LATZ Flashcards
Define:
→ Sociopolitical
- relating to, or involving?
→ Egalitarian societies
- Societies in which no great differences in what?
→ hierarchy
-For of social what?
→ Social stratification
- A form of what?
- What do people have unequal
- Give example
→ What are stratifies societies usually?
- Sociopolitical: relating to, or involving, both social & political factors, especially where social organization is read as a political expression
- Egalitarian societies: Societies in which no great differences in wealth, power, or prestige divide members form one another
- Hierarchy: organisation or group whose members are arranged in ranks; form of social organization where members possess different status
- Social stratification: A form of social organization in which people have unequal access to wealth, power, & prestige, including an extensive division of labour, and occupational specialization
- (i.e. social complexity)
- Stratified societies are usually hierarchical
Chiefdom
- What is the political leader and his/her lineage set apart by?
- What are primary centre?
- What is status determined by?
- Set apart by privileged resource access, wealth & status
- Primary centres are generally ritual/ceremonial rather than urban (as in states)
- Status determined by relationship to the ruling lineage rather than class
Example: Complex Chiefdoms of the Mississippian Culture after AD 1000
- What period is Preliminary? When is this period?
- What is this agriculture based on?
- Give example
- What is a commonplace?
- Especially what?
- Preliminary: Woodland Period (from 500 BC - or earlier)
- Agriculture based initially on local Eastern Agricultural Complex
- Oily & starchy seed plants
- Mound building became commonplace
- Especially dome-shaped burial mounds
Woodland period
- What is it associated with in some areas?
- Associated in some regions with growing inequality & large-scale spheres of interaction involving goods (cult objects) & rituals ( eg hopewell interaction spheres
- First centuries AD
Woodland period
- What shape mounds
- Where where they constructed?
- What where they sometimes capped with?
- Square & rectangular mounds constructed mostly in eastern southern North America, sometimes capped with temples or residences
Mississippian Period
- What is this period associated with?
- What was introduced from central America?
Mississippian Period: associated with centralised hierarchical Chiefdoms & the intense cultivation of maize introduced from central America
The implications of a growing reliance on maize
- Availability of what? What could be improved & How?
- What are populations increasingly reliant on?
- Give example
- Availability of a reliable food supply where production could be improved through intensive agriculture
- Populations increasingly reliant on a nutritionally deficient diet
- Corn lacks important proteins
Mississippian Mounds
- Where are they often grouped
- What do they reinforce?
- Often grouped around a civic-ceremonial plaza
- reinforcing religious/political structures & control
the Moundville Chiefdom (Alabama)
- What is phase 1?
- When?
- How many mounds constructed?
- Where there any mounds in surrounding valley?
- Reliance on what?
- What was introduced?
- Phase 1 - Production intensification
- AD 1050 - 1200
- Two mounds constructed
- none in surrounding valley
- Reliance on corn more pronounced
- Beans introduced
the Moundville Chiefdom (Alabama)
- What is phase 2?
- When?
- Construction of what?
- Phase 2 - Initial centralisation
- AD 1200 - 1300
- Construction of surrounding palisade & multiple mounds
What are Anthropological evidence of state organization?
- Agricultural intensification & surplus
- Fulltime craft specialisation & exchange
- Centralised bureaucratic administration, taxation & redistribution
- Poilitical/administrative/urban centres - with associated monumentality
- Major transport networks (as distinct from ceremonial procession routes)
- Standing armies
- Class distinction (high, middle, low)
Explanations
→ Monocausal explanations
- Emphasis on what?
- What type of cause? more recently?
→ Multivariate explanations
- Emphasis on what?
- More characteristic of process archaeology with its emphasis on what approach? & what amplification?
Monocausal explanations
- Emphasis on a single prime mover
- Diffusion (early) or single, dominant cause (more recently; social, environmental)
Multivariate explanations
- Emphasis on an association of drivers, systematically integrated
- More characteristic of process archaeology with its emphasis on systems approach & feedback amplification
Hydraulic hypothesis
→ What is wittfogel: managerial
- Control of?
→ What was required to construct & maintain irrigation works?
→ What is characterised as ‘despotic’ (oriental Despotism)
→ What are some examples of Wittfogels oriental?
→ Control of large-scale irrigation
→ Central management required to construct & maintain irrigation works
→ Associated system of government characterised as ‘despotic’ (Oriental Depotism)
→ Wittfogels oriental examples include Sumeria & Egypt (grain agriculture in alluvial river plains)
Critique
- What did large irrigation works in Sumeria follow
- What does Hawaiian irrigation not require? How can it be managed?
- Large irrigation works in Sumeria followed state formation
- Hawaiian irrigation does not require central management - It can be managed locally
Warefare & conquest
- What has been long argued of what warfare generally is?
- What are military campaigns & conquest crucial in?
- It has long been argued that warfare is generally a recurrent feature of early state societies
- Military campaigns & conquests are crucial in the integration & expansion of the organized state
