Political economy and interaction: Late Prehistoric polities in the Central Philippine Islands.

Abstract

This study situates interpolity interactions within the context of chiefly political economy. Several models of the organization of the wealth sector of chiefly economies, which involve exchange, provide a framework for incorporating other forms of interpolity interaction. Two types of interaction, interelite alliance and prestige goods exchange, are investigated for the late prehistoric period in the Philippine islands using data from: (1) Chinese and Spanish accounts to provide a more specific context for the study of Philippine chiefdoms and evidence for the political nature of various forms of interchiefly interaction, and (2) archaeological materials generated from systematic survey and excavations in the Dumaguete-Bacong region of southeastern Negros in combination with decorated earthenware data sets from a number of sites in the central Philippines. Before such an investigation can commence, it is necessary to first investigate the nature of sociopolitical complexity during the late prehistoric period in the Dumaguete-Bacong region, and second, to reconstruct the economic organization of these polities. Interpolity interaction can then be investigated drawing both on an iconographic theory of style to develop expectations for decorated earthenware styles as symbolic of interelite alliance, and on technological methods for investigating material exchange. Results of the study provide evidence for the existence of chiefly formations in the Dumaguete-Bacong region by the eleventh century A.D. The late prehistoric settlement located in Dumaguete City appears to have been a political center in the region. Preliminary reconstruction of the economic organization of the Dumaguete polity suggests that it is consistent with both the prestige goods model and wealth finance model, though further research is needed to more adequately evaluate the three political economy models. Results of the investigation of interpolity interaction based on the stylistic analysis of the decorated earthenwares suggest there were interpolity elite alliances extending across a number of islands in the archipelago during the twelfth to sixteenth centuries as well as during the early first millenium A.D. The technological analysis indicates that the interpolity distribution of some of the decorated earthenware styles was the result of exchange, and specifically, of prestige goods exchange.