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58 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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polity
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largest social unit
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Elman Service
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anthropologist who developed a four-fold classification of societies that many archaeologists have found useful
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hunter-gatherer groups
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small-scale societies of hunters and gatherers, generally of fewer than 100 people, who move seasonally to exploit wild food resources
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segmentary societies
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larger than mobile hunter-gatherer groups, but rarely number more than a few thousand, and their diet and subsistence is based largely on cultivated plants and domesticated animals; typically are settled farmers
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typical settlement pattern for segmentary societies?
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settled ag homesteads or villages
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dispersed settlement pattern
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ex. of this pattern would be isolated, permanently occupied houses
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nucleated settlement pattern
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example of this pattern would be permanent villages
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chiefdoms
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operate on the principle of ranking - differences in social status in between people; prestige and rank are determined by how closely related one is to the chief, and there is no true stratification into classes
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key characteristic feature of chiefdom
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the existence of a permanent ritual and ceremonial center that acts as a central focus for the entire polity
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early states
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preserve many features of chiefdoms, but the ruler has explicit authority to establish laws and also to enforce them by the use of a standing army. society no longer depends totally upon kin relationships: it is now stratified into different classes
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uses of settlement pattern information
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1. to identify the social and political territories around centers, in order to establish the political organization of the landscape
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central place theory
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developed my German geographer Walter Christaller; argued that in a uniform landscape - without mountains or rivers or variations in the distribution of soils and resources - the spatial patterning of settlements would be perfectly regular.... the basic feature is that each major center will be some distance from its neighbors and will be surrounded by a ring of smaller settlements in a hierarchically nested pattern. in political and economic terms the major center will supply certain goods anad services to its surrounding area and will exact certain goods and services in return
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site hierarchy
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the analysis of site sizes is a useful basic approach. in archaeological studies, the sites are usually listed in rank order by size (i.e. in a ____ ___________) and then displayed as a histogram
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Thiessen polygons
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simple geometrical shapes that divide an area into a number of separate territories, each focused on a single site
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XTENT modeling
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the size of each center is assumed to be directly proportional to its area of influence; the influence of each center is thought of as analogous to a bell or bell-tent in shape: the greater the size of the center, the higher the tent
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further sources of info for social organization
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written records; oral tradition and "ethnohistories"; ethnoarchaeology
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cave sites
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in ____ ______, the physical extent of human occupation is largely defined by debris scattered within the cave itself and immediately outside it; occupation deposits tend to be deep, usually indicating intermittent human activity over thousands or tens of thousands of years
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open sites
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in these, occupation deposits - without the protection provided by a cave - may have suffered greater erosion
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artifacts of administration
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indications of a centrally organized administration; most obvious are clay sealings found at secondary centers where the redistributive system is administered; imperial seals in any empire, royal emblems, etc
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standardization of weights and measures
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standardization of ________ and _________; found within most centrally administered econ systems
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road system
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existence of a good _____ _________ is important to the administration of any land-based empire
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investigating social ranking
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elite residences, great wealth, depictions of the elite, burials**
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investigating econ specialization
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intensified farming; taxation, storage, and redistribution; craft specialists
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relationships between centralized societies
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conflict and warfare**
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habitus
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Bourdieu; socially constituted structuring principles or dispositions operating within each individual
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framing
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Verhoeven; the way in which people and/or activities and/or objects are set off from others for ritual, non-domestic purposes; mainly achieved by creating a special place and time, and by the use of uncommon objects. burials are among the most obvious framed and ritual contexts
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tools and symbolism
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cognitive map... distinguished a tendency through time to produce an increasingly well-defined variety or assemblage of tool types. this implies that each person making tools had a notion of different tool forms, no doubt destined for different functions... planning and design in tool manufcature thus became relevant to our consideration of the cognitive abilities of early hominins
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uses of symbols
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1. establishment of place 2. measurement 3. planning 4. relations between human begins 5. human relations w/ the Other World 6. depiction
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Marxist archaeology
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1. evolutionary - seeks to understand the processes of change in human history through broad general principles 2. materialist - it sets the starting point of the idscussion in the concrete realities of human existence, with emphasis on the production of the necessities of life 3. holistic- has a clear view of the workings of societya s a hole and of the interrelation of the parts within that whole 4. "social formations" to which correspond diff. "modes of production" i.e. capitalist, primitive communism, ancient Greeks/Romans, Asiatic, feudal modes of production 5. change within a society comes aobout mainly from contradictions that arise between the forces of production and relations of production
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hydraulic hypothesis
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monocausal explanation; Karl Wittfogel; explained the origin of of great civilizations in terms of large-scale irrigation of the alluvial plains of the great rivers; **irrigation and "hydraulic organization" had to go together. examples... Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, India/Pakistan, China (Shang civilization)
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internal conflict
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monocausal explanation; Igor Diakonoff; state is seen as an organization that imposes order on class conflict, which itself arises from increased wealth; internal differentiation within the society is here seen as a major causative elemtn, from which other consequences follow
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warfare
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monocausal explanation; Kent Flannery; historically documented role of individual military leaders in the initial formation of state societies
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population growth
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monocausal explanation; Thomas Mathus; human population tends to grow to the limit permitted by the food supply; "Carrying capacity"
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environmental circumscription
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monocausal explanation; Robert Carneiro; lays stress on the constraits imposed by the environment and onthe role of warfare; development of strong leadership in time of war is one of the key factors
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external trade
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monocausal explanation; William Rathje; argued that in lowland areas lacking basic raw materials there will be pressure for the development of more integrated and highly organized communities able to esnure the regular supply of those materials
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simulation
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multivariate explanation; a model concerned with change through time; are of considerable help in the development of explanations
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critical theory
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"Frankfurt School" of gERman thinkers; 1970s; stresses that all knowledge is historical, distorted communication, and that any claims to seek "objective" knowledge are illusory; *no such thing as an objective fact
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structuralist
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Post-processual; human actions are guided by beliefs and symbolic concepts, and that the proper object of study is the structures of thought in the minds of humans who made the artifacts
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cognitive archaeology
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1. incorporation of info about cognitive/symbolic aspects of early societies into its formulations 2. ideology is an active force within societies 3. material culture is seen as an active factor 4. role of internal conflict within societies 5. cyclical change and underlying long-term trends 6. creative role of the individual w/o resorting to mere intuition or extreme subjectivity 7. "Laws of culture process" as universal laws like those of physics is not a fruitful path towards explanation in archaeology
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pristine states
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unique events in which a new state arises in a context in which there are no extant other states
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secondary state
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occurs when a stateless polity that is in interaction with one or more already existing states develops a noble/commoner class structure and builds a new state w/ specialized institutions of regional control
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interpretive archaeology
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retains a commitment to social critique on the basis for truth claims, while at the same time embedding truth claims within archae data; **moving away from text as a metaphor for material culture and towards practice and "embodiment" (breaking down of oppositions between mind and body) **making sense of the past by making connections
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processual approach
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attempts to isolate and study the different processes at work within a society and between societies, placing emphasis on: 1. enviro-human relations 2. subsistence/econ 3. social relations within society 4. impact of ideology/belief systems 5. effects of interactions taking place between diff. social units
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Post-Pleistocene Adaptations
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Binford study; processual interp; too "functionalist", not enough emphasis on social/cognitive factors; centered his explanation on demography/sedentary life and population increase
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monocausal explanations
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hydraulic hypothesis, internal conflict, warfare, population growth, environmental circumscription, external trade
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systems approach
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multivariate; subsystems, systems parameters, input/output, negative/positive feedback... criticisms-> too mechanistic, not humanistic enough
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post-processual approach
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interpretive; structuralist- human actions are guided by beliefs and symbolic concepts and that the proper object of study is the structures of thought in the minds of humans who made the artifacts
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European Megaliths
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post-processual explanation example; earlier explanations failed to consider historical/cultural context **what the meaning was for the tombs' existence
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early phase
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Southern England; long barrows... each monument-> focal pt for social activities and burial place of farming community inhabiting local territory. **segmentary society**
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later phase
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Southern England; no more long barrows or causewayed camps; *Stonehenge. increased labor from early phase..... ***ranked society - specialized labor
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difference between chiefdom and state
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states have rulers with explicit authority to establish laws and also to enforce them by the use of a standing army
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uses of symbols
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1. establishment of place 2. measurement 3. planning 4. relations between human begins 5. human relations w/ the other world 6. depiction
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archaeological signs of ritual
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1. focusing of attention 2. boundary zone b/w this world and the next 3. presence of deity 4. participation and offering
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Chavin
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1. imposing architecture - set apart living areas at the site 2. ritual-both conspicious display and hidden mysteries ((Lanzon!!)) 3. drug-induced rituals 4. Lanzon - anthropomorphic being; sculptures-iconography of caymans, jaguars, eagles, snakes
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Focusing of Attention
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ritual is in nature i.e. cave spring; ritual is in special building i.e. temple or church; alters, lamps, bells, etc. *redundancy - richness of repeated symbols
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Boundary Zone b/w This world and the Next
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public display, hidden exclusive mysteries; *practice reflected in architecture
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Presence of Deity
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cult image of deity; iconography and animal symbolism
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Participation and Offering
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prayer; imagery of prayer; music, dance, drugs, infliction of pain; animal/human sacrifice; food/drink; great investment of wealth for offerings, sacred buildings, etc
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