10 Social Organization
|
Band |
Segmentary Society |
Chiefdom |
State |
---|---|---|---|---|
Total Numbers |
Less than 100 | Up to a few 1000 | 5000-20,000+ | 20,000+ |
Social Organization |
|
|
|
Class-based hierarchy under king or emperor; Armies |
Economic Organization |
|
|
Central accumulation & redistribution;Some craft specialization |
|
Religious Organization |
|
Religious leaders;Calendrical rituals |
|
|
Contemporary Examples |
Inuit; San; Australian Aborigines | Pueblos; New Guinea Highlanders; Nuer and Dinka |
NW Coast Native Americans; 18th century Polynesia | All modern states |
Settlement Pattern |
Urban: cities, towns; frontier defenses; roads | |||
Architecture |
See Figure 10.1 below: Mezhirich mammoth hut | See Figure 10:2 below: Çatalhöyük Permanent huts; Burial Mounds; Shrines |
See Figure 10.3 below: Stonehenge | See Figure 10.4 below: Chichén Itzá |
Archaeological Examples |
Early metal working and Formative societies |
Table 10.1: Social Organization Chart




What is the four-fold classification systems of societies, and who was the anthropologist that developed it?
Describe each one of the classification systems in detail.
1)
2)
3)
4)
Define social inequality. How can mortuary analysis (the study of human burials and cemeteries) be used to investigate social inequality in the past?
Settlement pattern analysis is the most common way to investigate social organization of the past. However, depending on the type of society, the survey and excavation methods can vary. Describe the data collection methods of a mobile hunter-gatherer society below, e.g. most hunter-gatherers live in band societies, what type of architecture do band societies have? What else?
In archaeology the terms “gender” and “sex” are very different from each other. Describe why below.