Complex Societies Flashcards
Ashmore, Wendy
1991 Site-Planning Principles and Concepts of Directionality among the Ancient Maya. Latin American Antiquity 2(3):199-226.
Main point: Societies use architecture as a means of symbolic expression and overall architectural constructions can constitute a culture’s worldview. Ashmore tests this theory at Copan and specifically an area called the north group, a congregation of elite households. She believes that symbolic expressions are most clearly seen in civic constructions (elite housing, etc.). I disagree. Critique: Ashmore to examine worldview maps through site layouts, etc., but does not examine architecture, she limits her discussion to burials at the north group, Copan. She also suggests that civic architecture is the best place to examine symbolic expressions, as these constructed with these in mind. However, I think that domestic architecture will show more clearly worldview maps (what Ashmore is after), because they are constructed with these unconsciously in mind. Civic architecture blurs people’s worldview with politics, ritual, notions of power and authority, and religion. Also, she is upstreaming—she used post-Classic Aztec mythology to argue for the meaning of the iconography.
Brumfiel, Elizabeth M., and Timothy K. Earle
1987 Specialization, Exchange, and Complex Societies: An Introduction. In Specialization, Exchange, and Complex Societies, edited by E. M. Brumfiel and T. K. Earle, pp. 1-9. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Main Point: “Most previous treatments of specialization, exchange, and social complexity have followed one of three models: commercial developmental model (specialization and exchange increases as an autonomous process dictated by economic efficiency and the pursuit of individual advantage; specialization and exchange are integral to economic growth), adaptionist model (political elites are assumed to intervene in the economy), and political model (local leaders play an important role in organizing specialization and exchange; they are also the primary benefactors; elites employ specialization and exchange to maintain power). The authors suggest these are all incorrect, yet we can understand specialization, exchange, and complex societies by distinguishing between subsistence goods and wealth, independent and attached specialists, and staple and wealth finance.
Chase-Dunn, Christopher, and Thomas D. Hall
2001 Conceptualizing Core/Periphery Hierarchies for Comparative Study. In Core/Periphery Relations in Precaptialist Worlds, edited by C. Chase-Dunn and T. D. Hall, pp. 5-44. Westview Press, Boulder.
Main point: The authors are looking to clarify the concepts needed for a comparative study of core/periphery relations. Many of the concepts used today were developed for examining contemporary capitalist societies. Changes need to be made in order to look at the differences among core/periphery hierarchies in stateless, state-based and capitalist world-systems. The authors argue that we don’t always have to assume that the developed core exploits the undeveloped periphery. Also, relations with the periphery don’t have to only be realized once the periphery is incorporated into the economy of the core. Instead, periphery-core interaction begins with simple exploitation. This suggests there is a contact zone between the two, or what that authors call the semiperiphery.
Costin, Cathy L.
1991 Craft Specialization: Issues in Defining, Documenting, and Explaining the Organization of Production. Archaeological Method and Theory 3:1-56.
Main Point: Costin argues that we need a unifying definition for the organization of production (OP). The OP is exposed to three things: 1) the distribution of raw materials; 2) the nature of the technology; 3) skill and training. Specialization is part of production, but they are not the same. An explicit definition of specialization is: “specialization is a differentiated, regularized, permanent, and perhaps institutionalized production system in which producers depend on extra-household exchange relationships at least in part for their livelihood, and consumers depend on them for acquisition of goods they do not produce themselves.” The following four parameters describe the organization of production: Context of production (the nature of control over production; attached and independent specialists); Regional concentration of production facilities; Scale of production units; Intensity of production (part-time or full-time). These four things are subjected to social, economic, political, and environmental variables to produce 8 types of organization (Costin’s typology).
Cowgill, George L.
1992 Social Differentiation at Teotihuacan. In Mesoamerican Elites: An Archaeological Assessment, edited by D. Chase and A. Chase, pp. 206-220. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Main point: At present the question of emic vs. etic conceptualizations of wealth and status at Teotihuacan cannot be answered. At present the emic view is still under consideration. Most Mesoamerican societies tend to think in terms of two classes which are differentiated from each other but internally homogenous. The view at Teotihuacan is still uncertain. Etic conceptualizations show that in any complex society there are many gradations of power, prestige, and wealth each of which change over time. From this view a dichotomy of elite and commoner is too simple.
Culbert, T. Patrick
1991 Maya Political History and Elite Interaction: A Summary View. Classic Maya Political History: Hieroglyphic and Archaeological Evidence, edited by T. P. Culbert, pp. 311-346. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Main point: It is argued that there is strong continuity from the pre-Classic to Classic period in the Maya world and that monuments (among other things) suggest that individuals emerged “from a more general theocratic elite at this time.” Basically, this article is saying that during this period there was a lot of interaction.
D’Altroy, Terence N., Timothy K. Earle
1985 Staple Finance, Wealth Finance, and Storage in the Inka Political Economy. Current Anthropology 26(2):187-206.
Main Point: The authors attempt to understand how economic organization changes within developing (complexity) societies. They argue that the Inca economy was dichotomized in staple and wealth finance. Staple finance is obligatory payments to the state of subsistence goods such as grains, livestock, and clothing, while wealth finance involves the manufacture and procurement of special products that are used as a means of payment. Both were important to the Inca economy and unlike previous interpretations, we should no discount staple finance (this interpretation is based on written, historical accounts that suggest the Inca economy was only based on labor or mita).
Feinman, Gary, and Joyce Marcus
1998 Archaic States. School of American Research, Santa Fe.
Main point: We cannot rely on textual information to identify earliest archaic states since most had either no writing or limited writing. Palaces can be large and multifunctional as in Knossos or smaller and residential as in Oaxaca. Tombs can clue to kingship, however they have to be contextualized with the rest of the evidence. Archaic states likely had official religion, which means they had standardized temples and residences for their priests. 4 tiered settlement patterns can clue in a state, as long as one can show administrative functions at the 3 upper tiers. While there is a general increase in polity size since Neolithic, this trend was not unilineal, inevitable, innate, or constant. Not a law-like consequence of evolutionary forces. States extremely variable in size with no clear-cut threshold.
Flannery, Kent V.
1972 The Cultural Evolution of Civilizations. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 2:399-426.
Main point: Prime movers won’t cut it, we need to look at multivariant causality and perceive of the state as a living system (systems theory). In this way, society is a large system composed of sub-systems–here complexity is measured by segregation (the amount of internal differentiation and specialization among subsystems) and centralization (how close subsystems are to the highest-order controls of society). Controls=institutions. If a sub-system cannot do what it needs to do, either a smaller subsystem takes over (promotion) or a higher order subsystem takes over (linearization). This is the type of stuff that archaeologists ate up–the distinction between bands, tribes, chiefdom, state, Each had characteristics that could be found archaeologically, if your site had all the requirements to be a chiefdom, then you were dealing with a chiefdom.
Freidel, David A.
1992 Children of the First Father’s Skull: Terminal Classic Warfare in the Northern Maya Lowlands and the Transformation of Kinship and Elite Hierarchies. In Mesoamerican Elites: An Archaeological Assessment, edited by D. Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase, pp. 99-117. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Main point: Comparison of northern and southern Maya lowlands. Friedel examines the emergence of rulership in the Maya world. He argues that warfare, the capture of sacrificial elites, and lineage ties created prestige and status. One example of this gained status in the ahau, which is a lord and applies to kinship. In the southern Maya lowlands, competing Maya polities created other institutions of status, such as lower kings, and multiple ahaus. In the north, grand elites controlled everything, and through warfare and ritual sacrifice consolidated into large, long-term polities. This was done with a new mechanism of large-scale state formation. In the south, this did not develop–although warfare practices were the same–and the south remained fragmented and empires could not form. Conclusions: While in the Southern Maya lowlands the sociopolitical climate consisted of a mosaic of small unstable polities that were oftentimes at odds with each other and would sometimes consolidate other polities into unstable kingdoms, in the Northern Maya Lowlands warfare was aimed at state formation. He cites iconographic and textual evidence that suggests that in the Southern Lowlands there were numerous elite positions and local elites vied for power through warfare. Meanwhile in the north, great elites retained the majority of power. In the northern lowlands, elites managed to consolidate a conquest state by transforming the institution of dynastic kingship based on the Ahau into that of the Mul Tepal. This ruler gained status through warfare and the ritual sacrifice that came along with it.
Kolata, Alan L.
1991 The Technology and Organization of Agricultural Production in the Tiwanaku State. Latin American Antiquity 2(2):99-125.
Main Point: This paper attempts to show that Tiwanaku was a cohesive, integrated state through an investigation of Tiwanaku agricultural technology and production. This paper also suggests that agricultural production during this period turned on the creation of canals, aqueducts, and groundwater regulation and massive raised field systems; and that these systems were controlled by hierarchical interaction between urban and rural settlements and a substantial degree of political centralization. Raised-fields did benefit local populations but there is archaeological evidence of capital investment in the reclamation of arable land and in altering and controlling the hydrological regime of the systems (Tiwanaku engineers)—this implies the action of a regional political authority.
Lightfoot, Kent G., Antoinette Martinez, and Ann. M. Schiff
2010 Daily Practice and Material Culture in Pluralistic Settings: An Archaeological Study of Culture Change and Persistence from Fort Ross, California. In Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism, edited by R. Preucel and S. A. Mrozowski, pp. 191-215. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden.
Main Point: Archaeologists need to better develop theories of interaction, pluralism, and individual action into archaeology. Studies focusing on the colonial period have favored an approach that views acculturation based on the presence of colonial artifacts. Recently, this has been replaced by a more complex approach that includes percentages of native and European artifacts, etc. These new approaches have all favored a more contextual approach. This is all put into a diachronic and multiscalar study of Fort Ross. In the application of this approach it was discovered that the organizational principles of the Russian colonists dominated the broader landscape but at the community and household scale, Kashaya and Alutiiq principles dominated in varying ways.
McGuire, Randall H.
1982 Breaking down Cultural Complexity: Inequality and Heterogeneity. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 6:91-142.
Main point: There is no great divide between stateless and state societies. Increasing inequality doesn’t always accompany increasing heterogeneity. This article is a critique of rigid typologies and the all encompassing term of complexity. McGuire argues that we need to look at inequality (differential access to goods) and heterogeneity (distribution of populations between social groups). Problems?: I don’t see the difference between this dichotomy and Flannery’s (1972) variables of centralization and segregation.
Schortman, Edward E.
1989 Interregional Interaction in Prehistory: The Need for a New Perspective. American Antiquity 54(1):52-65.
Main point: In interregional interaction studies we need to shift away from “spatially distinct cultures and their relations to the physical environment.” Social identity has a role in this reorientation—it forces us to look at the interactions themselves and ask: “who is interacting with whom, under what conditions, and what are the effects of contact on social change.” In this paper, Schortman is really advocating that social identity take over evolutionary perspectives in the study of interregional interaction. The basic premise to social identity is one based on Rappaport (1982), who argues that all human action is governed by cultural categories that are attached to specific behaviors. Categories include age, sex, wealth, etc. Some of the most looked at types of identity are ethnicity and class. Ethnicity and class are self-ascribed (whole paper relies on this). Don’t know if I agree with this. He says these are self-ascribed categories whose members share common assumptions and values. Archaeologically they share similar patterns and material culture. However, often times, especially in state societies, your material culture isn’t chosen by you, but placed upon you.
Smith, Michael E.
1987 Household Possessions and Wealth in Agrarian States: Implications for Archaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 6:297-335.
Main Point: Smith develops a model for understanding household wealth. Overall, he investigates seven household indicators of household wealth (e.g., furniture, tools, food preparation items, etc.) and concludes that clothing and serving ware are among the best indicators of wealth. But given formation processes (preservation) and cross-cultural practices (reuse and curation), serving ware is the best. Critique: We need to begin to understand that our conceptions of wealth were not the same in the past. Smith uses contemporary economic theory and excludes important aspects of wealth in prehistory, such as symbolic wealth. Also, another critique is that Smith describes 7 different markers or types of wealth. He discusses these separately and investigates them separately. In reality, wealth is distributed across all 7, and the wealthy have more than 7.
