Abstract
Observations made by the early Spanish chroniclers of the Greater Antilles re®ect Native American societies that were hierarchically organized, with lesser chiefs providing personnel for labor and warfare to more powerful chiefs (Colón 1947; Joyce 1916; Rouse 1948). The geographic and size distributions of the late prehistoric/protohistoric ball courts in Puerto Rico provide evidence for locally based centralized polities (Siegel 1999). At the macroregional scale of the entire island, political organization was not centralized. Archaeological and ethnohistoric data reveal interpolity competition (Siegel 2004).
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Ancient Borinquen |
Subtitle of host publication | Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Native Puerto Rico |
Publisher | The University of Alabama Press |
Pages | 88-121 |
Number of pages | 34 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780817352387 |
State | Published - 2005 |