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Early Social Complexity

Overview:

  • How and why did social complexity develop?
  • How do archaeologists study complex societies?
  • What are the effects of complexity?
  • Explore some examples of early complex societies.

Thought Question: Why are humans so successful as a species? What does it mean to be successful?

Yuval Harari: Why humans run the world.

TED Talk

Understanding Social Complexity

How do archaeologists recognize complex society?

Renfrew, Multiplier Effects

Why do humans run the world?

Do you agree with his analysis?

What capabilities allow human to cooperate?

What other technologies enable humans to cooperate flexibly and in large numbers?

What does he describe as fictional stories? Do we agree with his description of these systems as fiction stories?

What is accomplished by calling them fictional stories?

How does this connect to archaeology and human development over time?

How is this focus on cooperation different than other accounts of human development?

Are these stories beneficial or do they allow for exploitation?

Developments in different social systems mutually reinforce each other to lead to social complexity.

  • Subsistence systems
  • Technology
  • Social systems
  • Symbolic systems
  • Trade networks

Anthropological organization of societies

Egalitarian- skill, age, gender

Ranked- hierarchy, big men

Stratified- key resource linked to prestige

State- supra-kin networks or bureaucracy

Bands-tribes-chiefdoms-states

  • monumental architecture
  • trade networks
  • population centers
  • planning and organization of cities
  • hierarchy
  • record keeping systems
  • governments

How can we observe social complexity in the archaeological record?

Is social complexity desireable? Who wins and who loses? What are the environmental impacts?

What might the advantages be of simpler societies?

How do these systems require human cooperation?

Concluding thoughts?

Aegean Society

  • What did you learn today?
  • How do you look at societies different?
  • Why is this information relevant or important?

Hawaiian Society

Trade

Subsistence

Kythnos-Copper exports around region

  • Barley, Wheat, Oats
  • Grapes, Olives
  • Cattle, Sheep, Goats

Increasing food supply,

populations, and

urbanization

Social Systems

  • Divide into groups of 4 and apply the Renfrews theory of the multiplier effect to Prehistoric Hawaiian Society
  • What ways did each of these systems develop and then shape other systems?
  • Subsistence systems
  • Technology
  • Social systems
  • Symbolic systems
  • Trade networks
  • Seals for trade
  • Government
  • Burials- Social Stratification
  • Public buildings

Technology

Symbolic Systems

Bronze metallurgy expands and developts

Religious sculptures

Poverty Point

Technology

Subsistence

  • Stone and ceramic vessels
  • Stone pendants
  • nuts, beans, grapes, seeds
  • fish, turtles oysters
  • deer and rabbit

Social and Symbolic Systems

Trade

  • Mounds, earthworks
  • Government
  • Burial grave good and social heirarchy
  • Soapstone from Southern Appalachia
  • Nematite from Ozarks
  • Flint from Upper Ohio and Tennesse River Valleys
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