The Archaeology of Social Organization

A Social Archaeology

Basic Social Elements of Culture:•Social organization: how is society organized overall•Social status: the status of individuals within society

Social rank, gender roles, ethnicity, etc.

Social Organization

Social Organization: Typology of four levels, from small-scale to very complex

Band/Tribe/Chiefdom/State

•Indicates degree of social complexity, allocation and distribution of power and authority in a society

•Linked to many other aspects of culture, including subsistence patterns, specialization of activities, economic systems, belief systems, patterns of kinship, etc.

Social Organization

Typology of Social Systems •Developed by Cultural Anthropologist Elman Service

•Used as a guide to classify different social systems, from small-scale to large and very complex

•Typology reflects idealized types and characteristics; variation in social types exists in reality

•Purpose of typology is for classification, comparison, and analysis of cultures in the present and the past

Levels of Social OrganizationBand•The original human social group, and the only form of social organization up until the Neolithic Revolution (beginning of agriculture); few bands remain today•Few status differences among individuals•Small scale, less than 100 individuals•Foragers (hunter-gatherers), collecting food where it naturally occurs•Often mobile, not staying in one place long•Since mobility is valued, not many possessions•Leave little material culture behind, but may reoccupy sites, leaving a history of occupation at locations that were often valued for nearby resources

Levels of Social Organization

Tribe, or Segmentary Society•Larger than band, several hundred people•Leadership roles are present, but not much social hierarchy•Settlements may be more permanent (sedentary), depending on subsistence pattern (how food is obtained), thus more likely to find sites•May be associated with pastoralism (herding, in which case may be mobile) or horticulture (simple agriculture, will have more established sites)

Levels of Social OrganizationChiefdom•1,000s of people +•Clear levels of social stratification—differences in social ranking among people•Permanent, large settlements, reflecting hierarchy of power and wealth•Mostly agricultural societies, with the development of specialized producers of goods•Formal chiefly authority, often hereditary, often linked with religious roles•Centrality associated with chiefly hierarchy evident in hierarchy of sites—larger, central architecture associated with chiefs, smaller surrounding settlements of supporting villages or peasants

Levels of Social Organization

State•Many thousands of people, extensive settlements in various-sized sites (hamlets, towns, cities)•Requires large-scale agricultural production to feed citizens•Permanent hierarchy within leadership roles•Record keeping typically part of a state; necessary for keeping track of citizens, commerce, taxation or tribute•Complex infrastructure reflected in sites•Labor-intensive projects, public works, large-scale monumental architecture, ritual centers•May have standing armies, sites often fortified•States that are expansive or control surrounding polities are considered empires

Social Status

Social Status and Social Organization•The more complex the society, the more likely there are differences in status among members of the society•Small-scale society: few status differences among individuals in bands (what cultural anthropologists call “egalitarian”)•As society becomes more complex, some people have more access to wealth, power, or prestige, societies become what we call “ranked” (slight differences in status) or “stratified” (high differences in status)

Social Status

Archaeological studies of status:•Higher status may be expressed in household architecture—some households better-located, larger, contain more goods, more wealth items•Differences in grave goods in burials can be a direct indicator of status--do some burials contain more goods, or more wealth items compared to others?

Above: Extremely wealthy burial, filled with many gold objects, as well as tools, pots, etc.

Social Status

General Types of Status:•Is social status earned during a lifetime or a permanent characteristic in a society?•Ascribed Status: born into a status group•Evidence of Ascribed Status: finding burials of infants and children with wealth items (too young to have earned it, must have been born with it)•Achieved Status: earned over a lifetime•Evidence of Achieved Status: only adults found with wealthy burials

Above: Fayum mummy portrait of a young boy, AD 150-200. Only 1-2% of Egyptians could probably afford such a wealth item.

Social Status: Gender

Gender Roles•Use of ethnographic analogy•Differences in skeletal remains, burial data may show differences in work patterns•Objects found in graves may indicate different status and different tasks associated with different genders•Art and iconography may provide clues about beliefs

Social Status: Gender

Gender Roles•Understand differences between sex and gender•Very simply put:

Sex: biological designationGender: culturally constructed identity

•We should question if gender roles in the past are the same as the present; how have our views on sex/gender today affected interpretations of the past?•Division of work roles based on gender are common at all levels of society; not necessarily unequal

Individuals in PrehistoryImagining the individual behavior that created the archaeological record: may be difficult to specifically locate, but clearly true!

Pompeii bodiesInka mummy, sacrificial victim

Paleolithic era handprint