1. Reconstructing Social and Political Systems of the Past

2. This chapter will enable you to answer these questions: 1. What concepts help archaeologists to reconstruct past social and political organizations? 2. What archaeological remains are important in reconstructing political organization, especially those involving inherited social inequities? 3. What archaeological remains help reconstruct social organization, especially kinship? 4. What techniques help reconstruct ancient trade networks?

3. Outline  Social Vocabulary  Archaeology and Gender  Archaeology and Kinship  Archaeology and Social Status  Trade and Political Organization

4. Social Vocabulary  Social organization, the rules and structures that govern relationships within a group of interacting people.  Societies are divided into social units (groups) within which are recognized social positions (statuses), with appropriate behavior patterns prescribed for these positions (roles).

5. Social Vocabulary  Political organization, a society’s formal and informal institutions that regulate a population’s collective acts.

6. Social Vocabulary  Chiefdom, a regional polity in which two or more local groups are organized under a single chief (who is the head of a ranked social hierarchy).  Unlike autonomous bands and villages, chiefdoms consist of several more or less permanently aligned communities or settlements.

7. Social Relationships  Never simple  People belong to groups on different levels: some crosscut one another, and others are hierarchically organized. For example, you have various roles  belong to one or more families  are a member of a town, a state, a country  are biologically male or female (see below), belong to a sports club, political party, or community organization

8. Social Groups  Residential  Consisting of domestic families, households, bands, villages  Physical agglomerations of people  Face-to-face associations  Residential group functions to regulate; nonresidential binds these territorial units together

9. Social Groups  Non-residential  Associations that regulate some aspect of society  Groups in the abstract sense  Some never convene  Manifested archeologically through the use of symbols, ceremonies, mythologies, or insignias of membership

10. Artifacts as Symbols  Information about social and political organization is derived from artifacts as material culture  Not just “things” but symbols of culture

11. Artifacts as Symbols  People manipulate material culture to send culturally specific symbolic messages.  i.e. bringing flowers to dinner as a way to thank a host is a culturally-specific standard American way to socially interact; Mikea, the forager- horticulturalists in Chapter 8, expect guests to bring tobacco.

12. Archaeology and Gender  Sex, refers to inherited, biological differences between males and females.  Gender refers to culturally constructed ideas about sex differences.

13. Archaeology and Gender  Berdaches, among Plains Indian societies, men who elected to live life as women; they were recognized by their group as a third gender.

14. Archaeology and Gender  Gender role, the culturally prescribed behavior associated with men and women; roles can vary from society to society.  Gender ideology, the culturally prescribed values assigned to the task and status of men and women; values can vary from society to society.

15. Archaeology and Gender  Androcentric, a perspective that focuses on what men do in society, to the exclusion of women.

16. Androcentric Bias  Viewing the world largely in terms of men’s activities and perceptions; in terms of white, middle- class European male understandings of the world.  Indian Knoll in western Kentucky is a shell midden, the remnants of shellfish collecting; some shellfish middens can become many meters thick. It is also a burial.

17. Androcentric Bias  Men were buried with axes, fishhooks, and other tools  Women were buried with beads, mortars, and pestles.

18. Androcentric Bias: Indian Knoll  Cautionary note: detect cultural biases, especially in matters of gender roles.  Inclusion of atlatls in women’s graves may have meant women, like men, were hunters. Three atlatl weights from the Indian Knoll site.

19. Working Around Androcentric Bias: Hunting in Africa’s Rain Forest  BaMbuti are hunter- gatherers in the Ituri Rain Forest of Central Africa  Two kinds of societies differ in hunting techniques, and should leave different archaeological signatures  Hunting technology depends in large measure on women’s choices. A young Aka girl removes a blue duiker caught in a net.

20. Reconstructing Male and Female Activities from Archaeology  Skeletal analysis can be used to determine mechanical stresses placed on males and females and significant differences in diets.  Ethnographic analogy or historical documents can be used.

21. Were Ceramics Made by Men or Women?  Prudence Rice surveyed ethnographic data and discovered that when pottery is made by hand (not on a wheel), it is usually fashioned by women.  Men usually manufacture pottery made on a wheel.

22. Were Ceramics Made by Men or Women?  Pottery wheels are associated with craft specialization and marketing of pottery.  When pottery moves from production for the residential group to production for the nonresidential group, it shifts from women to men.

23. Gender in Maya Iconography  Codices, Maya texts, long strips of paper, many meters in length when unfolded, made of the pounded bark of certain trees;  these texts helped analysts interpret Maya hieroglyphics on stelae. Maya carving from the site of Yaxchilan, Lintel 1. The figure at the right carrying a textile bundle is identified as a woman by the clothing she is wearing (a huipil ).

24. Archaeology and Kinship  Kinship, socially recognized network of relationships through which individuals are related to one another by ties of descent (real or imagined) and marriage.  A kinship system blends biological descent with cultural rules that define some people as close kin and others as distant kin.  Kin groupings condition the nature of relationships between individuals.

25. Forms of Kinship: Bilateral Descent  Bilateral descent, a kinship system in which relatives are traced equally on both the mother’s and father’s sides.  In bilateral descent, the nuclear family is the important economic unit.

26. Patrilineal and Matrilineal Descent

27. Forms of Descent: Patrilineal Descent  Patrilineal descent, a unilineal descent system in which ancestry is traced through the male line.  In unilineal descent, the lineage if the important economic unit.

28. Forms of Descent: Patrilineal Descent  Patrilineage, individuals who share a line of patrilineal descent.  Patrilineal societies make up about 60% of the world’s known societies.

29. Forms of Descent: Patrilineal Descent  In patrilineal descent, you acquire your patrilineage from your father.  They are associated with hunting-and gathering, agricultural, and pastoral societies.  They are also associated with internal warfare, that is, war with close neighbors.

30. Forms of Descent: Matrilineal Descent  Matrilineal descent, a unilineal descent system in which ancestry is traced through the female line.  A matrilineal lineage includes you, your mother, her siblings and her sisters’ offspring, your mother’s mother, etc.  Matrilineage, individuals who share a line of matrilineal descent.

31. Forms of Descent: Matrilineal Descent  Matrilineal societies compose only about 10% of the world’s societies.  They are associated with horticulture, long distance hunting, and/or warfare with distant enemies.

32. Lineages, Clans, and Moieties  Clans, a group of matri- or patri-lineages who see themselves as descended from a (sometimes mythical) common ancestor.

33. Lineages, Clans, and Moieties  Moieties, two groups of clans that perform reciprocal ceremonial obligations for one another; moieties often intermarry.  Moieties often perform reciprocal ceremonial obligations for each other, such as burying the dead of the other or holding feasts for one another.

34. Lineages, Clans, and Moeties

35. Mikea Hamlet Map With Kinship Chart

36. Residence Patterns  Patrilocal Residence – A newly married couple live in the groom’s village of origin; associated with patrilineal descent.  Matrilocal residence – A newly married couple live in the bride’s village of origin; associated with matrilineal descent.  Bilocal residence – The married couple reside either with the husband’s or the wife’s family.

37. Kinship at Chaco Canyon  Cross-cultural evidence of interior subdivisions of large houses suggests Chacoan society practiced matrilocal post-marital residence  Contradictory evidence from burials in Pueblo Bonito showed greater variation among female than male samples, suggesting postmarital residence patterns were patrilocal or bilocal

38. Archaeology and Social Status  Status, the rights, duties, privileges, powers, liabilities, and immunities that accrue to a recognized and named social position.

39. Archaeology and Social Status  Ascribed status – Rights, duties, and obligations that accrue to a person by inheritance. e.g. Britain’s Prince Charles’ status and rights ensured at birth.  Achieved status – Rights, duties, and obligations that accrue by virtue of what a person accomplishes. e.g. a Shoshone man as a good hunter might achieve status as a leader of hunts.

40. Archaeology and Social Status: Egalitarian Societies  Egalitarian societies, social systems that contain roughly as many valued positions as there are persons capable of filling them; in egalitarian societies, all people have nearly equal access to the critical resources needed to live.  Small-scale egalitarian societies are called bands.

41. Archaeology and Social Status: Egalitarian Societies  The key to leadership is experience and social standing; a social position is not inherited in an egalitarian society.  Gender and age are the primary dimensions of status in egalitarian communities.

42. Archaeology and Social Status: Ranked Societies  Ranked societies, social systems in which a hierarchy of social status has been established, with a restricted number of valued positions available;  in ranked societies, not everyone has the same access to the critical resources of life.  Economies that redistribute goods and services throughout the community, with those doing the redistributing keeping some for themselves.

43. Archaeology and Social Status: Death and Social Status  Mortuary remains are one important source of information on extinct political systems.  Social ties existed between the living and the once living, and the ceremonial connections at death reflect these social relations.  Mortuary rituals reflect who people were and the relationships they had with others when they were alive.

44. Rank and Status at Moundville  Mississippian, a widespread cultural tradition across much of the eastern United States from AD 800–1500. Mississippian societies engaged in intensive village-based maize horticulture and constructed large, earthen platform mounds that served as substructures for temples, residences, and council buildings.

45. Rank and Status at Moundville  Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, an assortment of ceremonial objects that occurs in the graves of high-status Mississippian individuals. Ritual exchange of these artifacts crosscut the boundaries of many distinctive local cultures.

46. A Map of the Site of Moundville

47. How Well Did The Elite Eat?  Faunal analysis of trash associated with elite residences on Mounds G and Q evidenced many animals, (e.g. deer, turkey, bobcat, fox, bear, falcon)  Those living on top of the mounds ate choice cuts of meats, including imported items such as bison and shark.

48. How Well Did The Elite Eat?  Bone analysis indicated that men ate more meat than women; high-status men ate more meat than low-status men.  Nevertheless, commoners did not want for necessities.

49. Kinship at Moundville  Bonds of kinship integrated the society of elite and commoners  Moundville was a chiefdom  Analysis involved ethnographic analogy with 19 th Century Chickasaw, indicating two similar classes of mounds: burials and residential

50. Kinship at Moundville  In the Chickasaw camp layout, a large fire hearth in the center of the village structurally and symbolically united the two moieties; there was no central mound or ceremonial structure.  19 th century Chicasaw society was not a chiefdom and did not possess a central individual who was the uniting focus of the social and political organization.

51. Kinship at Moundville  In Moundville, the large Mound B, at the north end of the site, might have been the home of the chief– the highest ranking individual– and evidence of a tier in the social organization that was not present among the Chicasaw.

52. Trade and Political Organization  All societies exchange goods, ideas, and services.  The geographic scale of trade tells us about the nature of the nonresidential group that a residential group was part of and about the limits of political, economic, and kinship connections.

53. Trade and Political Organization  Exotics, material culture that was not produced locally and/or whose raw material is not found locally.

54. Trading Exotics  Direct acquisition, a form of trade in which a person/group goes to the source area of an item to procure the raw material directly or to trade for it or for finished products.  Down-the-line trade, an exchange system in which goods are traded outward from a source area from group to group, resulting in a steady decline in the item’s abundance in archeological sites farther from the source.

55. Fingerprinting Obsidian: why obsidian in Hopewell Mounds?  Hopewell, a cultural tradition found in the Ohio River Valley dating from 2200 to 1600 BP.  Hopewell societies engaged in hunting and gathering and horticulture of indigenous plants. They are known for their mortuary rituals, which included charnel houses and burial mounds; some central tombs contained exotics.  They also constructed geometric earthworks as ceremonial enclosures and effigy mounds.

56. Tracing Obsidian to it’s Source  Energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence (XRF), an analytical technique that uses obsidian’s trace elements to “fingerprint” an artifact and trace it to its geologic source.

57. Fingerprinting Ceramics  Instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), an analytical technique that determines the trace element composition of the clay used to make a pot to identify the clay’s geological source.

58. Fingerprinting Ceramics  Temper, material added to clay to give a ceramic item strength.  Petrographic analysis, identifies the mineral composition of a pot’s temper and clay through microscopic observation of thin sections.

59. Tracing Pottery in Micronesia  People inhabited Micronesian high islands and atolls at least 2000 years ago.  Expert mariners enabled trade between many of the islands and atolls.

60. Tracing Pottery in Micronesia  Ceremonial centers on some islands controlled exchange of goods, including pottery.  Islands, not atolls (largely coral and sand), source for clays, suggesting pottery on atolls imported from islands.  Petrographic analysis helps to reconstruct spatial extent of political alliances

61. Summary Questions 1. What concepts help archaeologists to reconstruct past social and political organizations? 2. What archaeological remains are important in reconstructing political organization, especially those involving inherited social inequities? 3. What archaeological remains help reconstruct social organization, especially kinship? 4. What techniques help reconstruct ancient trade networks?