Topic 20: Development of Social Complexity

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Topic 20 Development of Social Complexity
Text Chap 7
1 chiefdoms
2 urbanized states
Text Chap 8
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Complex Society

• artificial physical social environment

• maintained at enormous cost in physical, social
  ideational energy

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Levels of Social Complexity
Egalitarian
Band
unranked unstratified
Tribe
ranked unstratified
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Hierarchical
social inequality
Chiefdom
ranked stratified
State
ranked, stratified bureaucratic
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Social Inequality
differential access to material resources
material
hierarchical social relations
social
ideological domination
ideational
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Chiefdom

• ascribed status

• 2 levels elite commoners

• preferential access to resources

• economically specialized

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Ancient Chiefdoms
Europe
Eastern North America
Catal Huyuk
SW North America
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Anatolia
Catal Huyuk
7,000 to 6,000 BC
worlds first town?
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• 13 hectares

• 4,000 - 6,000 people

• chiefdom

• obsidian trade

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Bronze Age Europe
3500 - 700 BC

• chiefdoms

• fortified settlements

• craft specialization

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• trade in bronze amber

• megaliths

• Otzi 'Ice Man'

• 3350-3300 (radiocarbon)

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Megaliths
1. menhir (standing stone)
2. grouped menhirs
3. megalithic burial chambers
4. wood / stone henge
5. megalithic temple
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Stonehenge
I 2800-2200 BC
Heel Stone, Aubrey Pits earthworks
II 2100-2000 BC
Blue Stones
III 2000-1100 BC
Sarsens
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Eastern North America
2000 BC - AD 1650
Late Archaic 2000 700 BC
Adena-Hopewell 700 BC - AD 800
Mississippian AD 800 - 1650
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Late Archaic
Poverty Point, Louisiana

• 1300 - 700 BC

• Simple chiefdom?

• earthworks

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Adena -Hopewell
700 BC - AD 800

• chiefdoms

• craft specialization

• not fully agricultural

• earthworks e.g., Mound City

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Mississippian
AD 800 - 1650
complex chiefdoms
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• stratified society burials

• not highly urbanized

• fully agricultural

• monumental architecture

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Cahokia
AD 1000 - 1250

• capital of chiefdom

• 13 sq km / 16,000 people

• 100 earthen mounds

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Monks Mound

• earthen pyramid

• 30 metres (100) high

• 360 x 240 metres at base

• covers 6.4 hectares (16 acres)

• 650,000 cubic metres of earth

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Southwestern North America
Hohokam, Mogollon, Anasazi
AD 1 - 1300

• Pueblo culture

• simple chiefdoms?

• e.g., Pueblo Bonito

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State
three levels
1. elite
2. bureaucracy
3. commoners
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State

• centralized government

• political religious elites

• coercion

• full-time specialists

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Empire
extension of state
warfare conquest
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Archaeological Evidence

• Settlement System Pattern

• Architecture

• Occupational Specialization

• Mortuary Practices

• Record Keeping

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Settlement Pattern

• variation in settlement size

• variation in settlement functions

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• variation in placement of settlements relative to
  the environment each other

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Architecture

• architectural variability reflects economic,
  social political differentiation within the
  community

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Occupational Specialization

• division of community into functionally
  interdependent entities

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Mortuary Practices

• correlation exists between level of social
  complexity treatment of dead

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Record Keeping
e.g., writing
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MODELS

• Material

• Social

• Ideational

• Synthetic

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Technology

• economic specialization

• V.G. Childe's Urban Revolution

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Irrigation

• water control

• Wittfogel Steward

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Population increase

• Malthus

• population growth forces increasing social
  complexity

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• Boserup

• social complexity allows population growth

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Trade

• differential access to resources

• Polanyi

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Warfare

• Carneiro

• cooperative non-cooperative social relations

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Class Conflict

• Marxian approach

• differential access to arable land

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Religion

• ceremonial centres of power

• Mircea Eliade

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Text Fagan
"Social Approaches Power in Three Domains"

• economic power

• social and ideological power

• political power