1. Reconstructing Social and Political Systems of the Past
Chapter 10
Reconstructing Social and Political Systems of the Past

2. Outline Archaeology and Gender Archaeology and Kinship
Archaeology and Social Status
Trade and Political Organization

3. Social Vocabulary Social Organization-
Rules and structures that govern relationships within a group of interacting people.
Residential groups appear in the archaeological record as households and villages.
Nonresidential groups are manifested archaeologically through the use of symbols, ceremonies, mythologies, or insignias of membership.

4. Social Vocabulary Political Organization-
The formal and informal institutions that regulat a society’s collective acts.
Control may be at level of residential or nonresidential level
Four broad areas of human social and political behavior: gender, kinship, social status, and trade.

5. From Artifacts to Symbols
Information about social and political organization is derived from artifacts
Artifacts are not just “things” but symbols
How an artifact enters the archaeological record is often a project of what it means
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, expect guests to bring tobacco.

6. Archaeology and Gender
Sex refers to inherited, biological differences between males and females
Gender refers to culturally constructed ideas about sex differences.
Humans have only two sexes, male and female – but there can be more than two genders.
Some societies recognize men who live as women or women who live as men as a third gender.
In some Plains Indian tribes, berdaches were men who chose to live as women, performing women’s roles.

7. Archaeology and Gender
Androcentric – a perspective that focuses on what men do in a society, to the exclusion of women
i.e. hunting weaponry assumed to be always male, plant collecting gear always female
i.e. Burials with atlatls in the Indian Knoll site.

8. Hunting in Africa’s Rainforest
The BaMbuti live in the Ituri Rain Forest of Central Africa and are hunter-gatherers
Nearly all exchange meat for agricultural produce with their neighbors the Bantu (horticulturalists).
Two kinds of BaMbuti societies differ in hunting technology (different archaeological record).
Anthropologists Bailey and Aunger explained how women decide to hunt or work the fields depending on the greatest return for their effort.

9. Reconstructing Male and Female Activities from Archaeology
For decades the field was male-dominated
Archaeologists were unaware of the extent to which their own culture affected the way they viewed and understood the world.
Half of all professional archeologist in the U.S. today are women.
Ceramics made by hand were probably made by women.
Ceramics made by wheel was probably made by men due to the larger scale of production.

10. Gender in Maya Iconography
The Maya remarkable art style was often depicted on stone stelae, polychrome, pottery, paintings and carvings, and codices.
Images commonly depict Maya wearing intricate costumes.
Women are often portrayed weaving, preparing maize and serving food to others.
Maya iconography displays women wearing three distinctive dress styles.

11. Yaxchilan Stelea

12. Cargo System
A system were a responsible married man is selected to direct the ceremonial system.
The wife takes the title of “mother of” the man’s named position.
In this way, men and women occupy complementary roles during the feasts of the cargo system.
Women shown on stelae are partners in marriages between royal families.
The purpose of women in these images is starkly different form the cargo system.

13. Archaeology and Kinship
Kinship refers to the 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.

14. Bilateral Descent
The standard kinship in North America, as well as many other industrialized nations.
An individual traces his or her relatives equally on the mother’s and father’s sides.
In bilateral descent, the nuclear family is the important economic unit.

15. Unilineal Descent Patrilineal Descent Matrilineal Descent
The nuclear family may constitute the residential unit.
Most important is the people who are related through the male line or patrilineage.
Make up about 60% f the world’s known societies.
Associated with foragers, agricultural and pastoral societies and internal warfare.
Matrilineal Descent
Matrilineal societies trace their lineage from the mother’s family.
These are rare, only about 10% of the world’s societies.
Appear to be associated with horticulture, long-distance hunting and warfare with distant enemies.

16. Matrilineal & Patrilineal Kinship Charts

17. Lineages, Clans, and Moieties
Lineages are sometimes clustered into clans, a set of lineages that claim to share a distant, sometimes mythical, ancestor.
Clans may be clustered into moieties.
Moieties often perform reciprocal ceremonial obligations for each other, such as burying the dead of the other or holding feasts for one another.

18. Lineages, Clans, and Moeties

19. Archaeology and Social Status
The rights, duties, privileges, powers, liabilities, and immunities that accrue to a recognized and named social position.
Ascribed status – Rights, duties, and obligations that accrue to a person by inheritance.
Achieved status – Rights, duties, and obligations that accrue by virtue of what a person accomplishes.

20. Egalitarian Societies
A society where there is no fixed number of positions of status: members generally have equal access to critical, life-sustaining resources.
No one individual has complete authority over another
Status is achieved
Gender and age are the primary dimensions of status in egalitarian communities.
i.e., Great Basin Shoshone

21. Ranked Societies
Limit the positions of valued status so that not everyone of sufficient talent can achieve them.
Relatively permanent social stations are maintained with people having unequal access to life-sustaining resources.
Economies that redistribute goods and services throughout the community, with those doing the redistributing keeping some for themselves.
i.e., Northwest Coast tribes

22. Death and Social Status
Mortuary remains are one important source of information on extinct political systems.
Societies that have important social distinctions among living individuals also have material distinctions among the dead
Mortuary rituals reflect who people were and the relationships they had with others when they were alive.

23. Rank and Status at Moundville
Moundville is one of the bset known ceremonial centers, having 30 earthen mounds, it was a bustling ritual center between 550 and 550BP.
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.

24. The Symbolism of Grave Goods 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.

25. Trade and Political Organization
All societies exchange goods, ideas, and services.
As societies change from egalitarian bands ot ranked societies, the formal trade of exotics becomes an integral part of the economy.
Human societies create two main types of trade systems:
Direct acquisition
Down-the-line trade

26. Related Video
Cracking the Maya Code
Documentary Shamans of the Amazon
Two-Spirits in American Indian Culture

27. Quick Quiz

28. Societies are divided into social units within which are recognized by _____ with appropriate ____ prescribed for these positions.

29. Answer: status; roles
Societies are divided into social units within which are recognized as status, with appropriate roles prescribed for these positions.

30. 2. ___ refers to inherited, biological differences between males and females. _____ refers to culturally constructed ideas about sex differences.

31. Answer: sex; gender
Sex refers to inherited, biological differences between males and females. Gender refers to culturally constructed ideas about sex differences.

32. 3. If a family recognizes ancestry traced through the female line, it is called ___________descent.
Matrilineal
Clan
Ranked
Patrilineal

33. Answer: A
Matrilineal descent is a unilineal descent system in which ancestry is traced through the female line.

34. 4. In a ranked society, the number of valued statuses is equal to the number of persons with the ability to fill them and no individual wields complete authority over another.
True
False

35. Answer: B. False
In an egalitarian society, the number of valued statuses is equal to the number of persons with the ability to fill them and no individual wields complete authority over another.