepeaca, Mexico
This work examines the role of agricultural tribute within sixteenth-century indigenous populations from the Tepeaca region. The allocation of agricultural areas to commoners was a crucial strategy for the support of local political institutions. However, such land allocations have not been calculated adequately due to our poor understanding of the local measurement units. This work estimates the size of agricultural tribute spaces by re-evaluati…
The El Gigante Rockshelter: Preliminary Observations on an Early to Late Holocene Occupation in Southern Honduras
La cueva de El Gigante en las tierras altas de Honduras fue ocupada tan temprano como 10,000 años a.P. y da información previamente desconocida sobre la prehistoria de Honduras. Las condiciones climáticas secas resultan en una excelente preservación de esta área residencial. Las excavaciones documentaron una clara secuencia de ocho estratos culturales bien definidos que contienen hogares, así como depósitos densos de lítica, y restos microbotánic…
Origins of the Ñuu: Archaeology in the Mixteca Alta, Mexico . Stephen A. Kowalewski , Andrew K. Ballansky , Laura R. Stiver Walsh , Thomas J. Pluckhahn , John F. Chamblee , Verónica Pérez Rodríguez , …
Craft Production in a Central Mexican Marketplace
The marketplace was an important institution for household provisioning and elite resource conversion in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. Despite their importance, marketplaces are difficult to identify because exchange relationships are generally invisible in the archaeological record. This study examines the evidence for marketplaces at the Epiclassic period site of Xochicalco, Morelos, Mexico. It explores the role of craft production in the marketpla…
Obsidian Blade Production for Craft Consumption at Kaminaljuyu
The interpretation of craft activity in Mesoamerica has been hindered by difficulties in recognizing and defining the archaeological signatures associated with obsidian blade production and consumption. Theoretical advances and experimental approaches have improved our understanding, but few studies have investigated the role of obsidian blade production in craft activity using empirical data from archaeological assemblages. The present study add…
Exploring Formative Period Obsidian Blade Trade: Three Distribution Models
Obsidian prismatic blades were widely traded across Mesoamerica during the Early and Middle Formative periods. However, it was not until the Late Formative period (400b.c.—a.d. 100) that prismatic blade cores began to be exchanged extensively. Although it is generally accepted that the trading of blades preceded the trading of cores by almost 1,000 years, little is know about the structure of blade trading during the Early and Middle Formative pe…
Housework and Domestic Craft Production: An Introduction
Craft Production, Household Diversification, and Domestic Economy in Prehispanic Mesoamerica
Intermittent Crafting and Multicrafting at Xochicalco
The Distributional Approach: A New Way to Identify Marketplace Exchange in the Archaeological Record
Archaeologists working in Mesoamerica have long recognized the importance and antiquity of marketplaces and market exchange in the organization and integration of pre-Hispanic society. Most approaches currently employed have, however, had difficulty in identifying pre-Hispanic marketplaces using material remains. This study introduces a new way to identify marketplace exchange based on the composition of domestic assemblages and how they are affe…
Political economy and archaeology: Perspectives on exchange and production
Interregional Trade and the Formation of Prehistoric Gateway Communities
Interregional exchange of commodities appears to have been important in the formation of complex societies. The transition from reciprocal to redistribution economies involved an institutionalization of long distance exchange. Large and important settlements called gateway communities emerged along natural trade routes at key locales for controlling the movement of commodities. A model is constructed that relates long distance trade and regional …
Early Olmec obsidian trade and economic organization at San Lorenzo
Ecological Theory and Cultural Evolution in the Valley of Oaxaca [and Comments and Reply]
Craft Production, Household Diversification, and Domestic Economy in Prehispanic Mesoamerica
The Development of Prehispanic Cotton-Spinning Technology in Western Morelos, Mexico
Cotton textiles played important economic, social, and political roles in the Prehispanic civilizations of Mesoamerica, yet archaeologists have made little progress in the analysis of textile production beyond the simple identification of spindle whorls. In this article we identify and describe whorls and a second artifactual marker of cotton spinning: ceramic spinning bowls. Quantitative changes in the occurrence of these artifacts in excavated …
The Economy of Supply: Modeling Obsidian Procurement and Craft Provisioning at a Central Mexican Urban Center
This article examines the way that obsidian craftsmen at Xochicalco, Mexico obtained the raw material needed to produce prismatic blades at the site between A.D. 650 and 900. The paper models seven different forms of direct, indirect, and institutional procurement that craftsmen could have used to obtain this obsidian. These seven procurement models are evaluated using two types of information collected from four domestic workshops: (1) source an…
Exploring Formative Period Obsidian Blade Trade: Three Distribution Models
Obsidian prismatic blades were widely traded across Mesoamerica during the Early and Middle Formative periods. However, it was not until the Late Formative period (400b.c.—a.d. 100) that prismatic blade cores began to be exchanged extensively. Although it is generally accepted that the trading of blades preceded the trading of cores by almost 1,000 years, little is know about the structure of blade trading during the Early and Middle Formative pe…
Teotihuacán regional population administration in Eastern Morelos
The Teotihuacán state expanded throughout Central Mexico around A.D. 200 creating a large sustaining hinterland for the support of its large urban centre. Teotihuacán influence is very strong at this time along the Rio Amatzinac in eastern Morelos and it is accompanied by sizeable regional population restructuring which helps shed light on the nature of its administrative system outside the Valley of Mexico
Redistribution and Markets in Andean South America
Discussions of Andean economy have traditionally emphasized the role of redistribution and other noncommercial forms of interaction in Inka society. The discussion presented here suggests that the model of centralized, noncommercial distribution does not accurately reflect the variation of economic structures present across the Inka empire or the diversity of economic practices in pre-Inka periods. Forms of reciprocal commercial exchange and even…
Obsidian Sources and Elemental Analyses of Artifacts in Southern Mesoamerica and the Northern Intermediate Area
Obsidian sources, and the proportions of those sources represented in site collections, are known poorly in the southeast mesoamerican periphery. The Honduran sources of La Esperanza and Güinope are described and 'fingerprinted' chemically, and their utilization is explored in selected sites in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Although prehistoric Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans used obsidian from sources as far away as Honduras and Guatemala, m…
Economic Consumption and Domestic Economy in Cholula's Rural Hinterland, Mexico
The limited excavation of rural houses in the Mexican highlands has made it difficult to understand the structure of urban-rural economic relationships during the Classic period (A.D. 150 to 650), when many of the large cities at Teotihuacan, Cholula, and Monte Albán first developed. This paper examines economic consumption at Operation 7, a Late Classic rural residence located 11 km outside of the large center of Cholula, Puebla. The results sho…
The El Gigante Rockshelter: Preliminary Observations on an Early to Late Holocene Occupation in Southern Honduras
La cueva de El Gigante en las tierras altas de Honduras fue ocupada tan temprano como 10,000 años a.P. y da información previamente desconocida sobre la prehistoria de Honduras. Las condiciones climáticas secas resultan en una excelente preservación de esta área residencial. Las excavaciones documentaron una clara secuencia de ocho estratos culturales bien definidos que contienen hogares, así como depósitos densos de lítica, y restos microbotánic…
Craft Production in a Central Mexican Marketplace
The marketplace was an important institution for household provisioning and elite resource conversion in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. Despite their importance, marketplaces are difficult to identify because exchange relationships are generally invisible in the archaeological record. This study examines the evidence for marketplaces at the Epiclassic period site of Xochicalco, Morelos, Mexico. It explores the role of craft production in the marketpla…
Catchment Analysis and Formative Settlement in the Valley of Mexico
New Research at Teotihuacan’s Tlajinga District, 2012–2015
Teotihuacan's Tlajinga district is a cluster of neighborhoods on the southern periphery of the city best known for earlier investigations at Compound 33:S3W1. New research includes excavations at two other apartment compounds and along the southern extension of the Street of the Dead. Excavation contexts, major finds, chronology, and preliminary interpretations are the subject of this article. We highlight evidence attesting to a major obsidian-b…
Excavation of an Obsidian Craft Workshop at Teotihuacan, Mexico
The original research by the Teotihuacan Mapping Project (TMP) identified a large number of obsidian workshops within Teotihuacan based on surface concentrations of production debris. Clark (1986b) questioned the validity of these identifications and called for subsurface excavation to confirm the presence of in situ workshop locales. This article summarizes the results from the excavation of one of the obsidian workshops identified in the Tlajin…
Formative Period Obsidian Exchange along the Pacific Coast of M esoamerica
Long‐distance networks for the transport of exotic goods and the beginnings of specialized craft production first appear in M esoamerica during the Formative Period. The results of portable X ‐ray fluorescence ( pXRF ) analysis of 456 obsidian artefacts imported to the Pacific coast site of L a Z anja ( G uerrero, M exico) indicate that long‐distance exchange of finished obsidian blades along the coast began during the Early Formative ( c .1400–1…
The Investigation of Obsidian Craft Production at Xochicalco, Morelos
Surface reconnaissance at the site of Xochicalco, Morelos, identified 12 areas believed to be production locales where obsidian tools were manufactured during the Epiclassic period (A.D. 700-900). Production locales were identified from concentrations of chipped stone debitage located in both residential and nonresidential contexts at Xochicalco. Differences in the size and location of these production locales suggested obsidian craft activity wa…
Housework and Domestic Craft Production: An Introduction
Urbanism, Militarism, and Architectural Design: An Analysis of Epidassic sociopolitical structure at Xochicalco
The form and organization of urban architecture is examined at the central Mexico site of Xochicalco to reconstruct aspects of both its internal community structure and regional political organization during the Epiclassic period (A.D. 700-900). Analysis of the site's defensive architecture provides unique information about the city's internal design. Dry moats, walled roads, and steep terrace facades subdivide the community into a series of popu…
Research in Economic Anthropology, Supplement 2, Economic Aspects of Prehispanic Highland Mexico
New Perspectives on Migration into the Tlajinga District of Teotihuacan: A Dual-Isotope Approach
The city of Teotihuacan (AD 1-550) was a major multiethnic urban center that attracted migrants from as far away as west Mexico and the Maya region. Past research in the Tlajinga district at Teotihuacan using oxygen isotopes from human remains estimated that nearly 30% of the population of Tlajinga 33, a single apartment compound, were migrants. This study takes a dual-isotope approach (87Sr/86Sr and δ18Op) to reevaluate the proportion of in-migr…
Altica, Coapexco, and the Role of Middlemen in Formative Obsidian Exchange
Altica's location in the Patlachique Range, 10 km away from the Otumba obsidian source, suggests its potential role in the distribution of Otumba obsidian. Altica may have been an important Formative middleman and processing site for obsidian exchange within the Basin of Mexico. To the south, Coapexco's position along a natural, restricted inlet to the Basin of Mexico may have enabled it to function as a node for pooling and distributing material…
Teotihuacán regional population administration in Eastern Morelos
The Teotihuacán state expanded throughout Central Mexico around A.D. 200 creating a large sustaining hinterland for the support of its large urban centre. Teotihuacán influence is very strong at this time along the Rio Amatzinac in eastern Morelos and it is accompanied by sizeable regional population restructuring which helps shed light on the nature of its administrative system outside the Valley of Mexico
Problems in Data Recovery and Measurement in Settlement Archaeology
The importance of demographic information for our understanding of the evolution of society has established the need for intensive settlement reconnaissance at the regional level. In many instances, however, the validity of techniques currently being used to generate population estimates has not been established through rigorous archaeological testing. This study presents empirical evidence for the effect of different types of surface disturbance…
Interregional Trade and the Formation of Prehistoric Gateway Communities
Interregional exchange of commodities appears to have been important in the formation of complex societies. The transition from reciprocal to redistribution economies involved an institutionalization of long distance exchange. Large and important settlements called gateway communities emerged along natural trade routes at key locales for controlling the movement of commodities. A model is constructed that relates long distance trade and regional …
Early State Expansion in Central Mexico: Teotihuacan in Morelos
Teotihuacan was the first state-level society to appear in the Central Mexican Highlands. Between 200 A.C. and 300 A.C. Teotihuacan expanded beyond the Valley of Mexico and began the formation of a pan-Mesoamerican network aimed at controlling important economic resources. This study examines the evidence for Teotihuacan contact with the subtropical zone of Morelos. We find considerable variation not only in the quantity of stylistic materials do…
Transportation Architecture at Xochicalco, Morelos, Mexico
El Formativo en El Valle Del Rímac: Huachipa – Jicamarca
En los meses de setiembre, octubre y noviembre de 1978 se efectuó un reconocimiento de superficie en Huachipa y Jicamarca, en el sector de la quebrada de Jicamarca (Huayco Loro) que ingresa al río Rímac por su margen norte, a la altura de Vitarte (kilómetro 10 de la carretera central), Huachipa norte, Pueblo Nuevo de Jicamarca y Cajamarquilla. Esta área está rodeada naturalmente por Cuello de Huachipa en el norte, cerro Matabuey en el este, cerro…
Archeology: Monte Alban's Hinterland, Part 1: The Prehispanic Settlement Patterns of the Central and Southern Parts of the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico . Richard E. Blanton, Stephen Kowalewski, Gary Feinm…
Catchment Analysis and Formative Settlement in the Valley of Mexico
Research in Economic Anthropology, Supplement 2, Economic Aspects of Prehispanic Highland Mexico
The Development of Prehispanic Cotton-Spinning Technology in Western Morelos, Mexico
Cotton textiles played important economic, social, and political roles in the Prehispanic civilizations of Mesoamerica, yet archaeologists have made little progress in the analysis of textile production beyond the simple identification of spindle whorls. In this article we identify and describe whorls and a second artifactual marker of cotton spinning: ceramic spinning bowls. Quantitative changes in the occurrence of these artifacts in excavated …
Ecological Theory and Cultural Evolution in the Valley of Oaxaca [and Comments and Reply]
Obsidian Sources and Elemental Analyses of Artifacts in Southern Mesoamerica and the Northern Intermediate Area
Obsidian sources, and the proportions of those sources represented in site collections, are known poorly in the southeast mesoamerican periphery. The Honduran sources of La Esperanza and Güinope are described and 'fingerprinted' chemically, and their utilization is explored in selected sites in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Although prehistoric Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans used obsidian from sources as far away as Honduras and Guatemala, m…
The Archaeology of Political Structure: Settlement Analysis in a Classic Maya Polity. Olivier De Montmollin
The Investigation of Obsidian Craft Production at Xochicalco, Morelos
Surface reconnaissance at the site of Xochicalco, Morelos, identified 12 areas believed to be production locales where obsidian tools were manufactured during the Epiclassic period (A.D. 700-900). Production locales were identified from concentrations of chipped stone debitage located in both residential and nonresidential contexts at Xochicalco. Differences in the size and location of these production locales suggested obsidian craft activity wa…
Urbanism, Militarism, and Architectural Design: An Analysis of Epidassic sociopolitical structure at Xochicalco
The form and organization of urban architecture is examined at the central Mexico site of Xochicalco to reconstruct aspects of both its internal community structure and regional political organization during the Epiclassic period (A.D. 700-900). Analysis of the site's defensive architecture provides unique information about the city's internal design. Dry moats, walled roads, and steep terrace facades subdivide the community into a series of popu…
Tariacuri's Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State
Tres estudios sobre el sistema tributario de los meocicas. Munehiro Kobayashi
Political economy and archaeology: Perspectives on exchange and production
Zapotec Civilization: How Urban Society Evolved in Mexico's Oaxaca Valley . Joyce Marcus , Kent V. Flannery
The Sounds and Colors of Power: The Sacred Metallurgical Technology of Ancient West Mexico
The Covenants with Earth and Rain: Exchange, Sacrifice, and Revelation in Mixtec Sociality
The Distributional Approach: A New Way to Identify Marketplace Exchange in the Archaeological Record
Archaeologists working in Mesoamerica have long recognized the importance and antiquity of marketplaces and market exchange in the organization and integration of pre-Hispanic society. Most approaches currently employed have, however, had difficulty in identifying pre-Hispanic marketplaces using material remains. This study introduces a new way to identify marketplace exchange based on the composition of domestic assemblages and how they are affe…
Communications
Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage: Teotihuacan to the Aztecs
Book Review| October 01 2001 Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage: Teotihuacan to the Aztecs Edited by David Carrasco, Lindsay Jones, and Scott Sessions. (Boulder,University Press of Colorado, 2000. xvii + 559 pp., introduction,illustrations, index. $49.95 cloth.) Kenneth G. Hirth Kenneth G. Hirth Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Ethnohistory (2001) 48 (4): 739–741. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-48-4-739 Cite Icon Cite Shar…
Pathways to Prismatic Blades: A Study in Mesoamerican Obsidian Core-Blade Technology
Archaeology (43 works) · Geography (36 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (33 works) · Latin American history and culture (28 works) · History (24 works) · Political science (15 works) · History (12 works) · Mesoamerica (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Computer Science (11 works)