Archaeologists have traced the development of religion in one location over a 7,000-year period, reporting that as an early society changed from foraging to settlement to the formation of an archaic state, religion also evolved to match the changing social structure.
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The Oaxaca Valley was home to people who around 7000 B.C. were hunters and gatherers with no fixed abode. By 1500 B.C., the Oaxacans had developed strains of maize that enabled them to settle in villages that were occupied throughout the year. The earliest village societies were probably egalitarian like the foragers who preceded them. But by 1150 B.C. the first signs of social hierarchy appear, with an elite who lived in big houses, wore jade-studded clothes and deformed their skulls, as a sign of nobility, by binding their children's heads. The Oaxacans flourished and in 500 B.C. founded a populous and warlike society at Monte Albán known as the Zapotec state.

The religious practices of each of these four stages of society can be inferred from the structures that the archaeologists have excavated and dated.

But when elites and kings emerged, they did not dispense with the religious systems that were the previous source of social authority. Instead they employed religion as another mechanism of social control and as a means of maintaining their privileged position. "Ritual becomes part of the justification for being politically elite," Dr. Marcus said.

# posted by Gerry Canavan @ 1:07 PM  |