Chapter 5 Flashcards
basic first question for how society was organized
What is the scale of society?
Any site will have
its own hinterland
Its own catchment area for the feeding of its population
Polity
The largest social unit
what does polity not imply
any particular size or complexity of organization
a polity can apply to
any type of society
has not always been a stable system of government
Democracy
Best answer for study of settlement
Social organization
Social organization
The scale and nature of individual sites
Social complexity
describes aspects of social ranking
One has to account for what is buried with the person is NOT
simply the exact equivalent either of status or of material goods owned or used in life
Relationship between the role and rank of the deceased during their life AND
the manner that the remains are disposed of and the accompanied artifacts
ACHIEVE STATUS
- Achieved status is determined by an individual’s performance or effort.
ASCRIBED STATUS
aspects determined at birth over which people had little control
After the graves in a cemetery has been dating
Next is to produce a frequency distribution of the number of different artifact types in each grave
What one is seeking to study is social sturcture as
a whole not just personal ranking in life
Good idea to understand the labor put into the
burial monument and any social implications
To understand a more complete picture of a ranked society
need to consider the burial customs of the society as a whole
Factor analysis
Involves the evaluation of the correlation among variables between assemblages
Cluster analysis
Groups assemblages together based on similarities
Residential structures can indicat
marked differences in status
Sometimes its best to combine detailed
study of structure with ethnoarchaeological approaches
More impressive than wealth is the
descriptions of persons of high status
what are some descriptions of persons of high status
a. Statues
b. In-relief sculpture
Wall paintings
Not all societies would
bury people in cemeteries
Prime source for sites that show very little remains of a site
public monument
Many simpler socities
have built substantial structures. Its not just well known sites like the Pyramids
Techniques used when searching for social information from monuments
Questions about size or scale of the monument
Spatial distribution in the landscape
Clues about the status of individuals buried in the monuments
Thiessen Polygons
delineate dominant regions or service areas for point data, such as stores or hospitals
Used to help examine distribution in well-defined regions
Thiessen Polygons
Not all forms of society are based on
rank
Social status can be based on
Gender
Age
Ethnicity
Lineage
Heterarchy
Highlights the diverse array of socities that fail to fit into a hierarchical model
Hierarchies often encompass
heterarchical relationships
Gender is not always
linked with social rank
Two main positions of gender in archaeology
- gender and gender difference are more complex than a simple male vs female and Other axes of difference have to be recognized
- Gender is part of a broader social framework
In many societies, children are not seen as socially male or female until
they reach the age of puberty
Gender also includes aspects like
- Age
- Wealth
- Religion
Ethnicity
Ethnicity
Existence of ethnic groups (such as tribal groups)
Not necessarily a ranked social status
Ethnicity
Ethnic groups are often correlated with
language areas
No need to divide the social world up into
named and discrete groups of people
what is NOT race
Ethnicity
Ethnos
ethnic group
Ethnos are an ethnic group defined as
a. Firm aggregate of people
b. Established on a given territory
c. Posses stable peculiarities of language and culture
d. Recognize their unity and differences from other similar foundations
The Celts
It was a term given to the barbarian tribes of northwest Europe by Classical authors
NOT A TRUE ETHNONYM
Celts
The scale of the area where a language can be spoken was influential
in determining the scale of the ethnic group that came later
important aspect of ethnicity
language
Lineages Two lines of approach
a. Examine genetic relationships at the individual level
b. Examine the long-term genetic history of the wider group
Haplotype
Indicative of a common ancestor in the male line
a set of DNA variants along a single chromosome that tend to be inherited together
haplotype
Population-specific polymorphism
- Genetic variation that is specific to a particular group or people
Haplogroup in the female line is less spatially localized in a population than the male line
a. Stable and long-term residence patterns would favour local genetic features in Y-chromosomes
mean childbirth for males and females are _____, variance is likely to favour ____ as they may be preferred to ____
the same and males and females