ARCH 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Visual Acuity, Neolithic Europe, Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew Of Kaimsthorn
17 Oct 2016
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Document Summary
Certain members of a society have more wealth and power than other members of society. Wealth and power are often inherited, rather than earned. The right to authority has to be accepted by the rest of society. Sometimes achieved through consensus (voting), sometimes through coercion (threat). Most living groups of hunter-gatherers have egalitarian social systems. This means social differences are based on skill, age, and gender. Social complexity long associated with state level society. Public architecture, instutionalized religion, social classes, wealth, and so forth. In recent years, archaeologists have realized that many hunter-gatherer societies have social complexity without living in formal states. This has also been recognized for agricultural groups. Coastal europe; seldom more than ~150 kms from the coast. Hundreds of thousands of megalithic tombs in neolithic. Walled and roofed with large stones . Megalithic chamber under a round mound, entered through a long megalithic passageway. Long rectangular chamber, usually under a rectangular mound.
