Archaeological Investigations In The Aleutian Islands

Author : Brian Walter Hoffman
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 470 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (89 download)

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Download or read book The Organization of Complexity written by Brian Walter Hoffman and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A fundamental goal in archaeology is explaining bow and why human societies evolved from simple, small-scale groups into our complex, modern world. Crucial to this goal are studies focused on transegalitarian societies - those complex hunter-gatherer and simple farming communities that were neither strictly egalitarian nor highly stratified in their social relations. Many researchers believe the archaeological remains of these societies hold the keys to understanding the processes that led to the emergence of social inequality and increased cultural complexity. This dissertation contributes to the study of transegalitarian socio-political processes by investigating the relationships between economy, status competition, and corporate groups at Agayadan Village, an eastern Aleut settlement abandoned during the 18th century AD. The eastern Aleuts at the time of contact were politically and socially complex maritime foragers with ascribed social classes and ranked lineages whose members occupied large, multifamily dwellings. Agayadan, located on Unimak Island, Alaska, contains the remains of at least 20 of these communal houses. My research addresses two issues. The first issue concerns understanding the organization of Agayadan's multifamily households particularly the relationship between the individual families and the larger corporate group. My investigative strategy utilized large block excavations with high definition methods. The spatial distributions of features, artifacts, and soil chemistry signatures demonstrate a basic division between communal space and family compartments. The centrally located communal space was dominated by cooking facilities (hearths and roasting pits) shared by all families. Each nuclear family, however, maintained their own storage facilities and workspace associated with a segmented sleeping area along the house walls. The workshops contained manufacturing debris and tools indicating activities like sewing, stone tool production, and woodworking were undertaken by each family. The similarities in the workshop assemblages suggest there was minimal economic specialization among household members. These findings contradict the argument that multifamily households form where large labor forces were required. The Agayadan villagers did not move into larger households strictly for reasons of economic efficiency, given the evidence for economic independence among household members social and political motivations, like elite competition for followers, warfare related concerns, and the need to symbolize and strengthen social bonds in eastern Aleut villages, likely factored into their decision to live in multifamily houses. The second dissertation issue centers on the relationships between house/lineage size and economic activities, wealth, and status. These relationships are explored through the comparative analyses of assemblages recovered from small, medium, and large houses. The Agayadan villagers organized their houses in a similar fashion regardless of size. Each excavated house contained the same aggregate of facilities, workshops, and family compartments. The largest house, however, had the highest frequency of personal adornment objects, which is consistent with the ethnohistoric observation that a household's status was based on its size. The occupants of the largest house were also more involved in accumulating surpluses, as indicated by the abundance of salmon remains and storage facilities. Finally, the larger household emphasized the production of prestige goods from locally available materials, like ivory, limestone, and animal skins, presumably for exchange outside the village. The amber beads, slate knives, obsidian bifaces, and other exotic goods received in return were widely distributed within the community, and not hoarded by Agayadan's high status household. These behaviors are consistent with a 'social banker' strategy where elite lineages compete for status by working harder, P3 producing an excess of foods and materials, which they then use in alliance building, feasting, and celebrations in a social display of their power and prestige. Agayadan's large household maintained their power and status by controlling prestige goods production and redistributing valuable exotics, not by controlling subsistence resources and exploiting low status households. The Agayadan archaeological record is an outstanding example of transegalitarian elites converting their labor and material wealth into social capital and political power. In a real sense, Agayadan's elite manufactured their prestige"--Leaves i-iii