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.

 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)
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

 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”)
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

 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
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

 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 .
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

 Morton Fried:
 Egalitarian
 Elman Service:
 Band
 Ranked
 Stratified
 Tribe
 Chiefdom
 State
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

 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
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

 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 ”]
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

 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
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

 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.
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

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
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

 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
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

 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
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

 Organization of Production
 Specialized Workshops
 Attached Specialists
 Sumptuary goods for ritual and display
 Elite exchanges and alliances
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

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”]
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

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

Evidence for the Earliest States:
 Mesopotamia and Egypt (3500 BC)
 Mexico and Peru (ca. 500 BC)
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

 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 ]
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

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
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

 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
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004

 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 women’s lives changed as they became part of the Aztec empire”--E. Brumfiel
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2004