Technological transformations: Adaptationist, relativist, and economic models in Mexico and Venezuela

Abstract

Anthropologists have tried to explain technological change among indigenous people after contact with Europeans from two main theoretical positions. Some scholars have proposed adaptationist models in which indigenous people adopted European technologies, including steel, firearms, and others, in recognition of their superiority and higher efficiency. Other scholars have proposed cultural relativist models that view efficiency as a cultural construction and emphasize the varied patterns of technological change and continuity among indigenous people everywhere. We propose a third theoretical position that considers economic factors among the many relevant causes of technological transformation among indigenous people. To evaluate the adaptationist, relativist, and economic position, we present a comparison of patterns of commerce and technological exchange among indigenous people in two distant colonial settings: central Mexico and southern Venezuela. We argue that economic factors played a crucial role in the process of transferring technologies and the adoption—or not—of methods of manufacturing among indigenous peoples. A focus on the inter-relation of productive and technological systems, the commercialization of foreign goods and wild resources, and the commoditization of indigenous subsistence staples offers the opportunity to apprehend the complexities and variations of native socio-cultural dynamics within larger structures of interaction.