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Blind Men and an Elephant: Exchange Systems and Sociopolitical Organizations in the Orinoco Basin and Neighboring Areas in Pre-Hispanic Times

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Against Typological Tyranny in Archaeology

Abstract

This is a critical review of the main models concerning the System of Orinoco Regional Interdependence. On one hand, early proposals define the system as a heuristic model of interethnic levels of sociocultural integration among autonomous polities. According to this view, this network of cultures belonged to a cultural matrix based on political horizontality and ecological complementarity. This stable system was transformed and eventually destroyed by the impact of the West. On the other hand, critical examinations of recent data questions this model, emphasizing the diverse and complex nature of Amerindian political organizations and the diversity of regional and subregional systems of economic and sociopolitical relations. Here, I examine the development of the system as a long-term process that affected regional polities and local systems in diverse ways through time. Late developments of macrosystems may be seen as rather mestizo artifacts of the expansion of the European world system. In conclusion, simple dichotomies and typologies (egalitarian/complex, nature/culture, Amerindian/European, pristine/colonial) do not work well to explain economic, social, and political institutions that cover diverse environments, societies, and processes of historical change over several millennia.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This approach was used by several authors for the study of historical linguistics problems and for the analyses of varied scope exchange systems in the Llanos and Eastern Venezuela (e.g., Morales 1979, 1990; Morales and Arvelo-Jiménez 1981; Biord 1986; González 1986; Biord et al. 1989).

  2. 2.

    Kipp and Schortman (1989, p. 370) established that when exchange goods could be found at the market rather than through exchange between elites the chiefdoms’ power relied increasingly on economic and political exploitation.

  3. 3.

    According to Amodio (1997, p. 57), these systems were as follows: (1) Carib-Arawak, which included Venezuela’s eastern coast and Caribbean islands; (2) Middle-Orinoquian, connecting the coast islands system with Amazonian and Guyana’s savannas systems; (3) Amazonian, integrated by the Upper Orinoco regions; (4) Guyana, which included groups from Gran Sabana, and basins of Branco and Essequibo rivers; and (5) Andean, integrated by groups from the piedmont and Lake Maracaibo’s southern shore.

  4. 4.

    The world-system theory posits that systems should be seen as processes instead of structures and that their constitutive units can be conceived as formed and reformed by relations between them; it is characterized, furthermore, by its eminently geographic approach, the use of multiple levels of analysis, and its evolutive and multilineal vision (Peregrine 1996, pp. 5–6).

  5. 5.

    With minimal internal differentiation of authority, any delegation in a chiefdom approaches total delegation, a situation ripe with potential for usurpation (Wright 1977, p. 381). Optimally, a chief should avoid delegating authority, which means that he has to manage his domain from the center (Spencer 1987, p. 375). This, in turn, implies that there is a spatial limit to the territory that a regional chief can effectively rule: I have suggested that in a preindustrial context, the optimal territory size for a single paramount chief’s domain would be one with a radius no larger than about one-half day of travel from the regional center (Spencer 1982, pp. 6–7, 1987, p. 375). As a rough estimate, for a territory of circular shape, and a walking speed of 5.6 km (3.5 miles) per hour over a 10-hour day, this would be a maximal domain with a diameter of 56 km (35 miles) and an area of 2,463 km2 (962 square miles) (Spencer 1990, pp. 6–7).

  6. 6.

    For example, polished stone artifacts such as beads and pendants made of serpentinite, malachite, amphibolite, phyllite, and jasper have been found in several high-rank archaeological contexts at the primary regional center (site B12) and in one of the regional centers (B21) in the Gaván Region, in Barinas State. The sources of these minerals should be located outside the Llanos, in areas like the Venezuelan Andes, Maracaibo Lake Basin, and farther regions like south of Colombia, north of Ecuador, and the Caribbean (Spencer and Redmond 1992, pp. 153–154). At the primary regional center of El Cedral region, in the same area, a green stone pendant was found resembling a small amphibian or reptile (Gassón 2000, p. 587). Boomert (1987, p. 33, 37) identified these objects as one of the main prestige goods in circulation among groups from the tropical forest and the northeastern coast of South America because of their ritual meaning and symbolic associations, proposing their circulation in exchange systems like the kula rings in Melanesia in areas where the quirípa was circulating (cf. Malinowski 1975, pp. 95–96; Gassón 1999, p. 81).

  7. 7.

    The specific economic characteristics of a prestige-good system are dominated by the political advantage gained through exercising control over access to resources that can only be obtained through external trade. However, these are not the resources required for general material well-being or for the manufacture of tools and other utilitarian items. Instead emphasis is placed on controlling the acquisition of wealth objects needed in social transactions and the payment of social debts. Groups are linked to each other through the competitive exchange of wealth objects as gifts and feasting in continuous cycles of status rivalry (Frankenstein and Rowlands 1978, p. 76).

  8. 8.

    According to Binford (1972, p. 204), an interaction sphere is defined as the “regular and cultural means to maintain and institutionalize the inter-social interaction.”

  9. 9.

    According to Renfrew (1986, p. 1), the interaction between equivalent political units designates the complete scope of exchanges (including imitation and emulation, competition, war, and exchange of material goods and information), which is performed among autonomous political units (self-governed and politically independent), neighboring or close to each other in the same geographical area, or in some cases, in bigger areas.

  10. 10.

    “Gateway communities develop either as a response to increased trade or to the settling of sparsely populated areas. They generally are located along natural corridors of communication and at the critical passages between areas of high mineral, agricultural, or craft productivity; dense population; high demand or supply for scarce resources; and, at the interface of different technologies or levels of sociopolitical complexity…The function of these settlements is to satisfy demand for commodities through trade and the location of these communities reduces transportation cost involved in their movement” (Hirth 1978, p. 37).

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Acknowledgments

This chapter is a modified version of “Relaciones Políticas y Económicas entre los Andes y los Llanos Orientales de Colombia y Venezuela en el Período Tardío y Epoca de Contacto,” presented at the symposium Caciques, Capitanes y Principales. Formas Políticas Prehispánicas y sus Transformaciones Coloniales, organized by Emanuele Amodio y Luis Molina in the LI Convención Annual de AsoVAC; my gratitude to them for their invitation to participate in this symposium. I am also thankful with Alberta Zucchi, Ana María Gómez, Rona Villalba, and Juan Carlos Rey for their ideas and help on the presentation and correction of this chapter. The original Spanish version of this chapter was translated into English by Johan Rodríguez.

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  1. Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas, Caracas, Venezuela

    Rafael A. Gassón

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Correspondence to Rafael A. Gassón .

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  1. Universidad del Cauca, Popayan, Colombia

    Cristóbal Gnecco

  2. Universidad de los Andes, BOGOTA, Colombia

    Carl Langebaek

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Gassón, R. (2014). Blind Men and an Elephant: Exchange Systems and Sociopolitical Organizations in the Orinoco Basin and Neighboring Areas in Pre-Hispanic Times. In: Gnecco, C., Langebaek, C. (eds) Against Typological Tyranny in Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8724-1_2

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