Lecture 05: Social Organization, Nature, and Scale

main questions

how societies structure relationships (power, authority, economics, and daily life) and how archaeologists see this organization through material records

social organization

the relationships that constitute a society

social organization includes

relationships among individuals, families, groups, settlements, and between societies

how people arrange themselves socially, politically, and economically

societies fall between

egalitarian and stratified

two basic questions about social organization of past societies

size and scale, internal organization

size and scale questions

who occupied it, was it dependent or autonomous, what type of site was it (residential, ceremonial, administrative)

usually first step in social archaeology

internal organization questions

were people stratified (different) or egalitarian (equal), who had power and authority, how did they organize themselves economically

levels of complexity

savagery to civilization, three age system, feudalism to communism

lewis henry morgan

savagery to barbarism to civilisation

CJ Thomsen

three age system, stone to bronze to iron

karl marx

feudalism to capitalism to socialism to communism

unilineal evolution

change happens in stages, societies progress through identifiable levels

elman service

1962 published Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective, proposed a four part sociopolitical typology: band (foraging), tribe (horticulture), chiefdom (pastoralism), state (agriculture)

tied economy and social structure

four levels of sociopolitical typology give us

comparative tool

mobile hunter gatherers

least socially differentiated

population: fewer than 100 people

social org: largely egalitarian

subsistence: hunt and forage

economy: largely self sufficient

settlement: seasonal camps

architecture: temporary shelters

tribe/segmentary society

small scale linked around kinship groups, politically autonomous,

population: typically in 100s to low 1,000s

social org: kin based communities

subsistence: horticulture and pastoralism

economy: long-distance trade and exchange

settlement: nucleated or dispersed

architecture: free-standing or agglomerated structures

chiefdom

characterized by ranking, some families have higher prestige than others, population: roughly 5,000 to 20,000 people

social org: ranked lineages

subsistence: agriculture

economy: limited specialization, accumulation, and redistribution

settlement: regional settlement hierarchy

architecture: large scale monuments

states

stratified society with formal institutions of governance, not modern nation state just centralized system

population: typically 20,000 or more

social org: classes

subsistence: intensive agriculture (irrigation, plowing)

settlement: networks of cities, towns, villages (pronounced hierarchy)

architecture: public buildings

archaeologists work with present statics to infer

past dynamics

present static

architecture in the ground, artifacts

exceptions to service’s model

not all agricultural societies become states, not all small socities are egalitarian

approaches archaeologists use to analyze social structure and interaction

settlement analysis, burials, monumental architecture, written records, analogy, ethnoarchaeology

settlement analysis

size, distribution, hierarchy of sites across a landscape

patterns reflect access to resources, political organization, etc

models are thinking tools to organize observations

hierarchy: size shows how important a site is

burial analysis

differential treatment in death shows social status

grave goods also suggest wealth or role

age and gender: status achieved or ascribed at birth

monumental architecture

large public buildings, temples, plazas, or fortifications

monuments require organized labor, tells us about leadership

analogy

compare archaeological findings to historically or ethnographically documented societies to help interpret function or behavior

ethnoarchaeology

study living communities to understand how everyday behvior becomes material remains

types of analogy

Formal: things that look alike are compared

relational: cultural or functional connection, evidence of cultural continuity