Ancient Winds of Change: Climatic Settings and Prehistoric Social Complexity in Mesoamerica

Abstract

A comparison of regional archaeological sequences for eastern and southern Mesoamerica should indicate if there were times of contemporaneous transcultural punctuated cultural developments. Punctuated developments in the form of cultural intensifications or destabilizations (cultural collapses) may imply external cultural stimulation, such as diffusion of ideas and/or technology, or natural external factors resulting from general climatic instability. Such information is relevant to understanding systems dynamics of cultural transformation from small-scale, egalitarian societies to ones characterized by stratification and ranked social orders.