Social Organization

Question 1

What is social organization?

Answer 1

The form, structure, and pattern of relationships of people within a society, creating a unified whole of inter-functioning parts.

Question 2

What may social organization include?

Answer 2

Institutions, economic structures, kin organization, and political organization.

Question 3

What are the characteristics of social organization?

Answer 3

Characterized by horizontal and vertical divisions.

Question 4

What does egalitarian mean in social structure?

Answer 4

A social structure characterized by equality with little or no formal power structures or authority.

Question 5

What is hierarchy in social structure?

Answer 5

A social structure is characterized by stratification, which ranks individuals and groups based on power, prestige, or status. 1 or more groups who exercise power or make decisions for society.

Question 6

What evidence supports social organization?

Answer 6

Demography, burials, architecture, settlement patterns, and site layout.

Question 7

What is a band in socio-political organization?

Answer 7

A group of nuclear families, kinship-based, hunter-gatherers, and egalitarian.

Question 8

What is a tribe in socio-political organization?

Answer 8

Predominantly farmers, sedentary, consisting of multiple families, and egalitarian.

Question 9

What is a chiefdom?

Answer 9

A socio-political organization with hereditary leadership and hierarchy.

Question 10

What defines a state in socio-political organization?

Answer 10

A supra-kin organization with hierarchy and political power sanctioned by force.

Question 11

What are Childe’s 10 characteristics of a city within a state?

Answer 11

Large dense population, craft specialization, food surplus, central administration, social stratification, monumental architecture, sophisticated art, long-distance trade, writing, development of arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy.

Question 12

What is the significance of Catalhoyuk?

Answer 12

A neolithic site significant for its high population density and evidence of proto-urbanism.

Question 13

What is the hypothesis for the origins of the state according to Childe’s Urban Revolution theory?

Answer 13

1. Farming leads to surplus, 2. Surplus leads to craft specialists and central administration, 3. Craft specialization and central administration lead to social stratification and state.

Question 14

What is Wittfogel and Steward’s hydraulic hypothesis?

Answer 14

1. Large-scale irrigation allows for higher output -> construction of irrigation works 2. Irrigation works require maintenance, scheduling of water use, and defense of canals from hostile neighbors. 3. Formation of central administration to manage irrigation works 4. Growing power among water managers -> managers become managers of other aspects of society 5. Administrative elite + labor specialization -> social stratification -> state society

Question 15

What is Frankfort’s religious hypothesis?

Answer 15

1. unpredictable environment -> insecurity 2. insecurity -> increased dependence on gods 3. people build temples in return for prosperity 4. Temples draw in more people -> temples become more important 5. Temples req specialist personnel and gain more power (priests, builders, etc) 6. Temple personnel admin to community around the temple -> need for recording and accounting 7. Writing and distributive economy -> state

Question 16

What is social complexity?

Answer 16

Found in hunter-gatherer societies and characterized by various stages of cultural evolution.

Question 17

What is unilinear cultural evolution?

Answer 17

The theory that all cultures pass through the same sequence of evolutionary stages.

Question 18

What is the significance of the Venus figurines?

Answer 18

They date back to 35kya and are associated with early human artistic expression.

Question 19

What does post-processual archaeology emphasize?

Answer 19

Democratizing archaeology and recognizing bias through community engagement.

Question 20

What are some examples of ritual and symbolic practices at Catalhoyuk?

Answer 20

Wall paintings, painted hand prints, and manipulation of skulls.

Question 21

What is the most important shift?

Answer 21

Moving from an egalitarian structure to a hierarchical one

Question 22

What would be evidence in the archaeological record for high-status individuals?

Answer 22

More elaborate + valued material possessions, use of architecture to distinguish status, or control/access to particular foods or resources.

Question 23

Band?

Answer 23

group of nuclear families, kinship, hunter-gatherers, egalitarian

Question 24

Tribe?

Answer 24

• predominantly farmers, sedentary, multiple families, egalitarian - could be numerous bands in an alliance, more complex kinship

Question 25

State?

Answer 25

supra-kin, hierarchy, political power sanctioned by force

Question 26

Civilization?

Answer 26

refers to a state society or a regional tradition composed of multiple states - e.g. Empires - defining what is/is not a civilization are value judgments - ‘civilized’

Question 27

What are the strengths and weaknesses of Childe’s 10 Characteristics of a city within a state or civilization?

Answer 27

Strengths - archaeologically identified,
Weaknesses - not all states have these characteristics, non-state societies may have some of these characteristics, how do we define a large, dense population? Continued to be used, despite limitations

Question 28

What is social stratification?

Answer 28

A hierarchy of more than two tiers, e.g. King, Nobles, Knights, Serfs

Question 29

Origins of the State

Answer 29

Occurred independently in various regions around the world during the Holocene. The earliest locations were in the fertile crescent (where agriculture was first seen). First seen in Mesopotamia, then Egypt.

Question 30

What are the weaknesses of the Hydraulic hypothesis?

Answer 30

e.g. Nazca was not a state but had irrigation - non-state societies that have irrigation systems, Irrigation can be enacted through cooperation, state societies could have taken adv of natural waterways, not needing large-scale irrigation - it is true that if you control the water, you have the power

Question 31

What are the strengths and weaknesses of Frankfort’s religious hypothesis?

Answer 31

Strengths - more focused on a social trigger, centred on ideology + religion rather than economy - early Mesopotamian cities have conspicuous temples
Weaknesses - not easy to test archaeologically - chicken-egg Q for central admin and emergence of the state - societies exist that redistribute wealth but are not states

Question 32

What can Demography tell us?

Answer 32

Population size, density - the greater the population density typically indicates the presence of a hierarchy. This is because it is harder to keep larger amounts of people together and cooperating.

Question 33

Edward Tylor’s theory of Unilinear origins of civilization

Answer 33

Savagery -> Barbarism -> civilisation

Question 34

Lewis Henry Morgan’s theory of Unilinear origins of civilization?

Answer 34

(1) lower savagery, (2) middle savagery (fish, fire), (3)Upper savagery (bow and arrow),(4) lower barbarism (pottery), (5) middle barbarism (domestication, irrigation), (6) upper barbarism (iron), 7 civilization (phonetic alphabet)

Question 35

What are the problems with sociocultural evolution?

Answer 35

Notions of progress and advancement (some are vs others aren’t, e.g. hunter-gatherer) - ethnocentric, eurocentric.

Question 36

What does Ethnocentric mean?

Answer 36

The viewing of other cultures based on the standards of ones own culture; ones own culture is superior

Question 37

What does Eurocentric mean?

Answer 37

viewing other cultures based on the standards of Western values.

Question 38

Social complexity…

Answer 38

also carries the same baggage as social evolution - laden with value judgments: simple vs complex, primitive vs modern/developed, uncivilized vs civilized, implies some groups lacked capability/intelligence,
□ Does any society not have complexity?