Regional Authority and Economic Interaction in the Eastern Lower Papaloapan Basin, Veracruz, Mexico

Author

Shayna Skye Lindquist, University of KentuckyFollow

Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7034-6608

Date Available

8-19-2026

Year of Publication

2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College

Arts and Sciences

Department/School/Program

Anthropology

Faculty

Dr. Christopher Pool

Abstract

This dissertation examines various networks of interaction underlying political and economic organization through a series of three papers that investigate the Eastern Lower Papaloapan Basin (ELPB), Veracruz, Mexico. The three papers are linked through their shared concern with a reliance on models of political economies that fall short in capturing the diverse and nuanced ways individuals and groups cooperated. While my primary focus is on the Early Classic period (AD 300-600), I engaged diverse datasets that provide context from which the ELPB’s Classic period societies emerged. The first two papers present the results of technological and geochemical analyses of obsidian and ceramic artifacts collected during a regional survey conducted in the ELPB. The obsidian dataset supports the interpretation of groups in the region’s countryside holding considerable autonomy in their domestic economic pursuits through the persistence of decentralized acquisition networks based in cooperative relationships among households linked across regions. The ceramic dataset shifts the focus to interelite relationships, employing a two-tiered methodology for the compositional analysis of nonlocal ceramic wares that allowed for the identification of multiple overlapping spheres of inter- and intraregional interaction among the upper echelons of the regional hierarchy.

The final paper proposes a renewed synthesis of the ELPB’s Early Classic period, reconciling the findings of the first two papers with preexisting data from the region. This synthesis captures a significant reorganization of authority in the ELPB that resulted in a proliferation of dispersed polities taking advantage of the fracturing centralized power long commanded by the region’s ancient, most influential polity, Tres Zapotes. These new subregional capitals feature monumental architectural cores and acted as nodes of interaction distributed across the landscape where economic, religious, and administrative activities were concentrated. However, this distributed network of monumental nodes and their duplicate services acted to diffuse autocratic power in the region, instead producing political and social interdependencies among the subregional capitals and groups in the countryside. Ultimately, this dissertation significantly contributes to our understanding of Classic period regional authority and interaction in the Eastern Lower Papaloapan Basin as well as broader work in modeling intraregional politico-economic systems.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2025.412

Funding Information

This research was supported by the University of Kentucky's Department of Anthropology through the Robert M. Odear Research Fund (2017, 2020), Susan Abbott-Jamieson Pre-Dissertation Research Award (2018), Adelski Endowed Fellowship (2020), and Dissertation Research Award (2021).

This research also received support through the University of Missouri Research Reactor's National Science Foundation (NSF) Subsidy Award (NSF Grant No. 2208558).

Recommended Citation

Lindquist, Shayna Skye, "Regional Authority and Economic Interaction in the Eastern Lower Papaloapan Basin, Veracruz, Mexico" (2025). Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology. 74.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/anthro_etds/74