{"title":"The social dynamics of settling down","authors":"Gary M. Feinman , Jill E. Neitzel","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2022.101468","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>For more than 150 years, global perspectives on the mobile to sedentary transition have been framed by deeply entrenched categorical assumptions that have effectively blinded archaeologists to the fundamental importance of interpersonal relationships. Combining multi-disciplinary studies of living groups with recent archaeological findings, we formulate a model that identifies regularities and divergences in the social interactions and institutions of small-scale, variably settled communities. We then confirm the model’s diachronic validity for a sample of archaeological cases that followed alternative pathways to greater residential permanence. When interactive densities surpassed critical demographic thresholds and fissioning did not occur, diverse interpersonal realignments ensued. Much of the variability evident across cases stemmed from the characteristics of key resources. When resources were heritable, but not monopolizable, new institutional arrangements and social adjustments tended to be collectively organized, but when they were both, the new organizational arrangements tended to be more inequitable with greater power differentials.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"5","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278416522000769","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 5
Abstract
For more than 150 years, global perspectives on the mobile to sedentary transition have been framed by deeply entrenched categorical assumptions that have effectively blinded archaeologists to the fundamental importance of interpersonal relationships. Combining multi-disciplinary studies of living groups with recent archaeological findings, we formulate a model that identifies regularities and divergences in the social interactions and institutions of small-scale, variably settled communities. We then confirm the model’s diachronic validity for a sample of archaeological cases that followed alternative pathways to greater residential permanence. When interactive densities surpassed critical demographic thresholds and fissioning did not occur, diverse interpersonal realignments ensued. Much of the variability evident across cases stemmed from the characteristics of key resources. When resources were heritable, but not monopolizable, new institutional arrangements and social adjustments tended to be collectively organized, but when they were both, the new organizational arrangements tended to be more inequitable with greater power differentials.
期刊介绍:
An innovative, international publication, the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology is devoted to the development of theory and, in a broad sense, methodology for the systematic and rigorous understanding of the organization, operation, and evolution of human societies. The discipline served by the journal is characterized by its goals and approach, not by geographical or temporal bounds. The data utilized or treated range from the earliest archaeological evidence for the emergence of human culture to historically documented societies and the contemporary observations of the ethnographer, ethnoarchaeologist, sociologist, or geographer. These subjects appear in the journal as examples of cultural organization, operation, and evolution, not as specific historical phenomena.