Late Intermediate Period Political Economy and Household Organization at Jachakala, Bolivia

All households in prehistoric communities without well established sociopolitical hierarchies were concerned, first and foremost, with meeting their subsistence needs. Because the emergence of non-food producing elite households means that, at some point, they began to focus on other activities, the domestic economy is where complexity begins to develop. Participation in craft production and exchange activities can provide opportunities for some households to accumulate wealth and/or prestige; this is the basis for a model of political economy tested against data from a site in the Andean altiplano.One objective of this dissertation project was to reconstruct the local history of Jachakala, a small village in the central Bolivian highlands occupied from ca. AD 170-1200. Artifacts from house floors, middens, and other features are divided into three chronological periods and grouped into three zones. Comparative inter-zonal and diachronic analyses are conducted to test models of the domestic economy and political economy derived from Kenneth Hirth's work in Mesoamerica.The domestic economy model predicts a low degree of socioeconomic differentiation within a subsistence-oriented community. Patterns of staple and craft production, wealth inequalities, and supra-regional exchange are reconstructed to test this model against data from the first occupation, the Niñalupita Period.I also test the hypothesis that differential participation in exchange and craft production activities underwrote the emergence of socioeconomic stratification, the central tenet of the Hirth model of political economy. There are significant inter-zonal differences in exchange goods and craft production refuse from the Isahuara and Jachakala Periods, but participation in these activities did not cause a political economy to develop, because some wealth inequalities predate this diversity.Finally, I used Tiwanaku-style artifacts from Jachakala to assess relations with this pre-Inkan state. Results suggest that Tiwanaku's influence on local processes was minimal and indirect, and implications for models of inter-regional relationships are explored. Although this investigation focuses on one community in the central Bolivian altiplano, I hope that it will be of comparative value for archaeologists investigating domestic economy, household organization, the origins of complexity, and core-periphery relations in and beyond the Andes