LISS.398A TECHNOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT and HUMAN ADAPTATION:
PART II PRE-EUROPEAN
MESOAMERICA
TYPES OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS: BANDS
In terms of the
basic vocabulary
of the social institutional vocabulary, in the simplest societies, people make their living by hunting-gathering and group themselves into
bands with the following features.
- Settlement Patter
- 30-100 people, seasonal migration, density changes with season (possibly)
- Food Production
- Hunting-Gathering
- Sub-Units
- Families (nuclear and extended)
- Ritual
- Occasional and ad hoc
- Division of Labor
- By sex and age only
- Leadership
- Authority based, informal, activity specific, ephemeral
- Mode of Exchange
- Reciprocal
- Status Structure
- Egalitarian
Colorado School of Mines
Division of Liberal Arts and International Studies
Dr. Joseph D. Sneed
jsneed@mines.edu
