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Ecological variation and economic exchange in the Tarascan state
Author(s) -
POLLARD HELEN PERLSTEIN
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1982.9.2.02a00030
Subject(s) - ethnohistory , ecology , state (computer science) , elite , population , militarism , adaptation (eye) , geography , economics , sociology , political science , demography , biology , archaeology , law , algorithm , neuroscience , politics , computer science
In this paper the relationship between population, resources, and economic exchange is delineated for the protohistoric Tarascan state. A model of the dynamic role of these variables in the state's evolution is presented that emphasizes resource shifts and differential adaptation of elite and commoners, including market intensification and militarism but excluding agricultural intensification and hydraulic works. The Tarascan state, then, represents a structural variant among pre‐Hispanic Mesoamerican complex societies and must be accounted for in general theories of state evolution. [state evolution, human ecology, exchange, ethnohistory, Tarascan]