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The World's Longest-Lived Corporate Group: Lithic Analysis Reveals Prehistoric Social Organization near Lillooet, British Columbia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Brian Hayden ,
Edward Bakewell  and
Rob Gargett
Brian Hayden
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6
Edward Bakewell
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195
Rob Gargett
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720
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Abstract

The ability to identify distinct types of cherts and chalcedonies at the large prehistoric housepit site of Keatley Creek on the British Columbia plateau has made it possible to infer important aspects of socioeconomic organization from ca. 2400 to 1100 B.P. Each large housepit tested at the site appears to have a distinctive and characteristic composition of chert and chalcedony debitage which remains coherent over time (for at least 1,000 years). Three inferences concerning socioeconomic organization are derived from these observations: (1) residents of each large housepit probably foraged in distinctly different ranges during nonwinter months where they procured their raw stone materials; (2) residents of each large pithouse formed “residential corporate groups” that differed in their access to stone resources; and (3) the “residential corporate groups” that occupied large pithouses retained economic rights, corporate identity, and ownership of specific pithouse premises for unusually long time periods spanning more than a millennium. Differences between lithic assemblages of housepits were confirmed by three separate and independent analyses employing successively more sophisticated techniques.

Resumen

Resumen

La capacidad de indentificar distintos tipos de pedernales y calcedonias en el sitio prehistóric de Keatly Creek en la meseta de Culombia Británica ha permitido la identificatión de aspectos importantes de la estructura social y económica de esta comunidad entre 1,100-2,400 años. Cada casa semisubterránea grande quefue explorada en el sitio muestra una compositión distintiva y caracteristíca de desechos de pedernaly calcedonia. Esas composiciones mantienen sus aspectos distintivos al menos por mil años. De esas observaciones se derivan tres inferencias importantes sobre la organizatión del lugar: (1) los habitantes de cada casa grande parecen haber explotado distintos territorios en períodos cálidos, de donde obtuvieron las piedras para trabajar; (2) los habitantes de cada casa grande constituyeron “grupos residenciales corporativos” los cuales mantuvieron accesos diferentes a las fuentes de donde obtenian las piedras; (3) los “grupos residenciales corporativos” que ocuparon las casas grandes mantuvieron sus derechos económicos, su identidad corporativa y su posesion de las casus por periodos muy largos, de más de mil años. El aspecto distintivo de las colecciones líticas de las casa grandes fue confirmado por tres análisis independientes.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 61 , Issue 2 , April 1996 , pp. 341 - 356
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1996

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