Archaeology of Non-States

Global Ice and Global Sea Levels

• Warming of the earth, around 12,000 BC and rising global sea levels isolated the Americas from the rest of the world until 1492

  • deadly diseases developed

Clovis Culture

• approximately 11-9,000 BC

• earliest recognized culture in North America

• used fluted Clovis spear points to hunt

• many Clovis sites that have been known for over 100 years

• places the arrival of the first Americans around 12,000 to 11,000 BC

  • the ice age was ending

• “Clovis first or pre-Clovis first?”

  • were there human migrations before 12,000 BC?

Sites and Evidence That Support Pre-Clovis

• Monte Verde in Chile has evidence of people around 12,000 BC

  • people must have arrived earlier than 12,000 BC

  • the oldest site is located near the southern end of South America

• Footprints found at White Sands, New Mexico

  • oldest was dated to about 23,000 BC

  • Carbon-14 dated seeds around the footprints to about 23,000 BC

  • people must have arrived earlier than 23,000 BC

• At least three major language groups of indigenous peoples suggest at least three separate migration waves.

  • Amerind (South, Central, and North America)

  • Na-Dene (Southwest U.S. Navajo and Apache)

  • Athapaskan (Northwest U.S., Canada, Alaska)

• Each language group is closely related to Asian languages, which supports the land bridge theory

• first Americans probably arrived by 30,000 BC

• there were several different waves of people arriving at later times

Impact of European Exploration and Contact

• Europeans (1492+) brought diseases which swept through the American populations

• smallpox and measles.

• 90% of the American population died in the first century after contact

Economic Organization and Bands

Political Systems

• Un-centralized (egalitarian)

  • aspects of society are equally distributed across society

  • bands and tribes

• Centralized (non-egalitarian)

  • aspects in society that are centralized in the hands of the elite

  • chiefdoms and states

Economic Systems

• all the world’s population can be divided into food collectors (wild foods) and food producers (domesticated foods)

Political and Economic Systems

• there is a close relationship between what economic activities are conducted in societies and their political systems

as societies become larger, their political and economic systems change

Cultural evolution

• a movement which has taken us from Hunting and Gathering to Industrial Societies. It is marked by

  • Increasing levels of specialization

  • increasing levels of surplus production

  • increasing levels of resource ownership

  • larger market systems

  • larger populations

  • decreasing levels of self-sufficiency

• Societies get more complex through time

• archaeology is the study of ancient cultures and how they change

• 10,000 years ago, everyone was living in a band society and was being supported by hunting and gathering

• most of the world’s population today are living in states and are supported by large-scale agriculture

• the shift from bands to tribes to cheifdoms and states has occurred independently in different regions of the world at different times

• most of human history has been a movement away from social equality towards social inequality

• much of human history is the slow development of societies in which people are not equal

Bands

• very small (less than 250 people)

• breaks up into groups of 10-30

• low population density

• the oldest, simplest, and most long-lasting form of social and economic organization

• successful under certain conditions

• hunting and gatherers (foraging)

  • started 100,000 years ago and continued in some remote areas

  • food-getting strategies that focus on wild plants and animals through gathering, hunting, or fishing

• nomadic (moves from place to place)

• Egalitarian Society

  • everyone of the same age and sex carries out the same economic tasks

  • everyone has access to the same resources

  • everyone is thought of on equal terms

  • no political or social ranking among the members except those divisions based on age and gender

  • no sharp social distinctions

  • little economic specialization

  • leadership is temporary

  • big decisions are made by the entire group

  • no one has power over anyone else

  • little private ownership

  • bands will divide over serious disagreements

  • great way to live when population levels are low and areas to expand into

  • most democratic

• uses reciprocity instead of market systems

  • the primary mechanism of exchange and distribution of goods within bands and tribes

• some misconceptions about hunters and gatherers are that they have no leisure time, they are starving and malnourished, and they don’t have a stable food supply

• been pushed out most areas of the world by agriculturalists, most only exist in marginal areas where there is no good agricultural land (deserts, artic, dense tropical forests, coastlines)

• all moderns hunter and gathers trade with, provide labor for, and have been influenced by neighboring agriculture and the modern world