ANTHR206 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Social Stratification, Stone Tool, Ethnoarchaeology
26 Oct 2016
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Document Summary
Society can be defined by its largest social unit (polity) Majority of our history, lived in small scale societies (hunter-gatherer societies) Archaeologists normally answer this question through large-scale settlement pattern studies. Tendency to think of change within societies as progression towards more complex societies (civilizations= necessary for of human life way of thought) But everyone not necessarily moving towards more complex societies (people in state societies not smarter/ better than hunter- gatherers- just different modes of living) Different ways in which we understand these societies (type of social organization, economics, settlement patterns, religious organizations, and architecture. ) In general, smaller groups are hunter-gatherers and largest are states. Largely egalitarian (sense of equal sharing of power) All human societies before 10 kya (most societies like this) Tendency when trying to understand hunter-gatherer to put them as (1) idealist, one with nature, at peace, no warfare tag (2) as difficult, savage life (both not necessarily true, comes from western philosophy)
