LISS.398A TECHNOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT and HUMAN ADAPTATION:
PART II PRE-EUROPEAN
MESOAMERICA
SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS: BASIC VOCABULARY
The types of social institutions commonly mentioned in the reading for this course --
bands,
tribes.
chiefdoms, and
states --
are usually discussed (defined) in terms of
social structure where ‘social structure’ means roughly how significant activities are
distributed among parts of the society as well as the configuration of significant features..
SIGNIFICANT ACTIVITIES
Significant activities are roughly the following:
- Settlement Patterns
- How many people live when, where and how
- Subsistance Technology
- How the essentials of life are obtained
- Kinship Patterns
- How biological parenthood is integrated into a larger conception of family
- Ritual Activity
- Public expression of beliefs/desires about “how the world works”
SOCIAL STRUCTURE
Social structure is usually discussed in terms of:
- Social Roles
- Different kinds of things people may do, including:
- Division of Labor
- Who does what activities associate with significant activities
- Leadership Roles
- Effectively assigning roles to people
- Authority - no coercion
- Power - coercion
- Social Status
- Percieved desirability of different roles
- Product Distribution
- Process for distributing products of activities (e.g. food ) among members
- Resource Distribution
- Rsource Distribution
- How use of essential resources(e.g. arable land) is distributed
STATUS STRUCTURE
The concept of Social status is commonly used to define three types of status
structures:
- Egalitarian
- The number of high-status roles available in the society is sufficient to permit everyone who is able and willing to
assume such a role to do so.
Status and access to essential resources are not correlated.
- Ranked
- The number of high-status roles available in the society is not sufficient to permit everyone who is able and willing
to assume such a role to do so.
Status and access to essential resources are not correlated.
- Stratified
- The number of high-status roles available in the society is not sufficient to permit everyone who is able and willing
to assume such a role to do so.
Status and access to essential resources are correlated.
MODES OF DISTRIBUTION
Products of hunting-gathering and agriculture are distributed to “even out” adverse effects chance and weather on production. Other
commodities (e.g. salt, clay) are distributed to “even out” the effects of non-uniformity in spatial distribution. As craft specialization
emerges, distribution “evens out” the effects of specialization.
Three modes of distribution are commonly distinguished:
- Reciprocation
- Bilateral exchanges of goods of roughly comparable “value” -- often conceived as “gifts” -- between producers and consumers
- Redistribution
- Multilateral exchanges of products of different villages usually occurring periodically at a central place organized by an
entrepreneur (‘big-man”)
- Markets
- “..involve the concept of profit, and institutional elements of professional merchants, full-time craft specialization, permanent wholesaling
and retailing establishments...may include market places.”
Colorado School of Mines
Division of Liberal Arts and International Studies
Dr. Joseph D. Sneed
jsneed@mines.edu
