Muisca settlement organization and chiefly authority at Suta, Valle de Leyva, Colombia: A critical appraisal of native concepts of house for studies of complex societies Hope Henderson a, * , Nicholas Ostler b a National Science Foundation, International Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Transversal 14A No.115-58, Apt. 501, Bogota ´ , Colombia b Foundation for Endangered Languages, Batheaston Villa, 172 Bailbrook Lane, Bath BA1 7AA, England, UK Received 2 October 2003; revision received 24 November 2004 Available online 23 March 2005 Abstract This paper argues that native categories of the house are useful analytic units when coupled with models of complex society that distinguish between individualistic and institutional sources of political authority. This approach strength- ens archaeological research by examining objectively the scale of political inequality associated with house societies. We discuss the complex associations between the Muisca sense of place, residential architecture, and political authority and propose hypotheses to evaluate whether ideas about house and place were a source of either individualistic or institu- tional political authority. By documenting whole settlement patterns at Suta, in the Valley of Leyva between the 11th and 17th centuries, this paper analyzes the degree to which Muisca chiefs at Suta drew on ideas about the house to directly control the internal spatial organization of a whole settlement. Systematic shovel test probes are used to identify residential locations, internal settlement organization, and site boundaries. Spatial analysis of these house locations sug- gests that the formation this nucleated settlement beginning in the 11th century was a product of inter-house alliances and individualistic patterns of political leadership. The results of this study suggest that political elites at Suta drew upon the Muisca house, a multifaceted symbol, to legitimate their political authority and create a central place with their own residential compounds, but that they had no direct control over other houses. Ó 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: House societies; Complex societies; Political inequality; Settlement patterns; Households; Nearest neighbor analyses; Muisca; Chibcha Corporate Groups; Colombia This study contributes to recent research on house societies (Carsten and Hugh-Jones, 1995; Helms, 1998; Joyce and Gillespie, 2000) by using the Muisca concept of house, or gue, as an analytic unit for interpreting archaeological settlement patterns and for expanding on models of complex society that distinguish between individual and institutional sources of political authority (Blanton et al., 1996; Drennan, 1995a; Renfrew, 1974). The Muisca house was an expansive concept, a multifac- eted symbol reflecting a wholistic Muisca world view that similar to other house societies (Carsten and Hugh-Jones, 1995) incorporated broad notions of place, time, and the body. We examine a series of Muisca words that incorporated the house concept to under- stand the complex associations between house, place, and political authority and the relevance of these native Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 24 (2005) 148–178 www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa 0278-4165/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2005.01.002 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: hhopehenderson@hotmail.com (H. Hender- son).