Unit 9 Quiz

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Unit 9 Quiz

• Available from Tuesday Midnight until Thursday
  Midnight

This is the LAST QUIZ for the Quarter. Make
sure that you have completed at least 7 quizzes.
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End of Quarter Logistics

• Book Reviews will be returned IN CLASS on
  Thursday, June 3, 2004
• Workbooks need to be turned in to Section Leader
  on Friday, June 4, from 2-5 pm in Social Sciences
  1, Room 461 (The Section Room)

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Unit 9, Lecture 2

• The Archaeology of
• Power, Inequality and the State

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Power

• Potential to initiate or influence social action
• Can be either constructive, cooperative (power
  to)
• or exploitative and coercive (power over)
• or ability to resist or circumvent authority
  (power not to)

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Status

• Collection of rights and duties that accrue to a
  recognized and named social position
• Criteria Age, Gender, Kinship, Ability,
  Occupation, Residence, Alliances, etc.
• Associated w/ different amounts of power
• Achieved vs. Ascribed
• Social Persona composite of multiple,
  overlapping and intersecting social statuses

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Politics

• How a society organizes itself in order to make
  and enforce decisions, to resolve conflicts, and
  to control access to and distribution of social
  status and power.
• Small Scale Societies political structures are
  informal and situational.
• Large Scale Societies political power vested in
  formal institutions of government, coded in law,
  and backed by coercive force.

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Typological Models

• Morton Fried
• Egalitarian
• Ranked
• Stratified

• Elman Service
• Band
• Tribe
• Chiefdom
• State

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Egalitarian Societies (Bands)

• Social Power is widely distributed hard to
  monopolize
• Status determined by age, gender, ability
• No. of valued statuses no. of people meeting
  criteria to fulfill them
• Leadership situational and informal

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Tribal or Segmentary Societies

• Social status determined by age, gender, kinship,
  and ability
• More emphasis on relationships of kinship and
  marriage (lineage structures)
• Corporate/communal groups (moieties, sodalities,
  clans) Horizontal Integration
• Tension between egalitarian and ranked tendencies
  Big Men

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Ranked Societies (Chiefdoms)

• No. of valued statuses are limited and restricted
• Ascribed status determined largely by kinship
  (ranked lineages Vertical Integration)
• Achieved status determined by age, gender,
  ability
• Power Over Power from the gods and
  ancestors (supernaturally sanctioned authority)
• Feasting, giveaways, gifting
• Production and ritualized exchange of exotic and
  high value objects among elite

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Stratified Societies (States)

• Social status largely determined by role and
  occupation (class)
• Lots of economic specialization, complex division
  of labor
• At least three classes Rulers, Artisans/Traders,
  Commoners and Slaves
• Social classes in competition with each other for
  power, prestige and wealth
• Coercive power and authority sanctioned by law
• Lots of internal stress, very unstable and
  subject to cataclysmic collapse.

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Peebles and Kus (1977) Some Archaeological
Correlates of Ranked Societies

• Moundville, Alabama
• Center of Mississippian Chiefdom
• A.D. 1200-1500
• 300 acre palisaded ceremonial center plaza
  flanked by 20 platform mounds
• Main residential area located outside of palisade

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Evidence for Social Ranking (1)

• Burials and Funerary Monuments
• fossilized terminal status--rank or status
  person held in life is directly reflected in how
  one is treated at death
• 3000 burials--statistical analysis grouped
  burials by similarities in associated context and
  content.
• Subordinate/Commoner vs. Superordinate/Elite

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Burial Clusters at Moundville
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Evidence for Social Ranking (2)

• Settlement Hierarchies
• Three tiers--major center, minor centers,
  villages
• Sites located at ecotones--areas of high
  agricultural potential and high diversity
• Connected to each other by tribute economy

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Evidence for Social Ranking (3)

• Organization of Production
• Specialized Workshops
• Attached Specialists
• Sumptuary goods for ritual and display
• Elite exchanges and alliances

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Marxist/Post-Processual Critique of Typological
Models

• Too static, holistic, systemic
• Progressive, teleological
• Do not deal with internal variability and
  conflict (social dynamics, human agency)
• Today archaeologists less interested in What
  type of society is it? And more interested in
  How is power distributed in society? How is it
  negotiated? Who makes decisions in what contexts?
  How are decisions enforced?
• Burial Rituals Social Arena where social
  status and power are negotiated, contested,
  reaffirmed, up for grabs

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Break

• Return in 5 minutes to learn more about How and
  Why States developed.

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How and Why Do Systems of Social Inequality and
the State Develop?

• Evidence for the Earliest States
• Mesopotamia and Egypt (3500 BC)
• Mexico and Peru (ca. 500 BC)

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Processualist Approaches to Origins of the State

• Solves some sort of problem--
• Need to redistribute resources
• Need to manage information
• Competition and Warfare Need for social
  stability
• Leadership and decision making more efficient
• Changes seen as adaptive or beneficial to
  society as a whole Altruistic, System-Serving

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W.T. Sanders and B. Price (1968) Mesoamerica The
Evolution of a Civilization

• Aztec state developed to manage complex,
  efficient market system in V. of Mexico
• Mediated conflicts, prevented warfare
• Promoted craft/crop specialization and exchange
• Enabled growing numbers of people in Valley of
  Mexico to live in comfort and security

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Marxist/Post-Processual Critique

• People in states work harder and live more
  precarious lives than in non-state societies
• Who benefits from these changes?
• Need to focus more on human agency--motivations
  and strategies employed by individuals and groups
  to serve their own interests
• Internal dynamics vs. external causes

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E. Brumfiel-The View from Huexotla

• Aztec power and wealth based on collection and
  distribution of tribute cloth
• Urban elite exchanged cloth for food from rural
  areas in urban markets (e.g. maguey syrup, sugar
  and pulque from Huexotla)
• Market exchange geared to provisioning urban
  elite not enhancing comfort and security of
  rural farmers

The questions that have most concerned me are
how Aztec rulers constructed their power and how
womens lives changed as they became part of the
Aztec empire--E. Brumfiel