Ancestors and Elites: Emergent Complexity and Ritual Practices in the Casas Grandes Polity [Hardcover]

Ancestors and Elitesexamines prehispanic ritual behaviors characteristic of the Casas Grandes region of Chihuahua, Mexico. Gordon Rakita analyzes the archaeological data from the site with respect to broader anthropological theories regarding both religious practices and the rise of complex societies. This confluence of empirical fact and general theory allows Rakita to explore in detail the complex, reciprocal relationship between ritual practices and developing social complexity at Paquim?, one of the best-documented archaeological sites in the region.Gordon F. M. Rakitais associate professor of anthropology at the University of North Florida.

Gordon Rakita gives us an important addition to the literature dealing with Chihuahuan prehistory. Starting from a cultural evolutionary position, he uses anthropological theory and specific case studies to examine the role of ritual behavior in the development of the Casas Grandes region, focusing on the site of Paquim? and using the eight volumes of the Joint Casas Grandes Expedition as his primary data base. Rakita argues that ceremonialism and ritual behavior are separable strands that contributed both to communal solidarity and to the emergence of the authority and power needed by decision-making structures in aggregated communities. He thus firmly places ritual behavior on a par with economic and other factors in the cauldron of emerging complexity. Jane Kelley, University of Calgary

The development of social complexity at the site of Paquim?, or Casas Grandes, has long intrigued archaeologists working in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico and the American Southwest. Dr. Rakita's analysis of the role of ritual and religious organization in the emergence and sustainability of social inequality at Casas Grandes represents an innovative approach to this topic. Students and scholars alike, interested in the evolution of ritual behavior and its relationship to institutional inequality in aggregating cls)