Sinopoli 2001 On the edge of empire

The Mauryan Empire, an early South Asian polity, was once presumed to have exerted control over most of the Indian subcontinent. A reexamination of both archaeological and historical evidence suggests a different interpretation of Mauryan imperialism -one that has less to do with territorial control and instead looks to a relational network perspective. This perspective allows a view of the Mauryan polity that goes beyond the political dimension to examine long-term patterns of interaction during the Early Historic period (ca. 600 B.C.E.-C.E. 600). Additionally, this model may be extended to include parallel networks of interaction that existed independently of political authority and would endure beyond the decline of various dynastic powers. [Mauryan Empire, sovereignty, territoriality, Early Historic period, South Asia]

Archeological Papers of the American …, 1998

Economic, political, demographic, territorial, and social changes in fourteenth through seventeenth century southern India contributed to an expansion in the production and exchange of a range of craft goods. Producers of these goods responded to and benefited from changing conditions in a variety of ways. In this paper I consider archaeological and inscriptional evidence for craft production from the Vijayanagara period, with a focus on how changing demands and valuations of goods differentially affected the ability of craft producing communities to manipulate or redefine their social identity and social status. I focus on three scales of social identity and action: the individual artisan, local caste communities, and multi-caste or regional artisan groups.

The interior plateaus of southern India may be fairly characterized as the heart of the distribution of megaliths in South Asia; notwithstanding other isolated examples, it is in the southern states of India that these features are found in the highest density and diversity of form.

Archaeological evidence for selected empires of the Old World and New World will be used to illuminate cross-cultural similarities and differences in the strategies complex pre-modern societies used to expand into empires. We will discuss the ways in which such societies produced, acquired, accumulated, and distributed wealth. There will be a focus on the expansion of early empires, on their interactions with peripheral polities, and on the imperial strategies of expanding empires in dealing with the capture and consolidation of new territories.

The Cambridge World History, Volume 3: Early Cities in Comparative Perspective, 4000 BCE – CE 1200, edited by N. Yoffee, 2015

Over the last few decades, archaeological and historical research in many regions of the world has challenged long-standing ideas concerning the nature and organization of ancient states and cities. Scholars have come to recognize the limits of hierarchy and to acknowledge that ancient urban societies varied considerably in scale, physical form, social composition, and governance. Specifically, research has questioned the accepted wisdom that early cities were inevitably characterized by straightforward, linear hierarch- ies of control – with a mass of subjects on the bottom administered by a small number of elites at the top. They have also questioned whether the presence of a specific assemblage of architectural forms (for example, palace buildings, central temples, city walls) is required to make an urban place. And as scholars have come to recognize that ancient communities had created very different kinds of urban forms in Africa, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere, this has called into question understandings of even the arche- typal hierarchical early cities of Mesopotamia, where scholarship has expanded from a focus on palaces and temples to also consider the power and forms of authority exercised by various councils and assemblies, and/or diverse economic, kin, or other social groups (see Emberling, Chapter 14, this volume). The result has been both a broadening of perspectives on ancient urbanism and new understandings of the limits of hierarchy.

Imperial expansion can produce broad economic intensification throughout the provinces to provide key economic resources for the state. However, not all such economic intensification is the direct result of the imposition of an imperial political economy over subject populations. This article presents evidence for some cases where intensification occurred due to bottom-up responses of small groups that were able to profit from imperial conquest. In the case of the Incas, although the imposition of a labor-tax system, or mit'a, was an important economic device for their imperial expansion, we question its universality. This article addresses the economic changes that local communities experienced within the Tawantinsuyu by comparing the coexistence of attached and independent modes of production in two cases of mining production in the Atacama Desert, in northern Chile. This contributes to finding and elaborating on explicit archaeological indicators that enable us to contrast both modes of engagement with the political economy of the Inca Empire and to identify, archaeologically, alternative and independent local responses to imperial expansion. Our study thus energizes debates on how and to what extent local populations, under conditions of empire, can negotiate spaces and activities outside of state control. [mit'a, prehistoric mining, bottom-up dynamics, imperial expansion, Inca Empire]

Article from the Edited volume entitled "Hoy, boy! : a festschrift for Delfin L. Tolentino, Jr" (pages 247-261) edited by Ben Tapang and Grace Celeste Subido. Published by the Cordillera Studies Center, University of the Philippines Baguio (Baguio City, Philippines 2016). For copy please contact: Cordillera Studies Center University of the Philippines Baguio Governor Pack Road 2600 Baguio City, Philippines telefax: +63 (74) 442 5794 Email: [email protected] or [email protected] you can also contact author

South Asian Studies, 2019

In the study of medieval and early modern South Asia, archaeologists, historians, and art historians have studied selected monuments in depth or surveyed regions for monumental ruins and other features, but have less commonly studied their datasets as a group to infer processes of socio-political change. Using the example of the Golconda kingdom of India’s Deccan plateau, this study describes the evidence of the kingdom’s physical presence across a wide area, and shows how by combining the distribution across space with evidence of changes over time, aspects of the kingdom’s socio-political evolution can be inferred, from the development of the capital to the kingdom’s changing relationship with its more distant peripheries. Some overlooked monuments, when placed in this context, critically suggest the early formative stages of central political authority; others point to a growing culture of elite wealth, patronage, and competition during the era of increased international trade.

Archaeological Research in Asia, 2019