Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-05T13:11:52.385Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Emergent Tribal Formations in the American Midcontinent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Barbara Bender
Barbara Bender*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University College, Gower Street, London WC1, England
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Archaic societies in the American midcontinent tend to be viewed as “archetypal” egalitarian, subsistence-oriented, gatherer–hunters. The strong techno-environmental orientation of most recent studies makes it hard to understand how and why increasingly socially differentiated gatherer-hunter societies emerged during the later Woodland period. In this article I attempt a social perspective on gatherer-hunters in general and those of the Archaic in particular. I suggest that alliance and exchange are universal hominid strategies and that, while they may have ecologically or biologically adaptive features, they are primarily about social relations and social reproduction.

Gatherer-hunter reciprocity has been stressed in the literature, but the opposite side of the coin is debt, and debt is about inequality, however slight or well masked. The internal social feedbacks embedded in alliance and exchange that might exacerbate social differentiation, and the feedback between social demand and productive intensification are explored. The divide between the midcontinental Archaic and Woodland begins to crumble.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , January 1985 , pp. 52 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Adams, R. McC. 1977 World Picture, Anthropological Frame. American Anthropologist 79: 265–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asch, D., and Asch, N. 1977 Chenopod as Cultigen: A Re-evaluation of Some Prehistoric Collections from Eastern North America. Midcontinental Journal of Archeology 2: 3–46.Google Scholar
Asch, D., Farnsworth, K., and Asch, N. 1979 Woodland Subsistence and Settlement in West Central Illinois. In Hopewell Archaeology. The Chillico the Conference,, edited by Brose, D. and Greber, N., pp. 80–85. Kent State University, Ohio.Google Scholar
Baudrillard, J. 1975 The Mirror of Production. Telos Press, St. Louis.Google Scholar
Bender, B. 1979 Gatherer-hunter to Farmer: A Social Perspective. World Archaeology 10: 204–222.Google Scholar
Bender, B. 1981 Gatherer-hunter Intensification. In Economic Archaeology,, edited by Sheridan, A. and Bailey, G., pp. 149–157. BAR International Series 96, Oxford.Google Scholar
Bender, B. 1985 The Fallacy of “Hot” and “Cold” Societies: A Comparison of Prehistoric Developments in the American Midcontinent and in Brittany, Northwest France. In Complexity among Hunter-Gatherers,, edited by Price, D. and Brown, J.. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Bernabo, J., and Webb, T. 1977 Changing Patterns in the Holocene Record of Northeastern North America: Mapped Summary. Quaternary Research 8: 64–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berthoud, G., and Savelli, F. 1979 Our Obsolete Production Mentality: The Heresy of the Communal Formation. Current Anthropology 20: 745–760.Google Scholar
Braun, D. 1984 Midwestern Hopewellian Exchange and Supralocal Interaction. In Peer Polity Interaction and Sociopolitical Change,, edited by Renfrew, C. and Cherry, J.. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, in press.Google Scholar
Braun, D., and Plog, S. 1982 Evolution of “Tribal” Social Networks: Theory and Prehistoric North American Evidence. American Antiquity 47: 504–525.Google Scholar
Brown, J. 1977 Current Directions in Midwestern Archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 6: 161–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buikstra, J. 1981 The Roster Site: Mortuary Practices, Paleo-demography and Paleopathology: A Case Study from the Lower Illinois Valley. In The Archaeology of Death,, edited by Chapman, R., Kinnes, I., and Ransborg, K., pp. 123–132. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Charles, D., and Buikstra, J. 1983 Archaic Mortuary Sites in the Central Mississippi Drainage: Distribution, Structures and Behavioral Implications. In Hunters and Gatherers in the Midwest: Multidisciplinary Studies of the Archaic Period,, edited by Brown, J. and Phillips, J., pp. 117–145. University of Illinois, Urbana.Google Scholar
Chomko, S., and Crawford, G. 1978 Plant Husbandry in Prehistoric Eastern North America. American Antiquity 45: 405–408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, D. 1976 Mesolithic Europe: The Economic Base. In Problems in Economic and Social Archaeology,, edited by de G. Sieveking, G., Longworth, I., and Wilson, K., pp. 449–481. Duckworth, London.Google Scholar
Cook, T. 1976 Koster, An Artifact Analysis of Two Archaic Phases in West Central Illinois. Northwestern University Archaeological Program, Prehistoric Records No. 1; Koster Research Reports, No. 3.Google Scholar
Dunnell, R. 1972 The Prehistory ofFishtrap, Kentucky. Department of Anthropology, Yale University.Google Scholar
Fitting, J., and Brose, D. 1971 The Northern Periphery of Adena. In Adena: The Seeking of an Identity,, edited by Swartz, B., pp. 29–55. Ball State University, Muncie.Google Scholar
Ford, R. 1974 Northeastern Archaeology: Past and Future Directions. Annual Review of Anthropology 3: 385–413.Google Scholar
Ford, R. 1979 Gathering and Gardening: Trends and Consequences of Hopewell Subsistence Strategies. In Hopewell Archaeology. The Chillico the Conference,, edited by Brose, D. and Greber, N., pp. 234–238. Kent State University, Kent, Ohio.Google Scholar
Fried, M. 1967 The Evolution of Political Society. Random House, New York.Google Scholar
Friedman, J. 1974 Marxism, Structuralism and Vulgar Materialism. Man 8: 44–69.Google Scholar
Friedman, J. 1979 System, Structure and Contradiction in the Evolution of “Asiatic” Social Formations. National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Friedman, J. 1982 Catastrophe and Continuity in Social Evolution. In Theory and Explanation in Archaeology,, edited by Renfrew, C., Rowlands, M., and Abbott Segraves, B., pp. 175–196. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Friedman, J., and Rowlands, M. 1978 Notes Towards an Epigenetic Model of the Evolution of ‘Civilisation. ’ In The Evolution of Social Systems,, edited by Friedman, J. and Rowlands, M., pp. 201–276. Duckworth, London.Google Scholar
Gamble, C. 1981 Social Control and the Economy. In Economic Archaeology,, edited by Sheridan, A. and Bailey, G., pp. 215–229. BAR International Series 96, Oxford.Google Scholar
Gledhill, J. 1978 Formative Development in the North American Southwest. In Social Organisation and Settlement,, edited by Green, D., Haselgrove, C., and Spriggs, M., pp. 241–290. BAR International Series 47, Oxford.Google Scholar
Gledhill, J. 1981 Time's Arrow: Anthropology, History, Social Evolution and Marxist Theory. Critique of Anthropology 16: 3–30.Google Scholar
Goad, S. 1980 Patterns of Late Archaic Exchange. Tennessee Anthropologist 5: 1–16.Google Scholar
Godelier, M. 1978 The Object and Method of Anthropology. In Relations of Production. Marxist Approaches to Economic Anthropology,, edited by Seddon, D., pp. 49–126. Frank Cass, London.Google Scholar
Goodyear, A. 1979 A Hypothesis for the Use of Crypto-Crystalline Raw Materials among Paleo-Indian Groups of North America. Ms. on file, Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina.Google Scholar
Granger, J. 1978 Cache Blades, Chert and Communication: A Reappraisal of Certain Aspects of Meadowood Phase and the Concept of a Burial Cult in the Northeast. In Essays in Northeastern Anthropology in Memory of White, Marion E.,, edited by Engelbrecht, W. and Grayson, D., pp. 96–122. Occasional Publications in Northeastern Anthropology, 5.Google Scholar
Griffin, J. 1967 Eastern North American Archaeology: A Summary. Science 156: 175–191.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1978 Social Organisation and Human Interaction. The Development of Some Tentative Hypotheses in Terms of Material Culture. In The Spatial Organisation of Culture,, edited by Hodder, I., pp. 199–269. Duckworth, London.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1982 Theoretical Archaeology: A Reactionary View. In Symbolic and Structural Archaeology,, edited by Hodder, I., pp. 1–16. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Houart, G. 1971 Koster: A Stratified Archaic Site in the Illinois Valley. Illinois Valley Archaeological Program Research Papers, vol. 4., Illinois State Museum.Google Scholar
House, J., and Ballenger, D. 1976 An Archaeological Survey of the Interstate 77 Route in the South Carolina Piedmont. Research ms., Division of Advanced Studies Research, Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina.Google Scholar
Jochim, M. 1983 Optimization Models in Context. In Archaeological Hammers and Theories,, edited by Moore, J. and Keene, A., pp. 157–172. Academic Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, R., and Cassavoy, K. 1978 The Fishweirs at Atherley Narrows, Ontario. American Antiquity 43: 697–709.Google Scholar
Kahn, J. 1978 Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology: A Review. Journal of Peasant Studies 5: 485–496.Google Scholar
Kahn, J., and Llobera, J. 1981 Towards a New Marxism or a New Anthropology. In The Anthropology of Pre-Capitalist Societies,, edited by Kahn, J. and Llobera, J., pp. 263–329. Macmillan Press, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keene, A. 1981 Prehistoric Foraging in a Temperate Forest: A Linear Program Model. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Keene, A. 1983 Biology, Behavior, and Borrowing, a Critical Examination of Optimal Foraging Theory in Archaeology. In Archaeological Hammers and Theories,, edited by Moore, J. and Keene, A., pp. 137–155. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Kohl, P. 1981 Materialist Approaches in Prehistory. Annual Review of Anthropology 10: 89–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kus, S. 1983 The Social Representation of Space; Dimensioning the Cosmological and the Quotodian. In Archaeological Hammers and Theories,, edited by Moore, J. and Keene, A., pp. 278–298. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Leakey, R., and Lewin, R. 1979. People of the Lake. Morrison and Gibb Ltd., Great Britain.Google Scholar
Legros, D. 1977 Chance, Necessity and the Mode of Production: A Marxist Critique of Cultural Evolutionism. American Anthropologist 79: 26–41.Google Scholar
Marquardt, W., and Watson, P. 1983 The Shell Mound Archaic of Western Kentucky. In Archaic Hunters and Gatherers,, edited by Phillips, J. and Brown, J., pp. 323–339. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Meillassoux, C. 1972 From Reproduction to Production. Economy and Society 1: 93–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, J. 1983 The Trouble with Know-it-alls: Information as a Social and Ecological Resource. In Archaeological Hammers and Theories,, edited by Moore, J. and Keene, A., pp. 173–191. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Reidhead, A. van 1980 The Economics of Subsistence Change: Test of an Optimization Model. In Modelling Change in Prehistoric Subsistence Economies,, edited by Earle, T. and Christenson, A., pp. 141–186. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Rowlands, M. 1979 Local and Long Distance Trade on the Bamenda Plateau in the Nineteenth Century. Paideuma 25: 1–19.Google Scholar
Rowlands, M. 1982 Processual Archaeology as Historical Social Science. In Theory and Explanation in Archaeology,, edited by Renfrew, C., Rowlands, M., and Abbott Segraves, B., pp. 155–174. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Sahlins, M. 1974 Stone Age Economics. Tavistock Publications, London.Google Scholar
Sanders, W., Parsons, J., and Santley, R. 1979 The Basin of Mexico: Ecological Processes in the Evolution of Civilization. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Servet, J. 1981 Primitive Order and Archaic Trade. Economy and Society 10: 423–450.Google Scholar
Shennan, S. 1982 Ideology, Change and the European Early Bronze Age. In Symbolic and Structural Archaeology,, edited by Hodder, I., pp. 155–161. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Spence, M. 1982 The Social Context of Production and Exchange. In Contexts for Prehistoric Exchange,, edited by Ericson, J. and Earle, T., pp. 173–197. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Stoltman, J. 1978 Temporal Models in Prehistory: An Example from Eastern North America. Current Anthropology 19: 703–746.Google Scholar
Struever, S., and Houart, G. 1972 An Analysis of the Hopewell Interaction Sphere. In Social Exchange and Interaction,, edited by Wilmsen, E., pp. 47–79. Anthropological Papers, No. 46, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Thorpe, I. 1983 Prehistoric British Astronomy— Towards a Social Context. Scottish Archaeological Review 2: 2–10.Google Scholar
Tilley, C. 1982 Social Formation, Social Structures and Social Change. In Symbolic and Structural Archaeology,, edited by Hodder, I., pp. 26–38. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Tuck, J. 1978 Archaic Burial Ceremonialism in the ‘Far Northeast. ’ In Essays in Northeastern Anthropology in Memory of White, Marion E.,, edited by Engelbrecht, W. and Grayson, D., pp. 67–77. Occasional Publications in Northeastern Anthropology, no. 5.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, I. 1976 A World-system Perspective on the Social Sciences. British Journal of Sociology 27: 343–352.Google Scholar
Winters, H. 1968 Value Systems and Trade Cycles of the Late Archaic in the Midwest. In New Perspectives in Archaeology,, edited by Binford, S. and Binford, L., pp. 175–221. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Winters, M., and Pires-Ferreira, J. 1976 Distribution of Obsidian among Households in Two Oaxacan Villages. In The Early Mesoamerican Village,, edited by Flannery, K., pp. 306–311. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Wobst, M. 1976 Locational Relationships in Palaeolithic Society. In The Demographic Evolution of Human Populations,, edited by Ward, R. and Weiss, K., pp. 49–58. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Woodburn, J. 1980 Hunters and Gatherers Today and Reconstruction of the Past. In Soviet and Western Anthropology,, edited by Gellner, E., pp. 95–117. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Yengoyan, A. 1979 Economy, Society and Myth in Aboriginal Australia. Annual Review of Anthropology 8: 393–415.Google Scholar