Regional Dynamics of Chiefdoms in the Valle de la Plata, Colombia

Abstract

Recent research into settlement patterns in the Valle de la Plata SW Colombia, has provided information on the regional social context of the long-famous statues and tombs of the Alto Magdalena (the “San Agustín Culture”). The region witnessed the development, soon after the time of Christ, of a series of small-scale chiefdoms, each consisting of a few thousand people and centered on the elaborate burial place of its chiefs. These burial places themselves were not used residentially, but were each at the heart of a concentration of population. The correspondence between the locations of these settlement concentrations and the distribution of agricultural resources suggests control of prime agricultural resources as an economic force in the development of these chiefdoms, although it remains to be seen how well this suggestion holds up to further and more complete analysis. As for other popular notions of chiefdom development, neither redistribution in diverse environments nor population pressure receives much support from the Valle de la Plata data.Regional settlement pattern study also clarifies the developmental sequence of which the period of statue carving (A.C. 1–850) is a part. Similar settlement concentrations in earlier times suggest precursors to these chiefdoms, and the failure of these concentrations to break up in later times is inconsistent with popular notions of broad social decline corresponding to the cessation of statue carving.