LISS.398A TECHNOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT and HUMAN ADAPTATION:
PART II PRE-EUROPEAN
MESOAMERICA
TYPES OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS: CHIEFDOMS
In terms of the
basic vocabulary
of the social institutional vocabulary, as population increases and craft specialization emerges, entrepreneurial individuals (big men or
chiefs) assume leadership roles in regulating redistribution (a mechanism for dealing with environmental uncertainty and spatial
homogeneity of resource distribution). The chief’s kin group assumes special status and a chiefdom with
roughly the following properties develops out of a
tribe.
- Settlement Pattern
- 1000-10,000 people, permanent villages in two level hierarchy (hexagonal pattern)
- Food Production
- Agriculture dominates, intensification (e.g. irrigation) begins
- Sub-Units
- Families, larger kin-groups (clans, lineages) as holders of agricultural land, cross lineage “fraternal orders” related to ritual
- Ritual
- Regular schedule of ceremonies...under direction of high-status specialists (priests)
- Division of Labor
- Part-time craft specialization, specialized leadership positions direction distribution, ritual and war
- Leadership
- Authority based, formal, general purpose (see above), “permanent” but not hereditary “big men”
- Mode of Exchange
- Redistribution directed by “big man”
- Status Structure
- Ranked, high status position restricted by kin-group, luxury goods for high status individuals, essential resources uniformly
available
Colorado School of Mines
Division of Liberal Arts and International Studies
Dr. Joseph D. Sneed
jsneed@mines.edu
