ANTH 235, SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY

Elman Service’s four-fold scalar classification of human societies:

·  bands

·  tribes (also known as segmentary societies)

·  chiefdoms

·  early states

Elman Rogers Service (1915-1996), ca. 1940

TECHNIQUES OF STUDY FOR BAND-LEVEL SOCIETIES:

In band societies, economic organization and, to a large extent, political organization are constructed exclusively at a local level – there are no permanent administrative centers.

Investigating activities within a site: the aim is to understand the nature of the activities that took place there, and of the social group that used it.

One important distinction can be drawn between cave sites and open sites.

Ethnoarchaeology – links the ethnographic present (the systemic context) with the behavioral past (the archaeological context).

Koobi Fora, on east shore of Lake Turkana, northern Kenya; work of archaeologist, Glynn Isaac (1937-1985)

Glynn Isaac excavating an early Paleolithic site at

Olorgesailie, Kenya, ca. 1965


Investigating territories in mobile societies: Off-site archaeology – how do people use the territory between sites? Sampling strategy to determine density of stone tools over large area. Space and density are the two critical factors examined.

TECHNIQUES OF STUDY FOR SEGMENTARY SOCIETIES (TRIBES):

Investigating settlements in segmentary societies: Broken K Pueblo, Arizona; 1200-1300 CE; work of archaeologist James N. Hill (1934-1997)

Other approaches to the study of “tribal” societies:

·  The study of social ranking from individual burials

·  Collective works and communal action

·  Economics

(especially farming methods and craft specialization)

TECHNIQUES OF STUDY FOR CHIEFDOMS EARLY STATES:

First task: identify primary centers.

Second task: identify the functions of those centers. Current work of Arizona State University archaeologist George Cowgill at Teotihuacán, Mexico (below).

OTHER CONCERNS OF SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY:

INVESTIGATING SOCIAL RANKING:

The essence of a centralized society and of centralized government is a disparity between rich and poor in ownership, access to resources, facilities, power, and status. The study of social organization in complex societies is thus in large measure the study of social ranking.

Sources of data:

·  elite residences

·  evidence of great wealth

·  depictions of the elite

·  burials (the most abundant and useful resource)

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF GENDER:

[¹ feminist archaeology which has the explicit objective of exposing and correcting the historical androcentrism (male bias) of archaeology]

Sex is biologically determined and can be understood by archaeologists through the analysis of human skeletons.

Male (left) and female (right) fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster. “Male” and “female” are biologically determined characteristics.

Gender, however, is a social construct; therefore the roles associated with gender can vary from place to place and through time, even within a single society.

Gender studies in archaeology avoid simple correspondences between general classes of artifacts and single genders: no “men’s tools” versus “women’s tools”…


Three so-called “Venus figurines” from the later European Ice Age, ca. 25,000 years ago. (Left) Dolní Věstonice, Czech Republic, burnt clay; (center) Willendorf, Austria, limestone; (right) Lespugue, France, mammoth ivory.

How do we interpret the abundance of such female figures depicted in European art in the pre-Metal Age period?

·  Was there an “Old Europe” dominated by feminine values that disappeared in the Bronze Age with the emergence of a war-like male hierarchy?

·  Alternatively, did this elaborate female symbolism express objectification and subordination of women?

Which interpretation is correct?

Is either interpretation correct?

REMEMBER: you’ve heard it before – the archaeologist’s ability to interpret the material remains of the past is limited more by our theoretical naïveté and a lack of methodological sophistication than by the information itself in the ground.

For further reading, see:

Adovasio, J. M., O. Soffer, and J. Page. (2009). The Invisible Sex, Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

Owen, Linda R. (2005). Distorting the Past: Gender and the Division of Labor in the European Upper Paleolithic. Tübingen: Kerns Verlag.