HIS109Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Social Inequality, Fishing Weir, Eulachon
Feb. 13, 2017
ANT200 LECTURE 2.6
COMPLEXITY WITHOUT THE STATE: THE NORTHWEST COAST
OUTLINE:
1) Social Complexity Among Hunter-Gatherers
2) NWC examples from the post-contact period
- Tsimshian Territory
- Stolo
1) History of Social Complexity (what’s the evidence?)
2) Film: Tla’amin Field School (Digging In)
WHAT ARE HUNTER-GATHERERS?
• Binford’s Forager-Collector Spectrum
- Foragers little food storage, frequent residential moves, short logistical forays,
“map on” to resources, homogenous
- Collectors food storage is key, few residential moves, longer logistical forays,
bring food to people, resources patchy (aggregated in space and time)
• Woodburn
- Immediate Return small mobile groups, flexible social systems, immediate
consumption, Egalitarian principles
- Delayed Return management/tending wild resources, facilities =
investment/storage, bound to close kin through exchange of goods and services
- Large, less mobile communities
COMPLEX HUNTER-GATHERERS
• Stratified cities
• Affluent foragers
• Transegalitarian societies
• House societies or corporate groups
- Sedentism
- Storage
- Higher population densities
- Ownership
- Pronounced and inherited social inequality
• Problem with idea of Complex Hunter-Gatherers ignores importance of cultivation
and management, ignores the fact that fishing often differs from hunting and gathering
NORTHWEST COAST CULTURE AREA
• Alaskan panhandle
• Coastal British Columbia
• Coastal Washington and Oregon
NWC ENVIRONMENT: FOUR REGIONS
1) Prince Rupert Harbour (Tsimshian territory)
- Tsimshian Adawx
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Outline: social complexity among hunter-gatherers, nwc examples from the post-contact period. Stolo: history of social complexity (what"s the evidence?, film: tla"amin field school (digging in) Foragers little food storage, frequent residential moves, short logistical forays, Collectors food storage is key, few residential moves, longer logistical forays, bring food to people, resources patchy (aggregated in space and time: woodburn. Immediate return small mobile groups, flexible social systems, immediate consumption, egalitarian principles. Delayed return management/tending wild resources, facilities = investment/storage, bound to close kin through exchange of goods and services. Complex hunter-gatherers: stratified cities, affluent foragers, transegalitarian societies, house societies or corporate groups. Pronounced and inherited social inequality: problem with idea of complex hunter-gatherers ignores importance of cultivation and management, ignores the fact that fishing often differs from hunting and gathering. Northwest coast culture area: alaskan panhandle, coastal british columbia, coastal washington and oregon. Nwc environment: four regions: prince rupert harbour (tsimshian territory)
