George L Cowgill
Biographic Data
| ID | 86506 |
|---|---|
| NAME | George L Cowgill |
| GIVEN NAMES | George L |
| FAMILY NAME | Cowgill |
| SIGNATURE | COWGILL G L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Arizona State University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 50 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 964 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 49 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1963 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
Service Access in Premodern Cities: An Exploratory Comparison of Spatial Equity
Spatial equity studies measuring urban service access have been conducted in variety of modern settings, but this research has not been extended to premodern cities. This article presents an exploratory, transdisciplinary pilot study of service access in six premodern urban environments to better understand the historical origins of inequality. Using archaeological and historical spatial data, neighborhood and household access to three types of s…
Ancient Teotihuacan: Early Urbanism in Central Mexico
First comprehensive English-language book on the largest city in the Americas before the 1400s. Teotihuacan is a UNESCO world heritage site, located in highland central Mexico, about twenty-five miles from Mexico City, visited by millions of tourists every year. The book begins with Cuicuilco, a predecessor that arose around 400 BCE, then traces Teotihuacan from its founding in approximately 150 BCE to its collapse around 600 CE. It describes the…
The Teotihuacan Mapping Project: Experiences With Data Files, Big Questions, and Some Research Priorities for Teotihuacan
This paper summarizes some accomplishments of the Teotihuacan Mapping Project, with particular attention to issues of accuracy and validity. I then describe experiences and lessons learned in creating electronic files derived from Mapping Project field records and collections. I sketch questions about the city and state of Teotihuacan that loom especially large in my own thinking. Finally, I list some specific field projects at Teotihuacan that I…
We Need Better Chronologies: Progress in Getting them
Archaeologists have long celebrated their unique ability to deal with the long term. But we are increasingly recognizing that we can and must also understand more rapid events. They are critical for many of the questions we now consider most interesting, such as distinguishing between changes that unfolded gradually and those that happened suddenly. In considering interactions among regions, we need something better than cross-dating on the basis…
Some Things I Hope You Will Find Useful Even if Statistics Isn't Your Thing
I emphasize some common misuses of statistics that everyone, whether you do statistics or just read what others write, should be on the lookout for. I next discuss somewhat more complicated issues in archaeological method and theory and then conclude with a qualitative explanation of Bayesian methods and why they are often preferable to the frequentist methods advocated in many introductory statistics texts
Possible Migrations and Shifting Identities in the Central Mexican Epiclassic
After a century or so of slow decline, major civic-ceremonial structures in the city of Teotihuacan were burned and desecrated, probably arounda.d. 600/650, at least some residential structures were abandoned, and the Teotihuacan state collapsed. Few features of Teotihuacan material culture survive in the Basin of Mexico in the ensuing Epiclassic period, which lasted from approximatelya.d. 600/650––800/850. Ceramic and other lines of evidence sug…
Cerro Portezuelo: States and Hinterlands in the Pre-Hispanic Basin of Mexico
George Brainerd directed excavations at Cerro Portezuelo in the mid-1950s to understand the Classic to Postclassic transition and the questions he asked are still salient. We have undertaken a reanalysis of the artifacts, survey, and excavation data from Brainerd's project to better understand the nature of relations between the Early Classic period city of Teotihuacan, its immediate hinterlands, and the change from the Teotihuacan state system t…
Concepts of Collapse and Regeneration in Human History
This article focuses on the concepts of collapse and regeneration employed by Mesoamericanists. Much mischief is caused by ambiguities about what it is that is supposed to be collapsing or regenerating. Most often, what is at issue is either the fragmentation of a large polity or the termination of a major cultural tradition. Mesoamericanists have not always clearly distinguished the fragmentation of polities from the termination of major cultura…
Ethnic and Class Clustering through the Ages: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Urban Neighbourhood Social Patterns
This paper presents initial findings from longer-term transdisciplinary research concerning the social dynamics of urban neighbourhoods. It examines the spatial clustering of ethnicity and class in neighbourhoods over urban history, from Bronze Age Mesopotamia to contemporary cities. Fourteen distinct drivers of social clustering are identified, grouped under the headers of macro-structural forces, the state, local regimes and institutions, and b…
Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Northwestern Valley of Mexico: The Zumpango Region . Jeffrey R. Parsons
How I Got to Where I Am Now: One Thing After Another, a (Mostly) Linear Narrative
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An update on Teotihuacan
AtAntiquity's invitation the author offers this account of recent research and current objectives at the famous ancient Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan. After a century of investigation, archaeologists are beginning to see something of the composition and preoccupations of one of America's first urban societies, and how it began, flourished and ended
The Urban Organization of Teotihuacan, Mexico
Settlement and Society: Essays Dedicated to Robert Mccormick Adams
Methodological Issues in the Provenance Investigation of Early Formative Mesoamerican Ceramics
A recent study of Early Formative Mesoamerican pottery by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) yielded surprising results that prompted two critiques in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The INAA study indicated that the Olmec center of San Lorenzo was a major exporter of carved-incised and white pottery and that little if any pottery made elsewhere was consumed at San Lorenzo. The critiques purport to "overturn" the…
Smokescreens in the Provenance Investigation of Early Formative Mesoamerican Ceramics
We are glad that Sharer et al. (this issue) have dropped their original claim that the INAA data demonstrate multidirectional movement of Early Formative pottery. Beyond this, however, they offer nothing that might enhance understanding of Early Formative ceramic circulation or inspire new insights into Early Formative cultural evolution in Mesoamerica. Instead, their response contains fresh distortions, replications of mistakes made in their PNA…
Origins and Development of Urbanism: Archaeological Perspectives
I survey recent literature about early cities in the regional traditions of Southwest Asia, Egypt, South Asia, China, Mesoamerica, Andean South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Greece, and Rome. Major themes include the importance of theorizing individuals and their practices, interests, and emotions; the extent to which the first cities were deliberately created rather than merely emerging as by-products of increasing sociopolitical complexity; inte…
Were Cities Built as Images
Many ancient city sites display a remarkable regularity in their plan which has led to considerable debate on the symbolism and intentionality which may lie behind these arrangements. Grid plan cities of the Greek and Roman world were discussed by Haverfield almost a century ago, but it was above all the cities of South and East Asia analyzed by Wheatley in his influential Pivot of the Four Quarters (1971) which has given new emphasis to the pote…
Demographic Diversity and Change in the Central American Isthmus
Demographic Diversity and Change in the Central American Isthmus. Anne R. Pebley and Luis Rosero-Bixby. eds. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1997.736 pp
State and Society at Teotihuacan, Mexico
Between 100 BCE and 200 CE, the city of Teotihuacan grew rapidly, most of the Basin of Mexico population was relocated in the city, immense civic-religious structures were built, and symbolic and material evidence shows the early importance of war. Rulers were probably able and powerful. Subsequently the city did not grow, and government may have become more collective, with significant constraints on rulers' powers. A state religion centered on …
[Comments and Replies]
Comments on Andrew Sluyter: Long-Distance Staple Transport in Western Mesoamerica: Insights Through Quantitative Modeling
Sluyter (1993) makes some useful points, but his criticism of Drennan's arguments is unsound. Sluyter is incorrect in thinking that there is no limit to the distance from which human bearers could carry food staples at a net energy profit. Drennan did not take into account that feeding bearers meals supplied at way stations is more efficient than requiring them to carry all their food with them, and he is unrealistic in thinking that a center wil…
Archaeology: War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica. Ross Hassig
Distinguished Lecture in Archeology: Beyond Criticizing New Archeology
This article was presented as the Distinguished Lecture in Archeology at the 91st Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, December 4, 1992, in San Francisco
The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations
Origins and Development of Urbanism: Archaeological Perspectives
I survey recent literature about early cities in the regional traditions of Southwest Asia, Egypt, South Asia, China, Mesoamerica, Andean South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Greece, and Rome. Major themes include the importance of theorizing individuals and their practices, interests, and emotions; the extent to which the first cities were deliberately created rather than merely emerging as by-products of increasing sociopolitical complexity; inte…
On Causes and Consequences of Ancient and Modern Population Changes1
Population growth is not an automatic tendency of either ancient or contemporary agrarian societies. It is not an autonomous "prime mover" which accounts for developmental episodes. Even when population problems occur it is wrong to assume that they will generally stimulate developmental innovations. Development is more apt to be stimulated by more effective demand and perceptions of new possibilities. Stresses due to shortages may actually reduc…
The Development of Social Stratification in Bronze Age Europe [and Comments and Reply]
The emergence of a hereditary elite class in Bronze Age Europe is now widely interpreted in terms of the redistributive activities of a managerial ruling class. This fuctionalist account of elite origins goes against a uniformitarian understanding of what ruling classes do in complex societies. It also is poorly suited to the concrete evidence for Bronze Age cultures in Europe. The rise of hereditary, superordinate social strata in prehistoric Eu…
State and Society at Teotihuacan, Mexico
Between 100 BCE and 200 CE, the city of Teotihuacan grew rapidly, most of the Basin of Mexico population was relocated in the city, immense civic-religious structures were built, and symbolic and material evidence shows the early importance of war. Rulers were probably able and powerful. Subsequently the city did not grow, and government may have become more collective, with significant constraints on rulers' powers. A state religion centered on …
Distinguished Lecture in Archeology: Beyond Criticizing New Archeology
This article was presented as the Distinguished Lecture in Archeology at the 91st Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, December 4, 1992, in San Francisco
Methodological Issues in the Provenance Investigation of Early Formative Mesoamerican Ceramics
A recent study of Early Formative Mesoamerican pottery by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) yielded surprising results that prompted two critiques in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The INAA study indicated that the Olmec center of San Lorenzo was a major exporter of carved-incised and white pottery and that little if any pottery made elsewhere was consumed at San Lorenzo. The critiques purport to "overturn" the…
Smokescreens in the Provenance Investigation of Early Formative Mesoamerican Ceramics
We are glad that Sharer et al. (this issue) have dropped their original claim that the INAA data demonstrate multidirectional movement of Early Formative pottery. Beyond this, however, they offer nothing that might enhance understanding of Early Formative ceramic circulation or inspire new insights into Early Formative cultural evolution in Mesoamerica. Instead, their response contains fresh distortions, replications of mistakes made in their PNA…
Ecological Theory and Cultural Evolution in the Valley of Oaxaca [and Comments and Reply]
An update on Teotihuacan
AtAntiquity's invitation the author offers this account of recent research and current objectives at the famous ancient Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan. After a century of investigation, archaeologists are beginning to see something of the composition and preoccupations of one of America's first urban societies, and how it began, flourished and ended
The Templo de Quetzalcoatl Project at Teotihuacan: A Preliminary Report
The Feathered Serpent Pyramid (Temple of Quetzalcoatl) was built in a single episode involving the sacrifice of around 200 individuals, in Miccaotli or Early Tlamimilolpa times. Most were males with military gear. Many had shell collars with pendants of imitation human jaws made of worked shell teeth set in stucco; rarely were real jaws used. At the center, 20 individuals (probably all males) were buried with very rich offerings including greenst…
Archaeological Applications of Factor, Cluster, and Proximity Analysis
An effort is made to give readers a good idea of what the techniques of factor, cluster, and proximity analyses are; of what are their good features and their limitations; and where one should look for further information. Archaeological uses of these techniques which are discussed include those of Hodson on La Tene brooches and on Mousterian assemblages, L. and S. Binford on Mousterian assemblages, Freeman and Brown on the Carter Ranch Pueblo, a…
Cerro Portezuelo: States and Hinterlands in the Pre-Hispanic Basin of Mexico
George Brainerd directed excavations at Cerro Portezuelo in the mid-1950s to understand the Classic to Postclassic transition and the questions he asked are still salient. We have undertaken a reanalysis of the artifacts, survey, and excavation data from Brainerd's project to better understand the nature of relations between the Early Classic period city of Teotihuacan, its immediate hinterlands, and the change from the Teotihuacan state system t…
Ethnic and Class Clustering through the Ages: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Urban Neighbourhood Social Patterns
This paper presents initial findings from longer-term transdisciplinary research concerning the social dynamics of urban neighbourhoods. It examines the spatial clustering of ethnicity and class in neighbourhoods over urban history, from Bronze Age Mesopotamia to contemporary cities. Fourteen distinct drivers of social clustering are identified, grouped under the headers of macro-structural forces, the state, local regimes and institutions, and b…
The Trouble with Significance Tests and What We Can Do About It
The rationale of customary 'null hypothesis testing' procedures of statistical inference is examined. This approach is not incorrect, but it is prone to misuse and misinterpretation, including neglect of 'power' and inappropriate conclusions based on conventional significance levels. The estimation approach, which often seems preferable, is briefly described. The kind of reasoning involved in statistical inference is required whenever we wish to …
The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico
Why Pearson's r is Not a Good Similarity Coefficient for Comparing Collections
Pearson's coefficient of linear correlation, r, sometimes is used to express the similarity between two archaeological collections when each collection is characterized by the percents of the artifact types it includes. Examples show that r can be extremely misleading when used in this way, and patterns of similarity among a group of collections can be wildly misrepresented. The Brainerd-Robinson statistic is one example of a similarity coefficie…
Service Access in Premodern Cities: An Exploratory Comparison of Spatial Equity
Spatial equity studies measuring urban service access have been conducted in variety of modern settings, but this research has not been extended to premodern cities. This article presents an exploratory, transdisciplinary pilot study of service access in six premodern urban environments to better understand the historical origins of inequality. Using archaeological and historical spatial data, neighborhood and household access to three types of s…
Possible Migrations and Shifting Identities in the Central Mexican Epiclassic
After a century or so of slow decline, major civic-ceremonial structures in the city of Teotihuacan were burned and desecrated, probably arounda.d. 600/650, at least some residential structures were abandoned, and the Teotihuacan state collapsed. Few features of Teotihuacan material culture survive in the Basin of Mexico in the ensuing Epiclassic period, which lasted from approximatelya.d. 600/650––800/850. Ceramic and other lines of evidence sug…
The Economic Systems of Ancient Oaxaca: A Regional Perspective [and Comments and Reply]
Archaeological data from a regional settlement pattern survey of the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, are used to monitor how scarce goods and resources were allocated to members of society through eight phases from 600 B.C. to A.D. 1520. The goal is to determine how distinct historical social structures performed economically in terms of the goods and resources recoverable archaeologically. Measures utilized include land use and settlement characterist…
Were Cities Built as Images
Many ancient city sites display a remarkable regularity in their plan which has led to considerable debate on the symbolism and intentionality which may lie behind these arrangements. Grid plan cities of the Greek and Roman world were discussed by Haverfield almost a century ago, but it was above all the cities of South and East Asia analyzed by Wheatley in his influential Pivot of the Four Quarters (1971) which has given new emphasis to the pote…
Ritual of the Bacabs, A Book of Maya Incantations
The Selection of Samples from Large Sherd Collections
When sherd collections are enormous, it is extremely desirable to have procedures for discarding portions of the material which minimize risks of losing useful information and are easy to apply. It is suggested that sherd lots be made the sampling units. Lots from each provenience category relevant for a given problem can be listed, and then a random sample of lots from each category included in the sample. Since the value of a sample depends mor…
The Internal Dynamics of the Early State [and Comments and Reply]
This article addresses the question of why only some early states develop into mature ones. The main differences between the two types of states having been outlined, four fields are indicated in which changes may take place. The field of the societal format involves problems of infrastructure, communication, and control. The field of economic development includes such aspects as trade and markets and the income and expenditures of the state. In …
Statistics and Sense: More on the Purum Case
We Need Better Chronologies: Progress in Getting them
Archaeologists have long celebrated their unique ability to deal with the long term. But we are increasingly recognizing that we can and must also understand more rapid events. They are critical for many of the questions we now consider most interesting, such as distinguishing between changes that unfolded gradually and those that happened suddenly. In considering interactions among regions, we need something better than cross-dating on the basis…
A Quantitative Method for Deriving Cultural Chronology. James A. Ford
The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico
The End of Classic Maya Culture: A Review of Recent Evidence
The Selection of Samples from Large Sherd Collections
When sherd collections are enormous, it is extremely desirable to have procedures for discarding portions of the material which minimize risks of losing useful information and are easy to apply. It is suggested that sherd lots be made the sampling units. Lots from each provenience category relevant for a given problem can be listed, and then a random sample of lots from each category included in the sample. Since the value of a sample depends mor…
Statistics and Sense: More on the Purum Case
Ritual of the Bacabs, A Book of Maya Incantations
Introduction to Applied Statistics
General and Ethnology: The Use of Computers in Anthropology. D ell H ymes , ed
Archaeological Applications of Factor, Cluster, and Proximity Analysis
An effort is made to give readers a good idea of what the techniques of factor, cluster, and proximity analyses are; of what are their good features and their limitations; and where one should look for further information. Archaeological uses of these techniques which are discussed include those of Hodson on La Tene brooches and on Mousterian assemblages, L. and S. Binford on Mousterian assemblages, Freeman and Brown on the Carter Ranch Pueblo, a…
Population Pressure as a Non-Explanation
My aim here is to summarize briefly some serious difficulties with assumptions that have frequently been made in considerations of prehistoric population and culture changes, and to suggest better alternatives. I have discussed these matters more fully, with many more references, elsewhere (Cowgill in press). One problematic assumption is the notion that a fairly strong tendency toward increase is a natural characteristic of human populations, or…
On Causes and Consequences of Ancient and Modern Population Changes1
Population growth is not an automatic tendency of either ancient or contemporary agrarian societies. It is not an autonomous "prime mover" which accounts for developmental episodes. Even when population problems occur it is wrong to assume that they will generally stimulate developmental innovations. Development is more apt to be stimulated by more effective demand and perceptions of new possibilities. Stresses due to shortages may actually reduc…
The Trouble with Significance Tests and What We Can Do About It
The rationale of customary 'null hypothesis testing' procedures of statistical inference is examined. This approach is not incorrect, but it is prone to misuse and misinterpretation, including neglect of 'power' and inappropriate conclusions based on conventional significance levels. The estimation approach, which often seems preferable, is briefly described. The kind of reasoning involved in statistical inference is required whenever we wish to …
Albert Spaulding and Archaeological Method and Theory
My object here is to list and briefly discuss the themes which seem most important and most valuable in Albert Spaulding's contributions to archaeological method and theory. I have not attempted to be biographical, to deal with his substantive contributions to North American prehistory, or to be exhaustive in mentioning every good idea and useful suggestion he has put into print. My discussion is also incomplete because the flow of major contribu…
Teotihuacan, Internal Militaristic Competition, and the Fall of the Classic Maya
Archaeology: The Food Crisis in Prehistory: Overpopulation and the Origins of Agriculture. Mark N. Cohen
The Development of Social Stratification in Bronze Age Europe [and Comments and Reply]
The emergence of a hereditary elite class in Bronze Age Europe is now widely interpreted in terms of the redistributive activities of a managerial ruling class. This fuctionalist account of elite origins goes against a uniformitarian understanding of what ruling classes do in complex societies. It also is poorly suited to the concrete evidence for Bronze Age cultures in Europe. The rise of hereditary, superordinate social strata in prehistoric Eu…
The Economic Systems of Ancient Oaxaca: A Regional Perspective [and Comments and Reply]
Archaeological data from a regional settlement pattern survey of the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, are used to monitor how scarce goods and resources were allocated to members of society through eight phases from 600 B.C. to A.D. 1520. The goal is to determine how distinct historical social structures performed economically in terms of the goods and resources recoverable archaeologically. Measures utilized include land use and settlement characterist…
The Internal Dynamics of the Early State [and Comments and Reply]
This article addresses the question of why only some early states develop into mature ones. The main differences between the two types of states having been outlined, four fields are indicated in which changes may take place. The field of the societal format involves problems of infrastructure, communication, and control. The field of economic development includes such aspects as trade and markets and the income and expenditures of the state. In …
The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations
Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations
Archeology: Quantitative Research in Archaeology: Progress and Prospects . Mark S. Aldenderfer , ed
Ecological Theory and Cultural Evolution in the Valley of Oaxaca [and Comments and Reply]
Why Pearson's r is Not a Good Similarity Coefficient for Comparing Collections
Pearson's coefficient of linear correlation, r, sometimes is used to express the similarity between two archaeological collections when each collection is characterized by the percents of the artifact types it includes. Examples show that r can be extremely misleading when used in this way, and patterns of similarity among a group of collections can be wildly misrepresented. The Brainerd-Robinson statistic is one example of a similarity coefficie…
The Templo de Quetzalcoatl Project at Teotihuacan: A Preliminary Report
The Feathered Serpent Pyramid (Temple of Quetzalcoatl) was built in a single episode involving the sacrifice of around 200 individuals, in Miccaotli or Early Tlamimilolpa times. Most were males with military gear. Many had shell collars with pendants of imitation human jaws made of worked shell teeth set in stucco; rarely were real jaws used. At the center, 20 individuals (probably all males) were buried with very rich offerings including greenst…
The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations
History (33 works) · Archaeology (26 works) · History (23 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (22 works) · Geography (22 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Computer Science (18 works) · Political science (16 works) · Latin American history and culture (13 works) · Art history (12 works)