![9
“Founder’s Effect” and the Study of Hunter-Gatherers
A comparison of the discipline of anthropology as it existed
in the middle of the nineteenth century with what it has
become at the beginning of the twenty-first century would
reveal that the founding and contemporary states appear
radically different. Early investigations into the scope and
nature of human diversity were led by a handful of scholars;
now tens of thousands of anthropologists contribute to
almost every domain of human endeavor. Despite the expan-
sion of the range of subjects addressed by anthropologists,
however, the ensemble of concepts in terms of which ques-
tions are posed and answers are pursued has not expanded
in the same way as the field’s purview. Many of the ideas that
were initially proposed in the first fifty years of research, in
addition to having exerted a profound impact in their own
time, remain with us in essentially unaltered form.
The Explanatory Challenge of Complex Wholes
From its inception, anthropology took as its goal the study
and explanation of cultural variability. It is clear that for E.
B. Tylor, one of the discipline’s nineteenth-century founders,
the capabilities and habits that he designated as cultural
were extrasomatic, or learned, and were not referable to
what today are thought of as genetic processes of differen-
tiation. For Tylor and his contemporary colleagues, the path-
way to an understanding of cultural diversity led through the
doorway of the past. Tylor made this point most distinctly
when he observed that“civilization [culture], being a process
of long and complex growth, can only be thoroughly under-
stood when studied through its entire range; that the past is
continually needed to explain the present, and the whole to
explain the past”(Tylor 1878:2). There is no ambiguity about
what Tylor meant when he affirmed that a knowledge of the
past is a prerequisite to an understanding of the present, but
when he referred to “the whole” as essential to an explana-
tion of the past, his intent is considerably less clear.
An examination of the history of anthropology up until
the 1930s reveals that research and debate were focused on
the best use of the present to reconstruct the past. All of the
early evolutionists and diffusionists addressed the issue of what
the past had been like. Diffusionists used ethnohistoric
sources to plot the geographic distribution of traits, cus-
toms, attitudes, house forms, and burial practices in an effort
to reconstruct the histories of diverse peoples, particularly
those who had been documented during the colonial era in
North America. These unique, reconstructed histories were
then cited as the causes of the cultural variability noted at the
time of earliest description.
Evolutionists, on the other hand, considered these recon-
structed histories inadequate and proposed instead that gen-
eral processes of diversification and change continually
modified the cultural behavior of humankind. By the 1930s,
however, voices in anthropology were being raised in oppo-
sition to a focus on the past as an explanation for the pres-
ent.One had to understand the present in terms of the present,
it was argued. Tylor had been wrong when he targeted a
knowledge of the past as a precondition to an understand-
1
1
c h a p t e r
Culture, or civilization, . . . is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art,
law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member
of society.
—E. B. Tylor (1871:1)](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-33-320.jpg)
![explain variability in hunter-gatherer life ways undertaken
by some of anthropology’s “founders” frames a sense of
problem for us in the present and suggests the direction in
which relevant contemporary studies of hunter-gatherers
might proceed.
Several Perspectives on
Hunter-Gatherer Variability
marcel mauss and seasonal variations
One of the earliest and most thought-provoking treatments
of hunter-gatherer settlement patterns and what today would
be called the autocorrelated dynamics of social organization
was published in 1906 by Marcel Mauss in collaboration
with Henri Beuchat (1979). Given the limited ethnographic
materials available to the authors,their monograph—entitled
Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo: A Study in Social Mor-
phology—provided a provocative description of the organi-
zational differences or, as I have previously referred to them,
the“structural poses”(Binford and Binford 1966 after Gear-
ing 1962) within a society that can be observed seasonally.
From the standpoint of interaction and internal organization,
Mauss and Beuchat pointed to significant differences between
larger and smaller Eskimo camps and between the winter and
summer phases of organized life.
There is, as it were, a summer religion and a winter
religion: or rather, there is no religion during the sum-
mer. The only rites that are practised are private, domes-
tic rituals: everything is reduced to the rituals of birth
and death and to the observation of certain prohibi-
tions....By contrast,the winter settlement lives in a state
of continuous religious exaltation. . . .
It would appear that there are two kinds of family:
one in which kinship is collective,conforming to the type
that Morgan called classificatory, and the other in which
kinship is individualized. . . . one is the summer family,
the other [former] the winter family....During the win-
ter the rules of domestic life are entirely different. The
nuclear family, so clearly individualized during the
summer,tends to disappear to some extent within a much
wider group,a kind of joint-family which resembles that
of the Zadruga Slavs, and which constitutes domestic
society par excellence: this is the group who together occu-
pies the same igloo or long-house. . . .
Seasonal variations affect property rights even more
significantly than they affect personal rights and duties.
First,the objects used vary according to the seasons; food
and implements are entirely different in winter and in
summer. Second, the material relations that link indi-
viduals to one another vary both in number and in
kind. Alongside a twofold morphology and technol-
ogy there is a corresponding twofold system of property
rights. . . . The hunter [in summer] must bring back his
entire catch to his tent, no matter how far away he is or
how hungry he may be.Europeans have marveled at how
strictly this rule is observed.Game and the products that
can be extracted from it do not belong to the hunter, but
to the family, no matter who hunted it. . . . The rules for
winter are completely different. In contrast to the ego-
ism of the individual or the nuclear family, a generous
collectivism prevails.First,there is communal regulation
of fixed property.The long-house belongs to none of the
families who live in it; it is the joint property of all the
“housemates.”. . . Collective rights over food, instead of
being limited to the family as in the summer, extend to
the entire house. Game is divided equally among all
members. The exclusive economy of the nuclear fam-
ily totally disappears.
(Mauss and Beuchat 1979:57, 62–64, 70–72)
Religion, the family, and property rights are only three of
the components of Eskimo life about which Mauss noted
important organizational differences between summer and
winter.Seasonal contrasts were also reported in the size of set-
tlements and their occupational duration, in the degree to
which labor was organized cooperatively or independently,
and in the procurement and consumption of food. Differ-
ential aggregation and dispersion across the landscape of seg-
ments of the larger Eskimo social formation that today
might be called regional “bands” compose another set of
distinctions in terms of which Mauss compared winter versus
summer and interior versus coastal settlement distributions.
Settlement patterns at this larger scale of integration were char-
acterized as internally variable and responsive to shifts in
seasonal conditions in the environment.
Although more contemporary ethnographic studies of
Eskimo peoples have provided many details that to some
extent undercut the sweeping generalizations offered by
Mauss and Beuchat, the authors’ basic point remains valid.
More recent studies have confirmed that the major seasonal
contrasts typical of the ways in which Eskimo social units were
constituted, organized, and positioned are also a feature of
hunter-gatherer life in many nonarctic settings.
Unfortunately, Mauss and Beuchat were somewhat vague
about the causal factors that might be responsible for the alter-
nating occurrence of different societal states that were iden-
tified as coincident with seasonal environmental change.
“We have proposed, as a methodological rule, that social
life in all its forms—moral, religious, and legal—is depen-
dent on its material substratum and that it varies with this
substratum, namely with the mass, density, form and com-
position of human groups” (Mauss and Beuchat 1979:80).
This statement would appear to be a fairly straightforward
materialist proposition except for its failure to specify the fac-
tors that would operate determinatively on the “mass, den-
sity, form and composition of human groups.”With regard
to this critical omission, earlier in the monograph Mauss and
Beuchat made two interesting statements:
All this suggests that we have come upon a law that is
probably of considerable generality. Social life does not
continue at the same level throughout the year; it goes
chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 11](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-35-320.jpg)
![part i – explor ing pr ior know led ge and belief
Steward’s listing of correlates,particularly those in the social
domain, reveals a somewhat different viewpoint from that of
Mauss and Beuchat,provided that one concludes that the sub-
liminal message in Seasonal Variations argues that within an
organized system there would be many autocorrelations that
might not betray cause.This point aside,if there is an implicit
theory underlying the list of conditions that, for Steward,
explained the transformation from lineal to composite bands,
it is one based on demographic scale. Steward seems to be
arguing that in some situations,factors impinge on large social
units in such a way that exogamy becomes impossible,
whereas, in other cases, the demographic structure interferes
with the stability of some set of conditions that are essential
to the maintenance of lineal band forms.
Some significant assumptions about human society are
also implicit in Steward’s discussion of group structure. Of
primary interest is his statement that mutual aid, coopera-
tion, and sharing are “natural” benefits of group living.
Greater security is found in the superfamily group than is avail-
able to either isolated families or individuals:“In practically
all human groups several families cooperate in some economic
activity and frequently share game and even vegetable foods
communally. This provides a kind of subsistence insurance
or greater security than individual families could achieve”
(Steward 1936:332).3
Steward seems to regard this assertion as a statement of
self-evident reality that requires no explanation.Furthermore,
the multifamily, mutualistic or communalistic social unit is
assumed a priori to be a landowning unit: “Greater human
intelligence eliminates the strife of unrestricted competi-
tion for food by developing property concepts. Because of
these facts, human groups will reach an equilibrium in which
land is parceled among definite social groups” (Steward
1936:332).
It is Steward’s apparent acceptance of primordial group
ownership of land that makes the existence of bilateral kin-
ship and the composite band so troubling. Kin reckoning in
terms of filiation ensures that the identity of (1) who is a group
member and (2) who owns the land presumably controlled
by the“group”remains totally ambiguous when viewed from
the perspective of egocentric kinship. There seems to be
little doubt that Steward considered the composite band as
a special case derived from the “normal” patrilineal band
(Steward 1955:150). He assumed that in order for there to be
“kin-defined” concrete groups, the ambiguity of filiation
must be eliminated by the stipulation—necessary for the defi-
nition of group boundaries—of a relationship to only one
parent. Otherwise, the concrete group would not be kin-
defined and the identity of the actual persons entitled to
“landowner” status in any particular “landowning” group
would be ambiguous.
In his list of factors contributing to the transformation of
lineal into composite bands, Steward attempted to summa-
rize the conditions that would tend to introduce persons into
the local group who were nonkin, in the emic sense of the
word, and result in a group that was not kin-defined. It is
therefore something of a paradox to consider that the unit
which is most often cited by anthropologists as the funda-
mental social component of larger-scale social systems is
the family. This unit is always a“composite”unit from the filial
perspective of the “egos” who establish such a unit, that is,
the married couple.This condition creates the often-discussed
reality of a male or female, living with their spouses, either
of whom may not be a member of the kin group to which
their marriage-based family belongs. Instead, they remain
socially defined members of the lineal group of their family
of origin and not of their primary life course unit, the fam-
ily of procreation.
One can argue that kinship and the kin conventions that
Steward focused on were taken for granted, were considered
fundamental properties of humankind, and were therefore
only subject to examination and generalization in terms of
the factors that were presumed to interfere with the normal
operation of the conventional patterns of social integration.
These assumptions about social organization and the limit-
ing factors operating upon its several forms also constitute
the basis for Steward’s later arguments regarding multilineal
evolution (Steward 1953, 1955).
Equally important to an understanding of the develop-
ment of Steward’s ideas is the fact that in his 1936 paper on
hunter-gatherers there is no reference to the“family level of
sociocultural integration,” a principle that he later devel-
oped and discussed in Theory of Culture Change (1955). The
genesis of this concept, however, lies without question in his
work with Great Basin hunter-gatherer materials. In Stew-
ard’s most important publication on this subject, Basin-
Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups (1938), the term
family level is not used, but the following statements of great
interest appear: “Western Shoshoni, probably Southern
Paiute, and perhaps some Northern Paiute fall outside the
scope of the previous generalizations [the 1936 classification
of bands], which were too inclusive. They lacked bands and
any forms of landownership. The only stable social and politi-
cal unit was the family. Larger groupings for social and eco-
nomic purposes were temporary and shifting” (Steward
1938:260; emphasis added).
This statement reveals that Steward’s two fundamental cri-
teria for identifying a “band” are (1) a relatively permanent
or stable census of persons associated as a group, and (2)
landownership by such a group. Steward proceeds to offer an
explanation for the absence of these properties among the
Western Shoshoni and other Great Basin groups:
The radical departure of these peoples from the band pat-
terns, however, is explainable by ecological factors not
previously encountered. It has been shown that the
unusually great economic importance of seeds largely
14](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-38-320.jpg)
![part i – explor ing pr ior know led ge and belief
between ownership of land or property rights and a very spe-
cialized subsistence strategy. In the situations they describe,
one set of related tasks is performed and the products there-
from are used to acquire most of a family’s subsistence neces-
sities (in most instances, some minor component is obtained
while engaged in the very specialized task). It is important,
however, to note in the second proposition the use of the
phrase “wild products found in extensive distribution and
obtained through individual effort.”This phrase should be com-
pared with the previously quoted proposition by Speck and
Eiseley:“The second type [the noncommunal familial form]
is based upon the more sedentary limited nomadic family
principle and seems to remain confined to the coniferous for-
est area. The factor operating chiefly to determine the two is,
we believe, traceable in large degree to the natural history of the
game animals which alone furnish the natives of the Labradorean
area with their subsistence” (Speck and Eiseley 1942:219;
emphasis added).
It is apparent that both Murphy and Steward, as well as
Speck and Eiseley,believed that the distribution and character
of exploited resources determined which alternative—
cooperation or independence—was characteristic of resi-
dential labor units. The same environmental factors also
conditioned the size of those social units that were eco-
nomically independent. Steward and Speck differed only
over the issue of landownership, which Steward specifically
denied was characteristic of the Shoshoni, and not over the
actual existence of widely dispersed family units lacking
strong interfamilial economic ties. This similarity in views is
not surprising since I have already discussed Steward’s recog-
nition, within the range of hunter-gatherer variability, of
the family level of sociocultural integration exemplified for
him by the Great Basin Shoshoni. Steward was certainly
aware of the possibility that ecological factors could contribute
to a family level of organization, and he had discussed them
in detail only a year before the“Tappers and Trappers”paper
was written. Clearly, Steward felt that a small social unit
consisting of the family as the core economic entity was a pre-
dictable feature of particular aboriginal conditions in certain
environmental settings.
the atomistic society
The Murphy and Steward paper was roughly contemporary
with a general reconsideration by anthropologists of the
types of hunter-gatherer social formations observed by
ethnographers. One particular focus of this wider inquiry
involved the Canadian communities that had experienced a
long period of Euroamerican interaction prior to extensive
ethnographic documentation. Although some researchers
began to use the term atomism to refer to the kinds of social
articulations documented in Canada and other regions, the
term itself had been introduced into the anthropological
literature several decades earlier. For example, in the work of
William G. Sumner, sometimes referred to as one of the
major advocates of Social Darwinism, the term atomism
appears in the following context:
There are observed cases where the close-knit world-
society of civilized mankind finds its prototype in the
scarcely more than temporary and scattering kin-groups
of the Australian natives or the African Bushmen and
Pygmies.Not only are these societies small,unstable,and
disconnected, but their members harbor sentiments
toward outsiders and even toward each other that can-
not, by any stretch of the imagination, be interpreted as
brotherly.Where men are existing with slight resources
on the edge of catastrophe—and, except in certain
favored spots, we take this to have been the original
state—they are full of hostility, suspicion, and other
anti-social feelings and habits.
(Sumner and Keller 1927, 1:16)
The account of Homer concerning the Cyclopes,the rep-
resentatives to him of utter savagery, is typical of atom-
ism: “Each rules his consorts and children, and they
pay no heed to one another.”
(Sumner et al. 1927, IV:1; emphasis added)
Although Sumner is not cited in the 1960s revival of the
concept of “primitive atomism”and its introduction is usu-
ally attributed to Ruth Benedict, the concept is nevertheless
similar to some of Sumner’s ideas. The essential features of
atomism were established in a series of articles characteriz-
ing this societal state:“The atomistic-type of society . . . is a
society in which the nuclear family represents the major
structural unit and, indeed, almost the only formalized social
entity” (Rubel and Kupferer 1968:189).
John Honigmann,an ethnographer reporting on many dif-
ferent North American groups, including Eskimos, outlined
the characteristics of societies to which the term structural
atomism would be applied:
Structural atomism, corresponding to the empirical
level, includes such observable characteristics of behav-
ior as the following:
(1) Primary concern is put on a person’s own indi-
vidual interests and on great freedom from, or avoid-
ance of, social constraint. As a result, interpersonal
behavior strongly manifests the property of individu-
alism. This has been the core meaning of atomism,
and the word was so used by Ruth Benedict in her
Bryn Mawr lectures to describe“the very simple societies
as atomistic.” “They recognize only individual alle-
giances and ties,” she said.“They lack the social forms
necessary for group action.”
(2) People reveal a tendency to retreat from too
intense or unnecessary contact with neighbors, with
the result that interpersonal relations are marked by
empirically demonstrable reserve, restraint, or caution
. . . interest is most often confined to short-term con-
18](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-42-320.jpg)
![sequences or expected reciprocities; such relationships
do not give rise to long-term structural obligations. . . .
(3) A reluctance of people to commit themselves to
large groups, even when ecological conditions allow
such forms to appear. . . . The nuclear family repre-
sents the major structural unit and, in fact, almost the
only formalized social entity. . . . Benedict in her Bryn
Mawr lectures maintained that when mutual helpfulness
does occur in an atomistic social setting, the individual
helps others “on their enterprises as they help him on
his,rather than carrying out enterprises which some per-
manently constituted group engages in together, where
the results are common property.” Subsequently, she
observed that “anthropologists have not found any
atomistic society with high synergy”—that is, with a
social system geared to mutual advantage. . . .
(4) Weak and ineffectual leadership and reluctance
to delegate or even to assume political authority are
further features of social atomism, . . .
(5) Finally, social relations in an atomistic commu-
nity are marked by strain, contention, or invidiousness.
(Honigmann 1968:220–21)
Honigmann regards atomism as a characteristic of“simple”
societies and seems to expect that“simple”hunter-gatherers
would exhibit the defining atomistic attributes whether or not
they had also experienced a period of acculturation. The
following summary of the attributes of atomistic society
demonstrates that the anthropologists who were concen-
trating on this issue were attempting to define a social type
or, as Steward would say, a level of sociocultural integration:
Structural atomism is characterized by a lack of co-
operation beyond that of the immediate family. Inter-
personal relations beyond the family are weak and
short-lived, occurring primarily to achieve individual-
istic short-range goals rather than persisting group
goals. Such societies are frequently encountered among
the hunting peoples of the world—for example, Stew-
ard’s family level of social integration, and many of the
groups which Service classifies as on the band level but
with primarily familistic bonds of interpersonal rela-
tionships.These are the societies that illustrate Benedict’s
notion of atomism due to the lack of those social forms
which unite larger groups of people into concerted
action. On the surface, the causal factor would seem to
be the low level of technology which prohibits large
population aggregates. (Lévy 1968:230–31)
Instead of involving any communal sharing of goals or
ongoing commitment of persons to one another beyond
the family unit, structural atomism was a social form in
which individualism was dominant, communal obligations
and actions were minimal, and cooperation took the form
that Sahlins (1972) would later call balanced reciprocity.
Those who explored the notion of atomism, particularly
with reference to northern hunter-gatherers, argued that
society was simply an integration of individuals rather than
an integration of statuses:
Allegiances and ties of social obligation, in other words,
are not lacking in social atomism. On the contrary, the
individual member of an atomistic society“may attain
his goals by helpfulness to other individuals, but he
helps them on their enterprises and they help him on
his, rather than carrying out enterprises that some per-
manently constituted group engage in together. . . .
Individual acts [of helpfulness] are at the discretion of
the individual.
Munch and Marske (1981:161) quoting
Benedict in Maslow and Honigmann (1970:323)
Among those persons contributing to hunter-gatherer
research and debate today, Peter Gardner was the first to
argue that atomism was characteristic of recently docu-
mented hunter-gatherer systems (Gardner 1965, 1966, 1969,
1972, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1988). In his 1965 Ph.D. the-
sis, the social life of the Paliyans of South India was such that
“individualism, familism, general social atomism, and covert
revenge join forces with demography so that reliance can
be placed only on primary kin bilaterally reckoned. . . .Weak
leadership is one of the implications of atomism, symmet-
ric respect, and avoidance of overt aggression. Supernatural
sanctions are similarly consistent with lack of cooperation and
lack of authority hierarchy” (Gardner 1965:103–4).
In attempting to explain the factors responsible for the
atomistic character of Paliyan social life, Gardner identified
three causal domains: (1) the cultural environment, (2) the
natural environment,and (3) demographic patterns.The fea-
tures that prompted Gardner to classify the Paliyans as an
atomistic society were, however, attributed primarily to the
cultural environment:
The Paliyans dwell in the hills, but, conspicuously, their
habitat is further limited to just the lower slopes.Above
live the shifting agriculturists and below,the Tamils.This
particular zone lacks all of the requisite resources for
profitable agriculture, and is, in fact, most forbidding to
gatherers too. . . . The Paliyan is vocal on all these points;
he is aware of his lack of fortune. It is not the area that
persons with unlimited freedom would choose, what-
ever their subsistence pattern. In other words, the
Paliyans have withdrawn, or been pushed, into their
present natural environment.Further validity to this find-
ing is given by our review of the history of culture
contact. . . .
Pressure from outsiders leads to retreat.It is clear that
in the event of unavoidable contact, the Paliyans have
little alternative but to act submissively.It is the expected
response and the one which most quickly brings cessa-
tion of hostility from the outsiders. This aspect of envi-
ronment is a contributor to the whole complex of
retreat, avoidance of overt aggression, and framing
interpersonal relations in terms of symmetric respect.
(Gardner 1965:101–2)
The Paliyans clearly exhibited many of the social char-
acteristics implied by the term structural atomism, and Gard-
ner advanced an argument attributing at least some of the
chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 19](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-43-320.jpg)
![The focus in the anthropological literature on sharing
behavior has increased since the Man the Hunter Conference,
but unfortunately not enough attention has been devoted to
reporting and attempting to explain the“patterns of sharing”
to which Eggan referred. Instead, an increasingly integrated
argument has been developed and systematically presented
by Marshall Sahlins, defining the relationships between com-
munalism, social solidarity, economics, sharing, and the spa-
tial relationships among households, as well as scales of
social integration.
sahlins and the domestic focus
If I were to ask several anthropological theorists to enu-
merate the propositions that they accept as justified unifor-
mitarian assumptions, their statements would provide a
logical baseline in terms of which to compare their theories.
If one of the theorists was Marshall Sahlins, he would prob-
ably offer two uniformitarian assumptions as the foundation
of his arguments. The first would be that the fundamental
building block of society is the family, which is also the fun-
damental reproductive unit, and that all societies in the pre-
capitalist world were organized articulations of these
fundamental units. The second assumption would be that
human societies articulate such units into larger social for-
mations using extrasomatic or cultural mechanisms. Sahlins
might add that the cultural definitions of just what consti-
tutes a family, the ways that families are socially articulated,
and the conventions for recognizing and organizing more dis-
tant kin are emic phenomena and may therefore be expected
to vary from setting to setting.
Probably the arguments most commonly invoked by
archaeologists when they attempt to make inferences about
social organization in the past have been derived from
Sahlins’s work. These arguments may be considered trans-
formational in that various domains such as kinship, eco-
nomics, family well-being, social distance, interactional
intensities, and knowledge of others are viewed as integrated
and therefore autocorrelated phenomena. That is, everything
is embedded in the single social phenomenon of kinship,
which is said to be the conventional locus for the organized
features of small-scale societies, particularly those of hunter-
gatherers.
Sahlins’s argument, which has several components, was
first introduced in his much-misunderstood article in the book
Man the Hunter (1968), entitled “Notes on the Original Af-
fluent Society.”His point was elaborated more fully in his own
book, Stone Age Economics (1972:1–39). It represents an
argument that can be viewed in several ways. I prefer to see
it as a particularly important challenge to the idea, prevalent
in the anthropological literature in the mid-1960s, that life
was so difficult and uncertain that hunter-gatherers had no
alternative than to spend all available time searching for
food.The temporal demands of the hunter-gatherer food quest
had been held responsible for the apparent stability, docu-
mented archaeologically, in hunter-gatherer life ways. There
had been no time,it was argued,for the development of social
complexity, philosophy, art, and other highly valued fea-
tures of Western industrialized society.
Sahlins’s“leisure time hypothesis”challenged the view that
“man’s wants are great, not to say infinite, whereas his means
are limited”(Sahlins 1968:85).Sahlins argued (1) that hunter-
gatherers did have leisure time and that temporal invest-
ment in subsistence could not be the factor inhibiting
“progress”; and (2) that the essentialist assumption that all
people had unlimited “wants” was questionable. Despite
suggestions by subsequent authors (Bettinger 1991:100;
Foley 1988:207; Hawkes and O’Connell 1981; Riches 1982:213)
to the contrary, Sahlins was not suggesting that life was easy
or secure. He was saying, rather, that there was no vitalistic
force in the form of unlimited needs that drove hunter-
gatherers to produce surplus and “build culture” (Sahlins
1968:85). It was in this context that he later proposed the
“domestic mode of production”as characteristic of hunter-
gatherer and other societies that he claimed were organized
by a “production for use” strategy that resulted in chronic
underproduction (Sahlins 1972:86). Sahlins argued that the
family was the unit that produced for use and that when its
needs were met production ceased:
The DMP [domestic mode of production] harbors an
antisurplus principle. Geared to the production of liveli-
hood, it is endowed with the tendency to come to a
halt at that point. Hence if “surplus” is defined as out-
put above the producers’ requirements, the household
system is not organized for it. Nothing within the struc-
ture of production for use pushes it to transcend itself.
The entire society is constructed on an obstinate eco-
nomic base,therefore on a contradiction,because unless
the domestic economy is forced beyond itself the entire
society does not survive. (Sahlins 1972:86)
Sahlins is making a classic Marxist argument here, the struc-
ture of which involves establishing a contradiction and then
proceeding to define a dialectic through which the apparent
contradiction is resolved. Sahlins himself commented on
his use of this logical device: “The determination of the
main organization of production at an infrastructural level
of kinship is one way of facing the dilemma presented by prim-
itive societies to Marxist analyses, namely, between the deci-
sive role accorded by theory to the economic base and the fact
that the dominant economic relations are in quality super-
structural, e.g., kinship relations”(Sahlins 1972:102, note 1).
This statement introduces another important compo-
nent of Sahlins’s argument, the assertion that “primitive
societies” are kin-based societies. For Sahlins, kinship is the
ideological (superstructural) context in which the domestic
chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 23](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-47-320.jpg)
![selection operated on social groups.According to the former
perspective, social behavior was viewed as a consequence of
evolutionary processes operating on the individual as the fun-
damental processual unit (e.g., Axelrod 1981; Axelrod and
Hamilton 1981; Hamilton 1963). It was in the context of this
initial argument over units of processual dynamics that
research attention was directed toward altruism or behavior
that appeared to serve the needs of others rather than those
of the altruist (Trivers 1971).
Another important set of arguments, now referred to as
“optimal foraging theory,” emerged directly from the fields
of ecology and microeconomics and was adopted and
elaborated upon by researchers in the field of evolutionary
ecology (see Stephens and Krebs 1986 for a review). Optimal
foraging theory has implications not only for sharing behav-
ior but also for the controversy over which units of analysis
should be used in investigating the role of evolutionary
processes in the diversification of human systems of
adaptation.
Perhaps the greatest impact of efforts to develop an evo-
lutionary theory explaining variability will be on those
explanatory approaches that postulate the existence of “orig-
inal human conditions” and “primal states” that are subse-
quently corrupted by the accidents of history.11 These
arguments become irrelevant when the original conditions
are expected to have been variable and the history of change
is in fact what one seeks to explain. One of the earliest
attempts to challenge an explanatory argument based on
alleged“primal conditions”was made by Elizabeth Cashdan
and focused on the !Kung Bushmen. The citation of !Kung
social organization as the quintessential example of primi-
tive communism—a “group selectionist” proposition writ
large—has been dealt with by Cashdan:
The literature of anthropology is rich in theories and dis-
cussions on the causes of stratification, while egalitar-
ianism has largely been considered to be simply the
baseline upon which stratification develops. Material
from !Kung ethnographers, however, indicates that the
egalitarianism found among most Bushman groups is
a phenomenon resulting from stringent constraints,
not simply a natural condition that represents the
absence of stratification.These constraints arise from high
spatial and temporal variability in food supply, together
with a paucity of means to buffer this variability.
(Cashdan 1980:116)
Cashdan then discussed the social sanctions that were
implemented among the !Kung to ensure that sharing
occurred at the group level. (In this regard see the descrip-
tion by Richard Lee [1969b] of the !Kung response to his dis-
play of “wealth” on the occasion of Christmas dinner.) She
contrasted her observations among the !Kung with her expe-
riences among the //Gana, who live south and slightly to the
east of the !Kung. The //Gana, Cashdan noted, were less
dependent upon “the insurance provided by the economic
leveling mechanisms typical of other Bushman groups”
(Cashdan 1980:118). Leveling mechanisms include both
direct sharing between social units and household mobility
as a means of reducing security differentials among geo-
graphic ranges. Implied in this argument, as well as in earlier
discussions by Draper (1975) and Wiessner (1977, 1982), is
the proposition that sharing was selected for and is advan-
tageous only under certain ecological conditions. Prece-
dence for this conclusion is found in Steward (1936, 1955)
and in Eggan’s (1968:85) comments at the Man the Hunter
Conference.
During the time that Hillard Kaplan was working on his
doctoral dissertation,he participated in a major study of shar-
ing among the Ache of eastern Paraguay (Kaplan 1983).
This research formed the basis of a series of important
papers dealing specifically with sharing and the arguments
that had previously been offered to account for this behav-
ior (Jones 1983; Kaplan et al. 1984; Kaplan and Hill 1985;
Kaplan et al. 1990). This body of literature is methodologi-
cally sophisticated, internally consistent, and comprehensive,
and it is the most provocative examination of the subject of
sharing currently available.
Throughout the remainder of this book I refer to perti-
nent observations and arguments presented in the research
of evolutionary biologists. At this juncture, however, I pre-
fer to deal with the issue of sharing as a risk-reducing mech-
anism—that is, one in which variance in productive success
is leveled by sharing among cooperating producers.(The term
leveling describes a situation in which the mean value of the
food acquired by a set of producers is available to all within
the set, as opposed to each producer having to rely on the
product of his or her individual efforts during the term of the
cooperation.)
In order to understand variability in this domain of
hunter-gatherer social phenomena, a set of cooperating pro-
ducers and a term or duration of the cooperation must be
specified so that behavior can be monitored and risk reduc-
tion strategies can be evaluated. To obtain a measurement of
mean and variance in the results of work effort within a
socially defined labor unit, both categories of data are
required, not only for field research but also for theory build-
ing. Thus far, data are available for only one group of hunter-
gatherers, the Ache, although observations germane to the
proposition of risk reduction are available for other groups.
The following summary of detailed research on sharing
is abstracted from recent work by Kaplan et al. (1990):12
1. Risk: Risk is defined not as danger or insecurity13 but rather
as temporal variability in the amount of food available for
consumption, resulting from the productive efforts of a
finite set of producers over a given time period of obser-
vation. Risk may be thought of as a particular conse-
chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 27](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-51-320.jpg)
![ing may occur as a result of other compensatory benefits, or
those in which the refusal to share results in social sanctions,
are variable among hunter-gatherers and will be kept in
mind as I discuss variability in organizational forms among
hunter-gatherers.
Kaplan et al. (1990) have raised some additional issues
regarding the preconditions for effective sharing as a risk-
reducing strategy and make some assessments about the
likelihood that these conditions occur in real-life social sit-
uations. They point out that sharing does not work as a
risk-reducing strategy if some participants in the risk-reducing
labor pool do not share or if they hoard food for their exclu-
sive use. In short, in order to be successful, sharing must be
a“response-contingent”strategy, which means that failure to
share by participants in a risk-pooling group is dealt with by
withholding shares to freeloaders or applying other negative
sanctions.A successful response-contingent strategy implies
that members of a risk-pooling unit must have extensive and
dependable prior knowledge of the persons with whom they
plan to share labor and output or the anticipated successful
outcome will be jeopardized. For food sharing to either
evolve or be maintained,
group size, group stability, and the value of reciprocal
food sharing will interact in determining whether it
will evolve. . . . As group size increases or stability
decreases (such that old partners leave and new partners
enter the group), the value of food sharing must also
increase. . . .
If food sharing evolves in order to reduce variance,
then,all other things being equal,it is most likely to occur
when . . . [there is] high temporal variability in food
acquisition which is not synchronized across the pool
of potential sharers, repeated interactions, and small
group size. (Kaplan et al. 1990:120–21)
These statements constitute a bare bones outline of a
theory of sharing, which is justification for some excitement
since, in fact, theories are rare in the anthropological and
archaeological literature.14 Theories are the fundamental
tools of the learning strategy that is generally referred to as
science, and as such they outline dynamic relationships and
permit the reasoned derivation of hypotheses that stipulate
when a condition can be expected to occur and when it will
not. The use of theory is well illustrated in the investigations
conducted by Kaplan et al. among the Ache, and their work
contrasts starkly with another kind of variability in the field
of hunter-gatherer studies that is derived from the adoption
by various authors of particular intellectual postures. It is not
possible to review this voluminous literature here, but it
may be summarized as advocating the utility of particular cog-
nitive criteria for characterizing hunter-gatherer societies.A
currently popular example distinguishes between social
groups in terms of immediate- versus delayed-return reci-
procity (Morris 1982b; Woodburn 1980, 1988) whereas
another heated set of arguments disputes the essential char-
acteristics of “real” hunter-gatherers (Bower 1989; Head-
land and Reid 1989; Kent 1992; Lee 1992; Lewin 1988; Schrire
1984a, 1984b; Wilmsen 1983, 1989).
I do not find either of these characterizing exercises use-
ful. Arguments about “real” hunter-gatherers proceed from
a failure to address the question of what is an explanatory
theory, and they ignore the vital concern of how knowl-
edge—which exists in the present—is most productively
used to structure research to accomplish the goal of making
knowledge grow. My approach to the strategic use of con-
temporary knowledge is described as part of a set of funda-
mental arguments that I make in subsequent chapters of
this book.
Conclusion
This chapter has been concerned with what has been learned
about hunter-gatherers from some of our intellectual pre-
decessors in the discipline of anthropology and about how
this knowledge contributes to a definition of the challeng-
ing research problems to be addressed by the contempo-
rary generation of researchers.
The work of Mauss and Beuchat was introduced to
demonstrate that some early scholars who investigated orga-
nizational variety in hunter-gatherer life ways had tried to
establish that behavior in many small-scale societies was
organized in ways that were neither normative nor static.Their
research demonstrated that hunter-gatherer behavior appeared
to exhibit regularities that were at least influenced, if not
caused, by large-scale environmental cyclicities. For the
greater part of the twentieth century,this approach to research
was frequently cited, but the processual implications were
ignored until quite recently.Work at the pattern recognition
level has repeatedly informed us that hunter-gatherers are vari-
able in the extent to which their social and labor organiza-
tion is stable or cyclically changing, and yet little work has
been directed to explaining why within-systems variability
should or should not occur. One could say, then, that Mauss
and Beuchat’s intellectual bequest to future generations of
hunter-gatherer researchers was inadvertently placed in trust
and remained there for several generations. We believe that
the time has come to gain access to that bequest and manip-
ulate it productively.
The work of Julian Steward illustrates very graphically what
happens when the units of observation in terms of which vari-
ability is monitored are ambiguous or indistinct. Steward’s
idea of the band was stated clearly enough.For him“the func-
tional basis of band organization, then, was the habitual
cooperation of its members in joint enterprises and its objec-
tive expression was the common name, chieftainship, and
ownership of territory” (Steward 1938:51).
chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 29](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-53-320.jpg)
![the way to Botany Bay. I shall likewise prove the Excise Office to be
the greatest smuggle in the nation, for they smuggled the ground
from the public on which their office stands, and for which I shall
conjure up Old Gresham’s ghost, to read them a lecture upon thieving.
Like the great men, I pledge my honour, life, and fortune, that I
will remove all heavy taxes, and by a glorious scheme, contrived by
me and my friend Lord George Gordon, I shall, by a philosophical,
aristocratical thermometer, or such-like hydraulics, discover the
longitude among the Jews of Duke’s Place, and the secret of Masonry.
City honours I never courted, nor would I give an old wig to be
drawn in idle state through Cheapside’s foggy air on a 9th of
November.—No, I would rather sit by the side of my great friend Mr.
Fox, in the Duke of Devonshire’s coach, and make another coalition, or
go with him to India, and be a governor’s great man; for,
Hated by fools, and fools to hate,
Was always Jeffery Dunstan’s fate.
Though my Lord George has turned Jew, and wears a broom about
his chin[221], I never intend to do so until his informer is dead, or the
time elapsed of his imprisonment in the county castle, when we shall
both go into Duke’s Place, and be sworn true friends; then woe be to
the informing busy bookseller of Spitalfields, who was lately turned
out of the Snogo for eating pork with the rind on. Depend upon it his
windows shall chatter more Hebrew than he ever understood. All this
shall be done by me, in spite of him. Yes, by me, your humble servant,
Sir Jeffery Dunstan, M.P.
Exparte Dimsdale, Bart.
“Two single Gentlemen roll’d into one.”
TAKE NOTICE.
Whereas, on or upon the last page but one of the last sheet,
that is to say, columns 829 and 830 of the Every-Day Book, there are
two whole length portraits, each whereof is subscribed, or inscribed
beneath, with one name.
And whereas each, and both, is and are, thereby, that is to say, by
the said one name, called, or purported to be called, “Sir Jeffery](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-61-320.jpg)
![parliamentary existence with no more offences against integrity,
than could be laid to thy charge! A fair dismissal was thy due, not so
unkind a degradation; some little snug retreat, with a bit of green
before thine eyes, and not a burial alive in the fetid beggaries of
Bethnal. Thou wouldst have ended thy days in a manner more
appropriate to thy pristine dignity, installed in munificent mockery
(as in mock honours you had lived)—a Poor Knight of Windsor!
Every distinct place of public speaking demands an oratory
peculiar to itself. The forensic fails within the walls of St. Stephen.
Sir Jeffery was a living instance of this, for in the flower of his
popularity an attempt was made to bring him out upon the stage (at
which of the winter theatres I forget, but I well remember the
anecdote) in the part of Doctor Last.[222] The announcement drew a
crowded house; but notwithstanding infinite tutoring—by Foote, or
Garrick, I forget which—when the curtain drew up, the heart of Sir
Jeffery failed, and he faultered on, and made nothing of his part, till
the hisses of the house at last in very kindness dismissed him from
the boards. Great as his parliamentary eloquence had shown itself;
brilliantly as his off-hand sallies had sparkled on a hustings; they
here totally failed him. Perhaps he had an aversion to borrowed wit;
and, like my Lord Foppington, disdained to entertain himself (or
others) with the forced products of another man’s brain. Your man of
quality is more diverted with the natural sprouts of his own.
C. L.
The Garrett Oath.
Almost all that can be said of the oath of qualification,
administered to the electors at the Garrett hustings, has been
already said in the letter to Dr. Ducarel, on column 826. It was
printed, and from one of these once manifold documents, which are
now so rare as not to be attainable in a perfect state, the following
title, &c. is copied literally.
“The
OATH](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-74-320.jpg)
![“Sworn (coram nobis) at our
Great Hall on Garrat Green,
covered with the plenteous
harvest
of the Goddess Ceres, and
dedi-
cated to the Jovial God
Comus.”
}
of
Qualification
for the
Ancient Borough of
GARRAT
According as it stands in the
Old Record handed down to us
By the
Grand Volgee
by order of the Great
CHIN KAW CHIPO
First Emperor of the Moon
Anno Mundi 75.
“That you have been admitted peaceably and quietly into
possession of a Freehold—
* * * *
[Here the original, referred to, is so defective as not to be
copyable.]
* * * *
——“within the said manor of Garrat; and that you did (bona
fide) keep (ad rem) possession —— (durante bene placito) without
any let, suit, hindrance, or molestation whatever ——
* * * *
More than this it is not possible to
give of the Garrett oath.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-75-320.jpg)
![[exit.
marked character in his “comedy” had not its living original. It is
certain, that he drew Major Sturgeon from old Justice Lamb, a
fishmonger at Acton, and a petty trading justice, whose daughter
was married by Major Fleming, a gentleman also “in the commission
of the peace,” yet every way a more respectable man than his
father-in-law.
Referring, then, to Foote’s “comedy,” sir Jacob Jollup, who has a
house at Garratt, holds a dialogue with his man Roger concerning
the company they expect—
Sir J. Are the candidates near upon coming?
Roger. Nic Goose, the tailor from Putney, they say, will be here in
a crack, sir Jacob.
Sir J. Has Margery fetch’d in the linen?
Roger. Yes, sir Jacob.
Sir J. Are the pigs and the poultry lock’d up in the barn?
Roger. Safe, sir Jacob.
Sir J. And the plate and spoons in the pantry?
Roger. Yes, sir Jacob.
Sir J. Then give me the key; the mob will soon be upon us; and
all is fish that comes to their net. Has Ralph laid the cloth in the hall?
Roger. Yes, sir Jacob.
Sir J. Then let him bring out the turkey and chine, and be sure
there is plenty of mustard; and, d’ye hear, Roger, do you stand
yourself at the gate, and be careful who you let in.
Roger. I will, sir Jacob.
Sir J. So, now I believe thing: are pretty secure.—
Mob. [Without.] Huzza!
Re-enter Roger.
Sir J. What’s the matter now, Roger?
Roger. The electors desire to know if your worship has any body
to recommend?
Sir J. By no means; let them be free in their choice: I shan’t
interfere.
Roger. And if your worship has any objection to Crispin Heeltap,
the cobler, being returning officer?](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-77-320.jpg)
![respected accordingly.
3 Mob. Room for master Snuffle.
Heel. Here, stand by me: and let us, neighbours, proceed to
open the premunire of the thing: but first, your reverence to the lord
of the manor: a long life and a merry one to our landlord, sir Jacob
huzza!
Mob. Huzza!
Sneak. How fares it, honest Crispin?
Heel. Servant, master Sneak. Let us now open the premunire of
the thing, which I shall do briefly, with all the loquacity possible; that
is, in a medium way; which, that we may the better do it, let the
secretary read the names of the candidates, and what they say for
themselves; and then we shall know what to say of them. Master
Snuffle, begin.
Snuffle. [Reads.] “To the worthy inhabitants of the ancient
corporation of Garratt: gentlemen, your votes and interest are
humbly requested in favour of Timothy Goose, to succeed your late
worthy mayor, Mr. Richard Dripping, in the said office, he being”——
Heel. This Goose is but a kind of gosling, a sort of sneaking
scoundrel. Who is he?
Snuffle. A journeyman tailor from Putney.
Heel. A journeyman tailor! A rascal, has he the impudence to
transpire to be mayor? D’ye consider, neighbours, the weight of this
office? Why, it is a burthen for the back of a porter; and can you
think that this cross-legg’d cabbage-eating son of a cucumber, this
whey-fac’d ninny, who is but the ninth part of a man, has strength to
support it?
1 Mob. No Goose! no Goose!
2 Mob. A Goose!
Heel. Hold your hissing, and proceed to the next.
Snuffle. [Reads.] “Your votes are desired for Matthew Mug.”
1 Mob. A Mug! a Mug!
Heel. Oh, oh, what you are ready to have a touch of the tankard;
but fair and soft, good neighbours, let us taste this master Mug
before we swallow him; and, unless I am mistaken, you’ll find him a
bitter draught.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-79-320.jpg)
![[Exeunt Mob, &c.
Heel. Why, he swears as how all the miscarriages are owing to
the great people’s not learning to read.
3 Mob. Indeed!
Heel. “For,” says Peter, says he, “if they would but once submit to
be learned by me, there is no knowing to what a pitch the nation
might rise.”
1 Mob. Ay, I wish they would.
Sneak. Crispin, what, is Peter Primmer a candidate?
Heel. He is, master Sneak.
Sneak. Lord I know him, mun, as well as my mother: why, I used
to go to his lectures to Pewterers’-hall, ’long with deputy Firkin.
Heel. Like enough.
Mob. [Without.] Huzza!
Heel. Gad-so! the candidates are coming.
Re-enter Sir Jacob Jollup, Bruin, and Mrs. Bruin, through the garden
gate.
Sir J. Well, son Bruin, how d’ye relish the corporation of Garratt?
Bruin. Why, lookye, sir Jacob, my way is always to speak what I
think; I don’t approve on’t at all.
Mrs. B. No?
Sir J. And what’s your objection?
Bruin. Why, I was never over fond of your May-games: besides
corporations are too serious things; they are edgetools, sir Jacob.
Sir J. That they are frequently tools, I can readily grant: but I
never heard much of their edge.
Afterwards we find the knight exclaiming—
Sir J. Hey-day! What, is the election over already?
Enter Crispin, Heeltap, &c.
Heel. Where is master Sneak!
Sneak. Here, Crispin.
Heel. The ancient corporation of Garratt, in consideration of your
great parts and abilities, and out of respect to their landlord, sir
Jacob, have unanimously chosen you mayor.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-81-320.jpg)
![frozen ocean to the banks of the more genial Po;—may boast their
experience of the world, and their knowledge of human life: but no
one, in my opinion, has seen real life, or can know it, unless he has
taken an active part in a contested election for Westminster!
“In no school can a man be taught a better lesson of human life;
—there can he view human nature in her basest attire; riot, murder,
and drunkenness, are the order of the day, and bribery and perjury
walk hand in hand:—for men who had no pretensions to vote, were
to be found in the garden in as great plenty as turnips, and at a very
moderate rate were induced to poll.
“A gentleman, to make himself of any considerable use to either
party, must possess a number of engaging, familiar, and
condescending qualities; he must help a porter up with his load,
shake hands with a fisherman, pull his hat off to an oyster wench,
kiss a ballad-singer, and be familiar with a beggar. If, in addition to
these amiable qualities, he is a tolerable good boxer, can play a good
stick, and in the evening drink a pailful of all sorts of liquors, in
going the rounds to solicit voters at their various clubs, then, indeed,
he is a most highly finished useful agent. In all the above
accomplishments and sciences, except drinking, which I never was
fond of, I have the vanity to believe that I arrived nearer to
perfection than any of my rivals. I should be ungrateful, indeed, if I
did not testify my thanks to those gallant troops of high rank and
distinguished fame—the knights of the strap, and the black diamond
knights, (the Irish chairmen and coal heavers,) who displayed such
bravery and attachment to our cause.”[223]
This was the cause to which Sam House was attached; and,
perhaps, there was not greater difference between the scenes
described by Hanger, and those at Garrett, than between the same
scenes, and more recent ones, on similar occasions in the same city.
What has hitherto been related concerning the Garrett election,
in 1781, is in consequence of the editor having had recourse to the
remarkable drawings from whence the present engravings have
been made. From that circumstance he was strongly induced to
inquire concerning it, and, as a faithful historian, he has recorded](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/29149673-250523193940-1d18457f/85/Constructing-Frames-Of-Reference-First-Edition-Lewis-R-Binford-85-320.jpg)
Constructing Frames Of Reference First Edition Lewis R Binford
- 1. Constructing Frames Of Reference First Edition Lewis R Binford download https://ebookbell.com/product/constructing-frames-of-reference- first-edition-lewis-r-binford-58299346 Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com
- 2. Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be interested in. You can click the link to download. Frames Of Meaning The Social Construction Of Extraordinary Science 1st Edition H M Collins https://ebookbell.com/product/frames-of-meaning-the-social- construction-of-extraordinary-science-1st-edition-h-m-collins-5096214 Steel Moment Frames For Seismic Applications 1st Edition American Institute Of Steel Construction https://ebookbell.com/product/steel-moment-frames-for-seismic- applications-1st-edition-american-institute-of-steel- construction-53515012 Analysis Design And Construction Of Steel Space Frames G S Ramaswamy https://ebookbell.com/product/analysis-design-and-construction-of- steel-space-frames-g-s-ramaswamy-2359270 Image Reality And Media Construction A Frame Analysis Of German Media Representations Of China 1st Ed 2020 Fengmin Yan https://ebookbell.com/product/image-reality-and-media-construction-a- frame-analysis-of-german-media-representations-of-china-1st- ed-2020-fengmin-yan-10806268
- 3. P391 Structural Robustness Of Steel Framed Buildings A G J Way https://ebookbell.com/product/p391-structural-robustness-of-steel- framed-buildings-a-g-j-way-52388092 Steelframed Storm Shelters Design Guide 35 Roger A Laboube https://ebookbell.com/product/steelframed-storm-shelters-design- guide-35-roger-a-laboube-50365532 Design Guide 34 Steelframed Stairway Design Adam D Friedman https://ebookbell.com/product/design-guide-34-steelframed-stairway- design-adam-d-friedman-50365526 Frames And Constructions In Metaphoric Language Karen Sullivan https://ebookbell.com/product/frames-and-constructions-in-metaphoric- language-karen-sullivan-4731230 Timber Frame Construction Designing For High Performance 5th Edition Robin Lancashire https://ebookbell.com/product/timber-frame-construction-designing-for- high-performance-5th-edition-robin-lancashire-52458520
- 5. Constructing Frames of Reference
- 6. The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous contribution to this book provided by the General Endowment Fund of the Association of the University of California Press.
- 7. Constructing Frames of Reference An Analytical Method for Archaeological Theory Building Using Hunter-Gatherer and Environmental Data Sets lewis r. binford universit y of califor nia press Berkeley Los Angeles London
- 9. This book is dedicated to the memory of Julian H. Steward John J. Honigmann Joseph B. Birdsell and Wendell H. Oswalt four inspiring investigators of hunter-gatherer life ways
- 11. List of Figures xi List of Tables xvii Acknowledgments xix Prologue 1 pa r t i Exploring Prior Knowledge and Belief c h a p t e r 1 “Founder’s Effect” and the Study of Hunter-Gatherers 9 The Explanatory Challenge of Complex Wholes 9 Several Perspectives on Hunter-Gatherer Variability 11 Conclusion 29 c h a p t e r 2 Human Actors and Their Role in the Evolutionary Play 32 Actors in Hyperspace 32 Exploring the Properties of the Actors: A Prerequisite for Understanding Niche 33 Assessing Risk and Uncertainty When Considering Volition and Planning 35 Blaming Human Uniqueness for the Lack of Productive Theory 37 Human Uniqueness Is a Constant, Not a Cause 37 Received Knowledge, Volition, and the Outcomes of Future Events 38 The Need for Organizational Approaches to Variability 40 Conclusion 42 c h a p t e r 3 The Play of Ideas in the Scientific Theater 44 Prologue 44 Act I, Scene 1: Data Production 45 Act I, Scene 2: Dimensionalizing Data 47 Act II, Scene 1: Building and Using Frames of Reference 48 Act II, Scene 2: Projection 49 Act III, Scene 1: Developing a Dialogue between Researchers and Hunter-Gatherers 50 Act III, Scene 2: Learning about Variability through Pattern Recognition Techniques 51 Contents
- 12. contents viii pa r t i i Methods for Using Prior Knowledge: Building Frames of Reference and Models c h a p t e r 4 Setting the Stage for the Evolutionary Play: The Earth’s Climates, Plants, and Animals 55 Climate: A Baseline for the Study of Ecology 56 Biomes and Habitats: Structures of Accessible Resources 73 Conclusion 113 c h a p t e r 5 Designing Frames of Reference and Exploring Projections: The Plot Thickens 114 Hunter-Gatherer Niche Diversity 115 Hunter-Gatherer Variability 116 Productive Results from Biased Data 130 Projecting Hunter-Gatherer Populations to the Entire Earth 142 Conclusion 156 c h a p t e r 6 Building a Baseline for Analyzing Niche Variability among Ethnographically Documented Peoples: A Minimalist Terrestrial Model of Hunting and Gathering 160 Ecosystems, Sociocultural Systems, and Evolution 160 Environmental Properties Germane to an Understanding of Variability among Hunter-Gatherers 164 Model Building: Further Considerations of Species-Specific Properties and Initial Conditions for Imagining Dynamics 174 A Model of an Exclusively Terrestrial Hunter-Gatherer Who Responds Primarily to Variability in Directly Accessible Foods 187 Using Models and Projections: System State Differences and Ideas about Emergent Complexity 188 Looking at the Spread of Agropastoralism with Projected Knowledge 197 Searching for Clues to Process: Other Uses for Frames of Reference 202 Conclusion 204 pa r t i i i Recognizing Patterns and Generalizing about What the World Is Like: The Transition from Pattern Recognition to Theory Building c h a p t e r 7 Twenty-One Generalizations in Search of a Theory 209 Recognizing System State Variability 211 Exploring System State Variability among Ethnographically Documented Hunter-Gatherers 212 Relating Our Observations and Generalizations to Arguments in the Anthropological Literature 223 Exploring Systems State Variability at a Smaller Scale 225 Building a Minimalist Model of Hunter-Gatherer Group Size as a Standard for Measurement 229 Conclusion 242 c h a p t e r 8 A Flat Earth or a “Thick Rotundity”?: Investigating What the World Is Like before Attempting to Explain It 243 Variability in GROUP1 Size: The Model versus the Documented Cases 244 Identifying Other Conditioners of Group Size Variability 255 Where Are We? An Assessment 307 Conclusion 314
- 13. contents ix c h a p t e r 9 The Play’s the Thing in the Scientific Theater 316 Spotlight on the Group Size Model 317 Risk Pooling or Nested Hierarchies of Decision Makers? 351 Too Many Models and Constants! 351 More Interesting Problems Raised by the Frequency Distributions of “Basal Units” 352 The “Population Pressure” Controversy and the General Issue of Density-Dependent Changes in Organization 354 Reflections 357 pa r t i v Putting Ideas, Second-Order Derivative Patterning, and Generalizations Together: Explorations in Theory Building c h a p t e r 1 0 A Disembodied Observer Looks at Hunter-Gatherer Responses to Packing 363 Habitat Variability, Potential Niche Diversity, and the Spatial Structure of Resource Accessibility 364 Two New Instruments for Measurement: Spatial Packing and Niche Effectiveness 372 Pattern Recognition Using Instruments for Measurement 375 Intensification and Technology: More Responses to Packing 387 Conclusion 399 c h a p t e r 1 1 The Evolution of System States: Complexity, Stability, Symmetry, and System Change 400 The Once and Future Processual Archaeology 400 Recent Archaeological Research on Complexity: Issues of Stability and Instability 401 Applying New Knowledge about Stability and Instability to Questions of Specialization and Diversification 406 One Route to Complexity: Emergence through Internal Differentiation 417 Conclusion 432 c h a p t e r 1 2 The Last Act Crowns the Play 434 How Hunter-Gatherers Become Non-Hunter-Gatherers 434 Conclusion 461 Epilogue 465 Glimpses of Processes beyond the Packing Threshold 468 Have I Established a General Research Procedure? 471 Notes 473 References 493 Author Index 535 Index of Ethnographic Cases and Archaeological Sites 539 Subject Index 541
- 15. 3.01 Model of an archaeologist’s intellectual matrix 47 4.01 Model of the earth’s circulation patterns 56 4.02 Scatter plot of data from the 1,429 weather stations included in the sample of the earth’s environments showing the relationship between latitude and mean annual rainfall 57 4.03 Distribution of deserts by continent and latitude 58 4.04 Comparative distribution of two measures of temperature—biotemperature and effective temperature— from the world weather station sample 68 4.05 Comparative distribution of three measures of temperature—mean annual temperature, effective temperature, and biotemperature, expressed relative to a modeled measure of temperateness— from the world weather station sample 69 4.06 Scatter plot of data from the 1,429 weather stations included in the sample of the earth’s environments showing the relationship between latitude and mean annual rainfall 71 4.07 Dramatic latitudinal pattern in the coefficient of variation for rainfall, coded for season of greatest rainfall 71 4.08 Percentage of annual precipitation falling in the three winter months over the Mediterranean region of southern Europe and North Africa. 72 4.09 World map with ordinal zones for the length of the growing season 73 4.10 Water balance graphs featuring examples from the Ngatatjara of Australia and the !Kung of Botswana 78 4.11 Property space graphs, compiled from the world weather station sample, defined by latitude, effective temperature, and potential evapotranspiration 81 4.12 World map with ordinal zones by effective temperature, compiled from the world weather station sample 82 4.13 Property space map defined by latitude and the log10 value of net aboveground productivity in the plant biome, from the world weather station sample 83 4.14 Demonstration of the relationship between potential evapotranspiration and rainfall as joint conditioners of net aboveground productivity in the plant biome, from the world weather station sample 83 4.15 Demonstration of the property space defined by latitude and primary biomass as coded for available water (AVWAT), from the world weather station sample 94 4.16 Demonstration of the property space defined by the biomass accumulation ratio and effective temperature as coded for available water (AVWAT), from the world weather station sample 94 4.17 World map with zones defined by large-scale plant formations according to the world weather station sample 100 4.18 Comparative distributions of two major plant associations from the world weather station sample—savanna and tropical forest and grassland and midlatitude forest—illustrating their different locations in the property space of latitude and the coefficient of variation for rainfall 101 4.19 Scatter plot of observed biomass of animals of moderate body size and the ratio of potential to actual evapotranspiration 106 4.20 Large herds of ungulates in Amboseli Game Park, Kenya 107 4.21 Artificial pan in Kruger National Park, South Africa 108 4.22 Elephants on the Olifants River in the northern area of Kruger National Park, South Africa 108 Figures
- 16. figures 4.23 Scatter plot of observed and expected biomass of animals of moderate body size 110 4.24 World map with zones defined by an ordination of projected biomass for ungulates of moderate body size according to the world weather station sample 112 4.25 Property space map for primary net aboveground productivity and latitude, with zones defined by an ordination of projected biomass for ungulates of moderate body size, from the world weather station sample (XPREYORD) 113 5.01 Nunamiut butchering caribou 115 5.02 Pume women engaged in cooperative household plant food processing 116 5.03 World map showing the location of the 339 ethnographically documented cases of hunter-gatherers used comparatively in this study 130 5.04 Map of South America showing the areas occupied by hunter-gatherer groups documented during the colonial period 131 5.05 World map showing the location of ethnographically documented hunter-gatherer cases, differentiated into those in settings with other hunter-gatherers and those that were integrated into non-hunter-gatherer systems at the time of description 132 5.06 Percentage of the earth’s area covered by identified plant communities graphed relative to the percentage of each community occupied by documented hunter-gatherers 135 5.07 Estimated distribution of hunter-gatherers just prior to 10,000 B.C. 139 5.08 Nearly contemporary world distribution of the use of domesticated plants and animals 140 5.09 Comparative world maps illustrating the geographic distribution of hunter-gatherer cases with information from those cases projected through plant community associations to the world, based on the world weather station sample 141 5.10 Comparative world maps for projected hunter-gatherer population density 149 5.11 Three proportional projections from the sample of 142 hunter-gatherer cases from the world weather station sample 150 5.12 Two proportional projections from the sample of 142 cases from the world weather station sample 152 5.13 Scatter plot of the standard deviation of GROUP2 sizes among groups living in the same gross plant community displayed against the percentage of the earth’s total land area occupied by each plant community 154 5.14 Comparative property space defined by latitude and the log10 value of net aboveground productivity among terrestrial plants coded for size of ethnic areas 156 5.15 Contrast in the accuracy of relational and proportional projection from the world weather station sample for size of the area occupied by an ethnic group 157 6.01 Demonstration of an inverse relationship between predominantly winter rainfall (SUCSTAB) and net aboveground productivity (NAGP) based on the world weather station sample 170 6.02 World distribution map for scaled values of successional stability (SSTAB2) based on the world weather station sample 171 6.03 Relationship between two measures of winter-dominant rainfall, SUCSTAB and MEDSTAB, based on the world weather station sample 172 6.04 Global comparison of projections from ethnographically documented hunter-gatherers and from the Terrestrial Model for primary source of food. 190 6.05 Projection of Terrestrial Model estimates for primary sources of foods for western Europe, using modern weather stations as the climatic baseline 193 6.06 Distribution of Megalithic chambered tombs across western Europe 193 6.07 Projection from ethnographically documented hunter-gatherers to western Europe for primary sources of food using modern weather stations as the climatic baseline 193 6.08 Distribution of estimates of aquatic resource accessibility across western Europe using modern weather stations as the climatic baseline 194 6.09 Comparative projections of the role of hunting among hunter-gatherers projected to inhabit the environments of contemporary western Europe 194 6.10 Comparative graphs showing the dates of the earliest appearance of cultigens in northern and southern Europe, displayed against population density estimates projected by the Terrestrial Model 198 6.11 Comparative graphs showing the dates for the earliest appearance of cultigens in northern and southern Europe, displayed against the percentage dependence upon aquatic resources of ethnographically described hunter-gatherers projected to inhabit the environments of contemporary Europe 199 xii
- 17. 6.12 Comparative graphs showing the dates for the earliest appearance of domesticates in northern and southern Europe, displayed against the percentage dependence upon terrestrial animals projected from the Terrestrial Model for minimalist hunter-gatherers inhabiting the environments of contemporary Europe 200 6.13 Early assessment of the distribution across Europe of LBK ceramics and their makers relative to earlier cultures at approximately the fifth millennium b.c. 201 6.14 More recent map of the distribution of LBK ceramics and their makers, partitioned into early and later periods 201 6.15 Property space graph of the world sample of weather stations showing the location of European sites for which 14C dates document the appearance of cultigens 202 6.16 Comparative graphs showing the cultural identity and the primary sources of food projected by the Terrestrial Model for all of the dated locations in Europe yielding the earliest evidence of the systematic use of domesticates 203 6.17 Dates of the earliest appearance of domesticates in northern Europe displayed relative to the area occupied by an ethnic group projected from ethnographically documented hunter-gatherers to the contemporary environments of western Europe 204 6.18 Comparative graphs showing the number of residential moves per year and the total miles moved among residential sites on an annual basis projected from ethnographically documented hunter-gatherers to the contemporary environments of western Europe 204 7.01 Demonstration of a Poisson distribution for the residuals from global equations for ethnic area sizes 220 7.02 Demonstration of a Poisson distribution for the observed values of ethnic area sizes and population density 224 7.03 Demonstration of the partial independence between ethnic area and the population size of an ethnic group 225 7.04 Demonstration of a Poisson-like relationship between GROUP2 size and the size of an ethnic area 227 8.01 Bar graph illustrating the differences in GROUP1 size of mobile groups dependent upon terrestrial plants 252 8.02 Scatter plot with GROUP1 size and the log10 value of net aboveground productivity defining the property space 252 8.03 Comparative bar graphs illustrating the frequency of cases with different GROUP1 sizes displayed relative to subsistence dominance: aquatic resources and terrestrial animal resources 253 8.04 Property space map defined by latitude and net aboveground productivity relative to the quantity of stored food (all hunter-gatherer cases included) 256 8.05 Property space map defined by temperateness and latitude relative to the quantity of stored food (all hunter- gatherer cases included) 257 8.06 Property space map defined by temperateness and latitude relative to the quantity of stored food (only mobile hunter-gatherer cases included) 259 8.07 Comparative graphs of mobile hunter-gatherer cases displayed in property space defined by temperateness and effective temperature 260 8.08 Comparative plots of GROUP1 size displayed relative to effective temperature 261 8.09 Comparative plots of GROUP1 size displayed relative to effective temperature; cases are restricted to those occurring in settings with ET values of less than 16 degrees 262 8.10 Comparative plots of the number of species processed for storage displayed relative to effective temperature 263 8.11 A property space plot of the number of mammalian species present in the terrestrial habitat displayed relative to the effective temperature for only North American cases in settings of lower than 17 degrees latitude 264 8.12 Comparative property space maps defined by temperature indicators and the log10 value of net aboveground productivity using the world sample of 1,429 weather stations 264 8.13 Four graphs displaying the log10 value of net aboveground productivity relative to GROUP1 size 265 8.14 Three graphs comparing patterns among mobile cases differing in the trophic level of their primary food resources and displayed in the same property space, defined by effective temperature and the log10 value of net aboveground productivity 267 8.15 A two-graph comparison of subsistence and tactical differences among mobile cases only 275 8.16 A four-graph comparison featuring the same property space, defined by the percentage of married males with more than one wife and the percentage of the total diet procured by males 287 8.17 GROUP1 size classes in a property space defined by the percentage of males participating in polygynous marriages relative to family size 298 8.18 A property space map defined by the percentage of males participating in polygynous marriages relative to differences between the mean age at first marriage of males and females 299 8.19 A paired-graph comparison between the mean age at marriage of males and females 300 figures xiii
- 18. figures 8.20 GROUP1 size sets shown in a property space defined by the percentage of males participating in polygynous marriages and the number of families in GROUP1 size units 301 8.21 Utkuhikhalingmiut fishing camp, 1963 303 8.22 A three-graph comparison of forager-collector case distributions in a property space map defined by GROUP1 size and the percentage of the diet contributed by males for hunter-gatherers dependent on terrestrial animals, terrestrial plants, and aquatic resources 304 8.23 A three-graph comparison of forager-collector case distributions in a property space map defined by the percentage of the diet contributed by males and effective temperature 306 8.24 A paired-graph comparison featuring degrees of residential mobility in a property space map of GROUP1 and GROUP2 sizes expressed relative to the area occupied by an ethnic group 310 8.25 A paired-graph comparison featuring degrees of residential mobility in a property space map of GROUP1 and GROUP2 sizes expressed relative to the total population recorded for an ethnic group 311 8.26 A paired-graph comparison between the total number of kilometers moved residentially and the mean number of kilometers per residential move 312 8.27 A paired-graph comparison between mobile hunter-gatherers and sedentary hunter-gatherers, both expressed relative to the log10 value of population density 313 9.01 Scalar-communications stress and decision performance 319 9.02 A paired-graph comparison between the number of families included in each GROUP1 unit and the number of households included in each GROUP1 unit 334 9.03 A paired-graph comparison between the number of families and the number of households in each GROUP1 unit 335 9.04 A paired-graph comparison of the number of GROUP1 units and the number of households included in each GROUP2 unit, both plotted against the size of GROUP2 units 336 9.05 Justification for the definition of subsets in mean household size when studied relative to GROUP2 sizes 337 9.06 Displayed in the property space of GROUP2 size and mean household size is an investigation of the relationship between developed leadership and “scalar differences” as indicators of political complexity 338 9.07 Investigation of mean household size as a possible “basic organizational unit,” viewed as an overall distribution and in finer detail 339 9.08 Two demonstrations of observed versus expected values of mean household size 341 9.09 Modeled GROUP2 “basal unit sizes” and mean household sizes compared with houses per modeled basal unit 345 10.01 A fish drive on the Nata River, Botswana 369 10.02 Hupa fish weir, California 370 10.03 Demonstration of the packing threshold for GROUP1 size among terrestrial plant-dependent groups 375 10.04 Niche effectiveness and threshold-related patterning in GROUP1 size among terrestrial plant-dependent groups 377 10.05 Relationships between niche effectiveness and GROUP1 size illustrating system state differences at a demonstrable threshold among terrestrial plant-dependent groups 378 10.06 Paired property space plots comparing groups dependent upon terrestrial animal resources and aquatic resources 381 10.07 A three-graph comparison of groups dependent upon terrestrial animals, terrestrial plants, and aquatic resources; GROUP2 sizes are displayed relative to the packing index 382 10.08 A three-graph comparison of groups dependent upon terrestrial animals, terrestrial plants, and aquatic resources; GROUP2 sizes are displayed relative to the niche effectiveness index 384 10.09 A two-graph comparison of the relationship between latitude and the number of weapons used in food procurement 388 10.10 The threshold in the number of tended facilities used in obtaining food relative to latitude 388 10.11 A two-graph comparison of two measures of temperature and the relationship between these measures and the complexity of tended facilities used to obtain food 389 10.12 The relationship between the number of weapons used to obtain food and the number of residential moves made annually 390 10.13 A comparison between the technological responses to niche effectiveness of groups primarily dependent upon terrestrial and aquatic resources 391 10.14 An overview of the relationship between the complexity of weapons design used in obtaining food and the log10 value of the packing index 393 xiv
- 19. figures xv 10.15 The number of instruments used primarily to obtain plant foods displayed relative to the log10 value of the packing index 393 10.16 The relationships between packing, storage, and increased numbers of untended facilities 394 10.17 The relationship between GROUP1 size and the number of untended facilities used to obtain food, with implications for the division of labor 394 10.18 The relationship between the number of tended and untended facilities used in obtaining food 395 10.19 The relationship between the complexity of tended facilities and the packing index 396 10.20 The relationship between the number of tended facilities and the niche effectiveness index 397 10.21 The relationship between the number of tended facilities and the niche effectiveness index 398 11.01 Exploring the relationship between population density and subsistence diversity 404 11.02 Partitioning the property space of population density and subsistence diversity by means of system state indicators 405 11.03 Subsistence diversity as conditioned by aquatic resource dependence 405 11.04 Paired property space plots illustrating the environmental “geography” of mutualists and tropical settings 407 11.05 Water balance graph for a typical tropical rain forest 408 11.06 Comparative water balance graphs for three ethnic groups from the Andaman Islands 409 11.07 Water balance graph for a typical tropical monsoon forest 410 11.08 Comparative water balance graphs for two mutualist groups from tropical Africa 410 11.09 Water balance graph for the Nukak of tropical South America 411 11.10 Comparative water balance graphs for four mutualist groups from Southeast Asia 412 11.11 Comparative property space maps defined by subsistence diversity and log10 values of population density; comparison is between generic hunter-gatherers only and those primarily dependent upon terrestrial animals 417 11.12 Comparative property space maps defined by subsistence diversity and log10 values of population density; comparison is between cases in settings projected to be uninhabited and those living in more supportive environments 419 11.13 Distribution of generic hunter-gatherer cases with some institutional leadership roles displayed in the property space defined by subsistence diversity and the log10 value of population density 421 11.14 Comparative property space maps defined by GROUP2 size and the log10 value of population density 421 11.15 Wealth-differentiated cases arrayed relative to the property space defined by subsistence diversity and the log10 value of population density 424 11.16 Demonstration of the curvilinear pattern expressed between population density as anticipated for the world sample of weather stations and the log10 value of population density among hunter-gatherer cases 425 11.17 Property space map defined by subsistence diversity and log10 values of population density displaying only internally ranked hunter-gatherer cases 426 11.18 Property space map defined by subsistence diversity and log10 values of population density displaying only wealth-differentiated hunter-gatherer cases 428 11.19 Subsistence-based comparative property space plots featuring only wealth-differentiated hunter-gatherer cases 429 11.20 Comparative property space plots for generic, wealth-differentiated, and internally ranked hunter-gatherer groups 431 12.01 A two-graph property space comparison of the distribution of mutualists and forest product specialists and groups practicing some horticulture 435 12.02 A property space plot identical to that of figure 12.01 but displaying non-hunter-gatherer cases represented by Pueblo groups from the American Southwest and pastoralist groups from several locations 436 12.03 Isopleth map of western Europe showing modeled reproductive rates 441 12.04 Yearly cycle of abundance for three species of anadromous fish (as well as plants) in the southern Chesapeake Bay region 445 12.05 Paired property space graphs comparing the values of three reconstructed environmental variables at Jerusalem, Israel, and Zeribar, Iran 448 12.06 A property space graph comparing projected net aboveground productivity at Jerusalem, Israel, and Zeribar, Iran, arrayed over 40,000 years 449 12.07 Modeled and projected characteristics of hunter-gatherer systems over the past 40,000 years at Jerusalem, based on reconstructed climatic variables 451
- 20. figures xvi 12.08 Modeled population density of hunter-gatherer systems and environmental conditions at Zeribar, Iran, over the past 40,000 years, based on reconstructed climatic variables 455 12.09 Modeled snow accumulation at Zeribar, Iran, over the past 40,000 years, based on reconstructed climatic variables 457 12.10 Modeled characteristics of hunter-gatherer systems and environmental conditions at Zeribar, Iran, over the past 40,000 years, based on reconstructed climatic variables 458 12.11 Projected characteristics of hunter-gatherer systems at Khartoum, Sudan, over the past 40,000 years, based on reconstructed climatic variables 459
- 21. Tables 4.01 Basic climatic variables for use with hunter-gatherer data sets 60 4.02 Temperature ordination of climates (CLIM) 70 4.03 Water balance data for the Ngatatjara of Australia 76 4.04 Water balance data for the !Kung of Botswana 77 4.05 Moisture ordination of climates (AVWAT) 80 4.06 Biomass, production, and biomass accumulation in different habitats 84 4.07 Derivative environmental indicators for use with hunter-gatherer data sets 86 4.08 Area of the earth’s surface covered by different vegetative communities 97 4.09 A global sample of animal biomass variability for ungulates of moderate body size 102 5.01 Environmental and sociocultural variables defined for the hunter-gatherer data set 118 5.02 Comparison by geographic region of the global sample of hunter-gatherers with estimates of hunter- gatherer distribution in the colonial era 131 5.03 Tabulation of the SUBPOP variable by geographic region 133 5.04 Distribution of ethnographic sample of hunter-gatherer cases according to plant community type 134 5.05 Subsets of vegetative communities ordinated from high to low by percentage of area occupied by hunter- gatherers and area covered by a specific plant community 138 5.06 Plant community types as a frame of reference for the global distribution of hunter-gatherer cases 143 5.07 Estimates of global population levels, Lower Paleolithic era to the present 144 5.08 Data sets and their relationships to a geographically proportional representation of the earth’s plant communities 145 5.09 t Test comparisons of six environmental variables in three different data sets 146 5.10 Projected mean values for ethnographically documented hunter-gatherers, summarized by plant community 147 6.01 Drainage categories (SETTING) 168 6.02 Animal biomass in tropical and subtropical forests 178 6.03 Hunter-gatherer stature and weight 183 6.04 Consumption of plant foods by sixteen persons during a 243-day period at 99 percent dependence upon plant foods 187 6.05 Comparison of projected and modeled frequencies for dominant subsistence sources among the weather stations from Africa and South America 191 6.06 Weather station data for central and western Europe using the Terrestrial Model and the projected values from the hunter-gatherer data set 195 7.01 Comparison of demographic and areal data segregating the hunter-gatherer data set by subsistence, mobility pattern, and acculturative state 214 7.02 Population density partitioned by climatic zone, mobility pattern, and predominant food source 215
- 22. tables xviii 7.03 Total population and area occupied partitioned by climatic zone, mobility pattern, and predominant food source 217 7.04 Ratios indicating trends in the hunter-gatherer sample for total population and area occupied 218 7.05 Comparison of group size among subsets of cases 226 7.06 Comparison of group size by subsistence, mobility, and acculturative state 227 7.07 Producers and dependents at selected Zu/wasi !Kung camps 230 7.08 Dependency ratios of selected hunter-gatherer cases 231 7.09 Comparison of work effort and dependency ratio at two Australian hunter-gatherer camps 231 7.10 Empirical observations of foraging distances for female-only foraging parties 235 7.11 Empirical observations of foraging distances for male-only foraging parties 236 7.12 Size of foraging area for seven hunter-gatherer groups and time needed for coverage 237 7.13 Summary of data on hunter-gatherer foraging trips 238 7.14 Demonstration of the relationship between mobility and food abundance for 20- and 50-person groups of foragers 240 7.15 Demonstration of the relationship between forager mobility and group size when abundance of food is held constant 241 8.01 Hunter-gatherer group size during the most dispersed and most aggregated phases of the annual cycle and at periodic regional aggregations 245 8.02 Comparison of GROUP1 size by classes of net aboveground productivity 253 8.03 Comparison of “exceptional” hunter-gatherer cases in terms of selected environmental variables, population density, and dependence upon stored foods 258 8.04 Data on hunter-gatherer mobility, including number of moves and distance moved per year 270 8.05 Cross-tabulations of foragers and collectors according to climate (CLIM) and primary food resources 277 8.06 Mean values for hunter-gatherer GROUP1 size, number of residential moves annually, and average number of kilometers per move, grouped by subsistence base 278 8.07 Percentage of polygyny and age at marriage in hunter-gatherer groups practicing polygynous marriage 281 8.08 Mean household size (persons residing in a single structure) and family size for a sample of ethnographically documented hunter-gatherer cases 288 8.09 Effect of polygyny on GROUP1 size 298 8.10 Relationships between male division of labor and variability in group size when the number of producers is held constant 302 9.01 Properties of hunter-gatherer systems 320 9.02 Estimates of average number of basal units within GROUP2 cases, classified by primary food source for cases in which households are the basal unit 336 9.03 Summary of relationship between mean household size and mean size of residential settlements during the most aggregated phase of the annual settlement cycle 337 9.04 Summary information on linear regressions calculated separately by G2MHSET3 subset for the relationship between GROUP2 settlement size and mean household size 340 9.05 Cross-tabulation of hunter-gatherer cases according to the ordinal variables G2BAORD and SYSTATE 342 10.01 Number of species of flowering plants compared with size of area surveyed 364 10.02 Expected number of species of flowering plants occurring in ranges of different size and occupied by hunter- gatherer groups of twenty persons 365 10.03 Residual species in areas of comparable size located in different environmental zones, using French flowering plants as a baseline for measurement 365 11.01 Cross-tabulation of hunter-gatherer system states and global warmth variable (CLIM) 408 11.02 Comparative information on hunter-gatherer cases in tropical and equatorial settings: clues to complexity and niche breadth 414
- 23. Acknowledgments Four people have each worked long and hard to help make this book a reality. Without their efforts, the form and con- tent of the manuscript would have been much less interest- ing and the experience of writing it would have been much less enriching for me. Three of them have served as my research assistants at Southern Methodist University during the time that the manuscript was evolving. In order of par- ticipation, they are Russell Gould, SMU Ph.D. student and resident of Fairbanks,Alaska;Amber Johnson,Ph.D.,research associate at the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man in Dallas, Texas; and Joseph Miller, graduate student in archae- ology at SMU and my assistant for the past two years. Russell worked with me daily in the early 1990s, and much of the material summarized in chapters 4 and 5 will certainly be familiar to him. He also assembled most of the hunter-gatherer case references cited in the text and, then as now, acted as my advisor in all matters related to the com- plex world of computer programming. Amber came on board when I was heavily involved in developing the equa- tions for estimating net aboveground productivity and try- ing to obtain a reasonable estimate of animal biomass. Successful completion of this aspect of the research set me up to cope with the difficult task of developing the Terres- trial Model presented in chapter 6. Amber worked with me on most of the pattern recognition work leading up to and including the writing of chapter 9, and she also cheerfully entered more data than any person ever wants to do in life. I salute her patience and persistence and the lengths to which she will go for a friend. Joe took over from Amber and faced the daunting task of learning the names of all of the computer files and master- ing the protocols that manipulate the series of complicated programs used to translate selected variables into patterned relationships. Ultimately, Joe’s attention has been focused on the production of all of the computer graphics used in the book.I think that even this brief statement of what these three colleagues have contributed to this book indicates the depth of my indebtedness to them and my appreciation for their splendid companionship during my extended intellectual journey. The fourth person I want to recognize has played a very different role in this process. My former wife, Nancy Medaris Stone, has been with me every step of the way since my decision in 1990 to concentrate on the research that repre- sents the foundation of this book. Early on it became clear that, in addition to enlarging my hunter-gatherer data base, as much or even more time and effort was needed to develop the frames of reference in terms of which I would eventually examine relationships in the hunter-gatherer data. I had realized that—regardless of how well this body of informa- tion might have been collected by ethnographers—only the diversity and informational content of well-chosen frames of reference would provide the aperture I needed to make sense of the patterns in the data. The day that I decided to move toward assembling a cli- matological frame of reference, Nancy and I made a com- mitment to devote endless hours to data entry and to making tedious measurements using maps that in some cases had been very hard to find. Although this effort enabled me to do some early and very provocative pattern recognition work, it also convinced me that I did not yet have a real frame of reference. This unwelcome realization sent us back to square one as we coped again with the rigors of developing a much more comprehensive environmental frame of reference. In subsequent chapters, the reader will encounter dis- cussions of hunter-gatherer labor organization and the dif- ferent contributions that males and females make to the subsistence effort. Nancy and I have had our own division of labor with respect to this book, and our work has been com- plementary. Typically, I would produce the first rough draft of a chapter, which I would then hand to her. Often there would be silence for the longest time as she read and, some-
- 24. ack n ow l e d g m e n ts times, had to decipher what I was trying to say. Then I would hear the click-click-click of her computer keyboard as she rewrote the chapter. Finally she would come up with a title and hand the new draft back to me for review. Upon read- ing my ideas and arguments in her words, I would frequently smile and say,“That’s great—why didn’t I say that myself?” In an endeavor like this,there are those wonderful moments when,indiscussionwithothers,newpointsareofferedandideas emerge.Ihavehadmanysuchmomentsoverthepastnineyears, and that has been the real joy of working with Nancy,Russell, Amber,and Joe.We have all shared an exciting learning expe- rience, and I cannot thank them enough. If this book can be said to have a godfather, then that benevolent éminence grise is William Woodcock, my long- time friend and publishing ally. He has been responsible for the transformation of the majority of my manuscripts into printed volumes, and when this book existed as only a rough outline in my head he provided the encouragement I needed to begin work.As evidence of his faith in the project,he wrote a publishing contract for me in 1991. Now, eight years after the due date has passed—and because of his continued sup- port—this book is at last in print. It is with the greatest relief and gratitude that I express my thanks to Bill. At a very different scale, a number of people have in- fluenced my thinking in general and my ideas about hunter- gatherers in particular.Very early in my career as a graduate student in anthropology, John J. Honigmann strongly guided me in the direction of hunter-gatherer studies and, perhaps equally forcefully, toward an interest in cross-cultural com- parison and analysis. His vast ethnographic experience was an inspiration to me, and emulating him intellectually became my goal. My first experience as an instructor in a comparative course on hunter-gatherers occurred in 1966–67 at the Uni- versity of California at Los Angeles, where I enjoyed the companionship of Joseph B. Birdsell, Wendell H. Oswalt, and—during a short visit—Norman B. Tindale. Birdsell attended my first class, and since my office was across the hall from Oswalt’s I was the grateful recipient of knowledge and vast experience from these pioneers of research. Coming after the many intellectual feasts that I had shared with Joe and Wendell, Tindale’s brief presence in our midst was like an elegant dessert. All in all, I had the wealth of experience and teaching skills of these three excellent role models to draw on when I began the first of my many years of teaching courses about hunter-gatherers Beginning in 1966 and continuing to the present, the students in my classes at several universities have been a constant source of intellectual stimulation and have con- tributed significantly to the growth of my knowledge about hunter-gatherers. I am fortunate to have been able to main- tain contact with many of them, and they continue to pro- vide me with an opportunity to share their interests and the results of their hard work. In chapter 1, I discuss at some length many of the researchers whom I never met, or knew only slightly, who have played pivotal roles as “founders” of the hunter-gatherer research field. I have great respect and admiration for these early researchers, and I am thankful to be able to build upon their pioneering work. Finally, I celebrate the contributions to life, to scientific learning, and to my efforts in particular that have been made by the many women, children, and men who, as hunter- gatherers, welcomed me into their lives and allowed me to interview and observe them and to get to know them as friends.In a very real sense,they educated me well to deal with the subject matter of this book, and they have been my most important teachers. To them and the traditional knowledge that they represent, I am immeasurably grateful. The National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, the L. B. Leakey Foundation, and the Department of Anthro- pology at the University of Capetown, South Africa, have all provided me with funding for field research on hunter- gatherers. Jean and Ray Auel generously provided me with the funds to obtain the Human Relations Area Files on hunter-gatherers. Additional support from the University of New Mexico through the Leslie Spier Professorship and Southern Methodist University through the University Dis- tinguished Professorship has made the comparative and integrative work discussed in this book possible. xx
- 25. 1 Prologue This book has had a very long gestation period. It began life in 1971 as a book-length manuscript that I used as the basic text for the hunter-gatherer course I taught for twenty years at the University of New Mexico.Some of my former students still recall the tattered, yellowed, foolscap pages, littered with typos, which they photocopied and exchanged with one another in their effort to learn more about the world of hunter-gatherers.By 1974,however,I had given up all thought of publishing“the H & G book”in its initial incarnation. My own field work had convinced me that organizing hunter- gatherer data in a case study or topical format would not be very useful to archaeologists—and besides, there were many other books that presented descriptions of ethnographic groups as examples of the life ways of small-scale societies. My early manuscript had included tables of comparative data—some based on Murdock’s early cross-cultural research and others assembled from data presented by students in earlier classes, who had reported on those aspects of hunter- gatherer organization that were relevant to their own research. Unfortunately, the ethnographic groups for which there were “good data” were few in number. Even though cross- tabulations of data and some statistical tests filled many pages of my manuscript, I could never figure out how to use the results to develop an understanding of what the hunter- gatherer world was like and, more importantly, how it was organized. True,I had chapters on demography,the use of space,mean household size, and other topical features that documented domains of cultural variability. In some instances, the pat- terns in these data even gave me some insight into how segments of a cultural system might be organized. Overall, however, it seemed as though the harder I worked and the more traits or attributes I tabulated, the more unattainable a systems view of my subject matter became.As the number of paired comparisons—and the combinations and permu- tations of pairwise comparisons—increased, the less hope- ful I felt that my mountain of information would ever lead me to an understanding of how hunter-gatherer systems were organized. My former graduate students can verify that,from the out- set, my efforts to develop a hunter-gatherer data base were accompanied by an exploration of various properties of the environments in which these groups lived.Using weather data, I had calculated various measures of temperature, and I had experimented with indices for evaluating rainfall in a bio- logically meaningful way. I discovered that more interesting and provocative relationships emerged when continuous environmental variables could be used to organize the com- parisons among nominal variables. It also became clear that comparisons between continuous environmental variables frequently resulted in the organization of ordinal cultural vari- ables into interesting patterns, especially when both the environmental and cultural variables were continuous in character. Unfortunately, there were very few reliable values for continuous variables in the ethnographic literature of hunter-gatherers. One other major frustration in the 1970s was that the com- puter hardware to which I had access was anything but“user friendly” and the mainframes that I had begun to use while I was still a graduate student were simply not interactive on anything other than a geologic time scale. Today’s generation of graduate students must find it inconceivable that one We will draw the curtain and show you the picture. —William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
- 26. prolo gue would attempt to process data using the dinosaur comput- ers of the 1960s, and there were times when I thought so too, particularly when I was trying to wrangle large boxes of punch cards, which were inevitably full of errors and minor formatting problems—not to mention the problem of lost or mutilated cards. As a result of these technological difficulties, along with a large body of field-based observations that I had accumu- lated and was committed to writing up, I had less and less interest in coping with my hunter-gatherer manuscript, and it gradually moved lower and lower on my list of intellectual priorities. I remained convinced, however, that finding a way to maximize the information in the ethnographic liter- ature about the variability among hunter-gatherer societies had to be a major research priority for archaeologists who were interested in the 30,000-year time period between the Upper Paleolithic and the transformation to ways of life not based on hunter-gatherer strategies. The problem was not simply how to maximize the information accessible to archeologists but, much more importantly, how to use that information as part of a methodology for learning about the past— particularly a past that was different in its range of organized system variants from what we know about the ethnographic present. I was particularly disillusioned by the way most archae- ologists used their knowledge about hunter-gatherers. The standard operating procedure was to extract isolated facts or behaviors from an ethnographic monograph and use them to“interpret”archaeological sites. Interpretations were then assumed to explain the features and properties of the archae- ological record at specific sites, and this accommodative fit was then cited as the warranting argument for the accuracy of the interpretation. The dazzling circularity of this explana- tory method guaranteed that making more ethnographic sources available to archaeologists would only make the sit- uation worse! I cannot emphasize strongly enough that the major prob- lem this book addresses is the development of a method for productively using ethnographic data in the service of archae- ological goals. This is not to say that the method I present in this book is the only procedure, but it is the only method- ological tool that I have been able to develop which results in knowledge that is germane to archaeological problems.For- mer students will soon appreciate that this book bears very little resemblance to my 1970s manuscript. Its evolution was definitely gradual and occurred concurrently with the real- ization that my earlier attempts to record germane information about environments and habitats did not equip me to under- take a realistic study of human adaptations. For example, I have learned that temperature is not just temperature.Some plants are more responsive to the prevailing temperature throughout the growing season, whereas others react to extreme temperatures during the nongrowing sea- son. Similarly, rainfall occurring at the beginning of the growing season may be more important to horticulturists in some climatic settings than rainfall that comes at the end of the growing season. This understanding of some aspects of what the world was like forced me to take a very different approach to the documentation of environments. I needed to devise many different ways of measuring temperature and available water in order to understand the differences among habitats and the diverse challenges faced by hunter- gatherers seeking subsistence security in different settings. It was clear that I needed to return to methodological square one, and I began to research in a much more comprehensive way the environments in which ethnographically docu- mented hunter-gathers have lived. It took me two years to develop the data bases dealing with the world’s environments and the geographical distribution of documented hunter-gatherers. Once this aspect of the work was completed, it became clear that the limited range of hunter-gatherer characteristics upon which traditional cross-cultural studies had focused was not really relevant to most of the issues that I hoped to address in my book. I spent a great deal of time researching traditional anthropological interests, such as kinship, as well as the phenomena repre- senting variability among hunter-gatherer educational systems. I also targeted areas of special interest to archaeol- ogists, such as mortuary practices and the character of public rituals, as well as housing, settlement size and distribution, mobility, subsistence practices, and demographic properties. Quite early in my research, I realized that many of these areas of interest were very difficult to describe dimensionally.1 In other words, I needed continuous ethnographic variables that I could relate to the many continuous environmental vari- ables that documented the diversity in hunter-gatherer habitats. The lack of precise information in many of the ethnographies that I consulted was disappointing, but I con- cluded that continuous variables with substantial noise would probably work better in analysis than ordinal variables. This decision meant that I spent many hours developing quantitative estimates and guesses to augment the observa- tional data sometimes provided by ethnographers and observers.As a result, I was able to obtain a number of mean or normative values for settlement size by types, house size by types, mean household size, age at marriage for males and females, percentage of polygamous marriages, mobility vari- ables, demographic variables, and many other categories of information. These data were very important since I assumed that habitats varied quantitatively within and between nominal or ordinal classifications of habitat. If it were possible to identify truly adaptive responses to continuously varying environmental variables,there should be significant variability within so-called culture or ethnic areas as well as between them, in which case“Galton’s problem”(Naroll 1961) would 2
- 27. lose its problematic status (Harner 1970:73). It is also pos- sible that the geographic distributions of entities and formal properties that archaeologists refer to as diffusion may really represent fine-grained adaptive adjustments to environ- mental conditions. If this is so, I would expect changes in the synergistic social relationships among adjacent groups to result not from the spread of a good idea but, instead, from conditioning processes rooted in adaptive variability when studied analytically across geographic space.The idea that dif- fusion could be explained—that it might be possible to say when it would occur, when it would not, and how it would pattern—was an appealing possibility. I also concentrated on other properties usually considered to be indicative of system state differences. I was well aware of the ecological principle that the same climatic changes act- ing upon a population of mice and elephants would have very different effects on each species. This is another way of say- ing that one would expect that the prior state of a system could potentially condition very different responses to similar or identical environmental variables. Throughout my intellec- tual journey, I realized that I would not be able to categorize a priori many important features of hunter-gatherer life as either continuous or even ordinal variables. The preceding comments are part of the background or scenery revealed by opening the metaphorical Twelfth Night “curtain,” but they do not present a comprehensive “pic- ture” of what to expect in this book. Three of the points presented previously are, however, central: 1. The primary problem that this book addresses is the development of a method for productively using ethno- graphic data to serve archaeological goals. 2. The possibility that the patterning which has been termed “diffusion” can be explained and that one might be able to predict when it would and would not occur—and what shape it would assume—has great appeal. 3. It is reasonable to expect that the prior state of a system may condition very different responses to similar or iden- tical values for environmental variables. These three statements can be visualized as providing the defining coloration in the intellectual background of the analytical hunter-gatherer picture, but details about the actors and their visages remain unclear. In an effort to sharpen some of the picture’s blurred outlines, I offer the fol- lowing comments about material that is not included in this book. I do not analyze any archeological data directly, I do not discuss the ideas of many contemporary archaeologists, and I do not attempt to cope with paradigmatic diversity in the field of archaeology. This book is unapologetically written from a scientific per- spective.It is largely an exercise in inductive reasoning,in that it asks questions regarding the character of the world of organized variability among ethnographically documented hunter-gatherer groups. As such, it addresses many alleged empirical generalizations that appear in the archaeological literature which turn out to be inaccurate or,at best,only mar- ginally useful. From a methodological perspective, the picture is built up gradually, chapter by chapter. Because some of the material is detailed and requires considerable concentration, I think it is important at the outset to give readers a brief guide to the book’s contents. Unlike a novel, whose writer tries to keep the ending of the book a secret until the climactic chapter, this book will mean more to the reader who has been given some idea about where the argument is heading at any given moment. The metaphorical picture that develops in this book is one in which particular devices for structuring data—called frames of reference—appear in the foreground as the way to organize prior knowledge and make it useful to archaeolo- gists. Two major frames of reference are featured, one of which is designed to document the primary variables con- ditioning habitat variability. Use of this frame of reference in turn permits archaeologists to relate archaeological facts to a multitude of environmental variables so that the charac- teristics of adaptive responses to habitat variability can be documented and identified. As I have already indicated,very different responses to envi- ronmental variables can be expected, depending on the prior conditions extant within the cultural systems that are expe- riencing environmental fluctuation,change,or variability.This problem brings us to the second frame of reference developed in this book. The variability documented among ethno- graphically known hunter-gatherers is organized into a basic frame of reference for comparison to archaeological remains. In principle, from the equations developed in this book, an archaeologist can anticipate many of the properties of hunter- gatherer groups that might be expected to occur at a given location, at an archeological site, or at a series of sites. These anticipated characteristics can then be used in a variety of ways to learn more not only about hunter-gatherers but also about the archaeological record. And, since one of the goals of this book is to explain variability among hunter-gatherers, the explanatory theory that I have developed is available for archaeologists to use deductively by reasoning to or simulating changing conditions and thereby providing patterns of change that can be expected to occur in the archaeological record at specific locations. Most of this book is concerned with the development of procedures and methods that can be used directly by archae- ologists or that can be used as models by other scientists.At the same time, I hope to illustrate the general principles of and the benefits to be derived from using environmental frames of reference to study patterning among hunter- gatherer cases. I hope that the archaeological reader realizes prolo gue 3
- 28. prolo gue that the same procedures could be used with archaeological data.The organizational insights derived from using environ- mental frames of reference to study hunter-gatherers also make it possible to construct a hunter-gatherer frame of reference with which archaeologists can productively study the archae- ological record.Last,I address the subject of cultural responses to changed climatic conditions by applying a hunter-gatherer frame of reference to changing climatic sequences at locations where there are provocative archaeological sequences. Although there are many graphs in this book that display the relationships among the several data sets that I have assembled during my research, the“picture”that this mate- rial presents is essentially an intellectual one. It becomes “graphic”to the degree that the reader understands the orga- nization of the data and my tactics and strategies for trans- forming patterning into new knowledge. The book is divided into four parts, each of which uses—in different ways—the prior knowledge available to me in the pursuit of different goals. The three chapters in Part I survey some of the prior knowledge available to me about hunter-gatherers.Although I spent years assembling and ordering this ethnographic information, earlier researchers devoted whole lifetimes to observing and recording the life ways of the small-scale soci- eties that are at the core of my information base. In chapter 1, I summarize the work of several important anthropolog- ical researchers whose ideas about hunter-gatherers have shaped the thinking of their intellectual descendants up to and including the contemporary era.Following this“founder’s effect”chapter, I address contentious assumptions and ideas about the role of human actors in the explanatory process. I also use the stage in chapter 2 to clarify my position on many of the issues that are of great concern to humanists. Chap- ter 3 is devoted to a discussion of science as the learning strat- egy whose precepts will be implemented in subsequent chapters when I actually develop frames of reference and use prior knowledge within the broad framework of inductive research. Part II of the book is fairly well described by its title: “Methods for Using Prior Knowledge: Building Frames of Reference and Models.”Chapters 4 and 5 describe the mechan- ics of building an environmental frame of reference and developing the means for making projections from hunter- gatherer data. In chapter 6, I demonstrate how to use prior knowledge to build models with which to analyze one’s sub- ject matter. I conclude this section with an illustration of how to apply these models, using the constructed frames of reference for the analysis of European archaeological data deal- ing with the appearance of domesticated plants and ani- mals. These three chapters outline the logic and actual construction of intellectual models and frames of reference and are central to the tactical exploration of the procedures developed in subsequent chapters. In Part III, the dialogue becomes more complicated. Instead of presenting a linear sequence of information, strategies, reasoning, and warranting arguments, I begin to demonstrate some strategies that have strong philosophical implications for such controversial subjects as objectivity and the ability of science to go beyond the circularity of “theory- dependent”observations and reasoning. These issues reflect complicated interactions in what the reader will discover is the drama unfolding in the metaphorical“scientific theater,” where researchers engage their colleagues in a debate of ideas. One intellectual engagement in the scientific theater has arisen from several points that I first encountered in a fas- cinating paper delivered by Patty Jo Watson (1986) at the fiftieth anniversary meeting of the Society for American Archaeologists.Watson was responding to an argument that I had made (Binford 1981:29; Binford and Sabloff 1982:149) denying the empiricist assumption that the past was directly and self-evidently accessible. I had argued that the past was only knowable through disciplined inferential reasoning and that, up until then, I had encountered nothing in the archaeological literature that indicated archaeologists could cope with the magnitude of the methodological problem they faced. More specifically, I said that “the dependence of our knowledge of the past on inference rather than direct obser- vation renders the relationship between paradigm (the con- ceptual tool of description) and theory (the conceptual tool of explanation) vague; it also renders the ‘independence’ of observations from explanations frequently suspect and com- monly standing in a built-in relationship, thereby commit- ting the fallacy of ‘confirming the consequent’” (Binford 1981:29). Watson’s response to this argument surprised me, par- ticularly what she perceived as my skeptical attitude.Although I had publicly confessed that I doubted that many of the forms of reasoning presented in the archaeological literature would get us to the past,I had never doubted that the problem could be solved. In fact, in the monograph in which the preceding quotation appeared,I was working to reduce some ambiguities associated with the problem of inference. This point was overlooked, as was my earlier argument (Binford 1982) that the intellectual independence of propositions formed the basis for a modern idea of objectivity. Not many years later, Ali- son Wylie (1989) seemed to appreciate this issue and, unlike many other critical voices, acknowledged my attempts to solve some of the problems associated with the secure growth of knowledge in archaeology, at least at the methodological level. I have long admired the solution developed by the disci- pline of geology to deal with the fact that it is impossible to observe directly the dynamics that occurred in the past (Kitts 1977:56–68).By means of warranted,uniformitarian assump- tions demonstrating the linkages between circumstantial 4
- 29. evidence from the past and direct observations in the pres- ent, the dynamic geologic processes that operate in the world today are argued to have also been operative in the past. The use of uniformitarian assumptions,however,implies tac- tical reasoning and not a dogmatic assumption that the past was like the present, as many have imagined. Throughout my research career I have been an advocate of the use of cross-cultural comparisons as a uniformitarian strategy for learning in anthropology. Despite the fact that this was the method of choice during one phase of anthro- pology’s development, I always felt that the potential value of this technique had gone unrealized.This is partly because— in my opinion—researchers always asked the wrong questions of their comparative data and also because the standard comparative tactics ensured that the results would be ambigu- ous. In Part III of this book, I use cross-cultural comparisons differently and, I believe, more productively by looking at selected attributes and characteristics of a global sample of diverse hunter-gatherer groups in terms of multiple frames of reference. The patterns I isolate using this technique pro- vide clues to dynamic processes that were operative in the world of nearly contemporary,ethnographically documented hunter-gatherers; they do not simply represent an “inter- pretation,”with its attached logical fallacy of confirming the consequent. The title of Part III—“Recognizing Patterns and Gener- alizing about What the World Is Like: The Transition from Pattern Recognition to Theory Building”—fairly accurately describes the challenges of the subject matter of chapters 7–9. In chapter 7, I use generalizations derived from pattern recognition studies to build a model of the factors that might contribute to the variability in hunter-gatherer group sizes, and in chapter 8,I get feedback from the hunter-gatherer data set about how group size actually varies in a wide range of specific circumstances. In chapter 9, I shift focus and discuss the observations and reflections of the scientific observer who is engaged in an effort to understand what the world is like and why it is the way it appears to be. Part IV of the book,which is called“Putting Ideas,Second- Order Derivative Patterning, and Generalizations Together: Explorations in Theory Building,” places the reader more directly in the scientific theater in which the researcher is engaged in theory building. This section also demonstrates that the learning strategies and tactics that have been focused on ethnographic investigation can have productive results when they are applied to archaeological research. I urge the reader not to jump immediately to chapter 10 (“A Dis- embodied Observer Looks at Hunter-Gatherer Responses to Packing”), chapter 11 (“The Evolution of System States: Complexity, Stability, Symmetry, and System Change”), and chapter 12 (“The Last Act Crowns the Play”), because much of the value of these chapters will be lost unless the reader follows the development of the patterning and arguments that precede them. I hope that once the reader has made the considerable effort required to digest the material presented in this book, he or she will be motivated to apply this approach to the many intriguing problems that archaeologists confront in all regions of the world. One could say that the end of this book is, in fact, a beginning, since what has been learned from the research upon which the book is based cries out in the Epi- logue for elaboration, expansion, and application to other sources of data that may be organized fruitfully into frames of reference. prolo gue 5
- 31. One of the purposes of this book is to develop a method for productively using ethnographic data to serve archaeological learning goals. The next three chapters introduce some of the ideas guiding earlier researchers as they reported and commented on the variability they observed among hunter-gatherers. This background provides a set of fundamental ideas that guide the consideration of new observations and the creation of data. The principles that underlie the use of science as a learning strategy and their relevance to this endeavor are also discussed. Exploring Prior Knowledge and Belief I I p a r t
- 33. 9 “Founder’s Effect” and the Study of Hunter-Gatherers A comparison of the discipline of anthropology as it existed in the middle of the nineteenth century with what it has become at the beginning of the twenty-first century would reveal that the founding and contemporary states appear radically different. Early investigations into the scope and nature of human diversity were led by a handful of scholars; now tens of thousands of anthropologists contribute to almost every domain of human endeavor. Despite the expan- sion of the range of subjects addressed by anthropologists, however, the ensemble of concepts in terms of which ques- tions are posed and answers are pursued has not expanded in the same way as the field’s purview. Many of the ideas that were initially proposed in the first fifty years of research, in addition to having exerted a profound impact in their own time, remain with us in essentially unaltered form. The Explanatory Challenge of Complex Wholes From its inception, anthropology took as its goal the study and explanation of cultural variability. It is clear that for E. B. Tylor, one of the discipline’s nineteenth-century founders, the capabilities and habits that he designated as cultural were extrasomatic, or learned, and were not referable to what today are thought of as genetic processes of differen- tiation. For Tylor and his contemporary colleagues, the path- way to an understanding of cultural diversity led through the doorway of the past. Tylor made this point most distinctly when he observed that“civilization [culture], being a process of long and complex growth, can only be thoroughly under- stood when studied through its entire range; that the past is continually needed to explain the present, and the whole to explain the past”(Tylor 1878:2). There is no ambiguity about what Tylor meant when he affirmed that a knowledge of the past is a prerequisite to an understanding of the present, but when he referred to “the whole” as essential to an explana- tion of the past, his intent is considerably less clear. An examination of the history of anthropology up until the 1930s reveals that research and debate were focused on the best use of the present to reconstruct the past. All of the early evolutionists and diffusionists addressed the issue of what the past had been like. Diffusionists used ethnohistoric sources to plot the geographic distribution of traits, cus- toms, attitudes, house forms, and burial practices in an effort to reconstruct the histories of diverse peoples, particularly those who had been documented during the colonial era in North America. These unique, reconstructed histories were then cited as the causes of the cultural variability noted at the time of earliest description. Evolutionists, on the other hand, considered these recon- structed histories inadequate and proposed instead that gen- eral processes of diversification and change continually modified the cultural behavior of humankind. By the 1930s, however, voices in anthropology were being raised in oppo- sition to a focus on the past as an explanation for the pres- ent.One had to understand the present in terms of the present, it was argued. Tylor had been wrong when he targeted a knowledge of the past as a precondition to an understand- 1 1 c h a p t e r Culture, or civilization, . . . is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. —E. B. Tylor (1871:1)
- 34. part i – explor ing pr ior know led ge and belief ing of the present. Although today we would agree that the ideas of process contemplated by the nineteenth-century evolutionists were inadequate and in many cases simply wrong, we should not reject Tylor’s commitment to an explanatory perspective that attempted to encompass vari- ability at the largest scale imaginable—that of “the whole.” Throughout the period in which the discipline of anthro- pology coalesced and defined its mission, increased explo- ration of the archaeological record produced a body of data and a host of explanatory concerns that were similar to the interests of social anthropology. As a result of this align- ment, at least in the New World, both ethnology and archae- ology became linked as subdisciplines under the same anthropological aegis.During this era of disciplinary definition and expansion, however, Tylor’s prescription that the whole was needed to explain the past was ignored by archaeologists at the methodological level. Most early archaeologists attempted to reconstruct prehistory by partitioning their data into as many different categories as possible and then plotting the spatial distribution of separate material traits, much as their ethnographic colleagues had done with ethno- historic and ethnographic data.The methods of inference were identical in each subdiscipline (i.e., the most widely distrib- uted materials were the oldest), and archaeologists, too, attempted to reconstruct culture histories. Clearly Tylor considered that“histories”—whether recon- structed or not—were necessary to an explanation of the pres- ent, but why did he discuss the explanation of the past in different terms? Any satisfactory effort to explain the past would require access to “the whole,” which presumably meant total knowledge about both the past and the present! We may never know exactly what Tylor meant by this equiv- ocal pronouncement, but it emphasizes that the explanatory challenge faced by those who try to understand the past can only be met by a higher-order understanding of the present and the past. In the 1930s, reactions to the predominance of the cul- tural historical method prompted a reconsideration of the utility of an evolutionary perspective. It was argued that one could not explain the present by appealing to the par- ticulars of unique cultural histories; rather,ongoing processes shaped the present as they had the past. In ensuing decades, research undertaken to develop this perspective has gen- erated considerable controversy, and the anthropological arena of today echoes with faint as well as clearly audible chal- lenges flung at one another by contemporary evolutionists and diffusionists, materialists and idealists, scientists and historians. The idea that specific processes may operate in the pres- ent as well as in the past was the central formulation respon- sible for the growth of the sciences of geology and paleontology, two related disciplines that also deal with the dilemma of knowing the past and the present. Could Tylor have been referring to the development of uniformitarian prin- ciples when he declared that in order to explain the past the researcher must address “the whole” of present and past? This book accepts Tylor’s challenge and regards those events reported or inferred to have occurred in the past, as well as those documented in the present, as the consequences of a fundamental set of processes that are common to the past and the present. It goes beyond this particular goal by seek- ing to develop what is known about the present into a base- line body of knowledge for evaluating some aspects of the character of past system states (system states are defined and discussed in chapters 6 and 7). This book explores how we, as archaeologists, can use our knowledge of and in the present to make defensible statements about what the past was like.An equally important concern is how we explain the past, once we are convinced that something reliable is known about it. Was the past different from what we know of the present? Most researchers would agree that the view of the past that is available through analysis of the archaeological record indicates that human behavior was different in many respects from hunter-gatherer life ways recorded during the era of colonial expansion and more recently. The fundamental synthesis that emerges from archaeological research reveals patterned change through time and the existence of cul- tural systems with no apparent contemporary counterparts. I will attempt to demonstrate how archaeologists may profitably use the knowledge base developed about ethno- graphically documented hunting and gathering peoples as a tool in the search for an explanation of cultural variability, both past and present. This book is Darwinian in the sense that it wrestles with the same problem that Darwin faced: that is, how to take an awareness of great variety in the present and develop explana- tory arguments that encompass all similar variety, regardless of time and place. Understanding the complexities of evolu- tionary processes has preoccupied the biological sciences since Darwin’s day. I do not argue that the processual solutions proposed by Darwin will resolve the anthropological challenge of explaining sociocultural diversity and change. I merely maintain that the specification of process, or how the world works, is the key to the growth of further knowledge about evolutionary processes and, ultimately, to understanding. In the science of biology, the isolation and successive transmission of a subset of the total genetic composition of a population, with little additional admixture, are referred to as the “founder’s effect.” I propose that a roughly com- parable intellectual process has occurred within anthropol- ogy generally and particularly with respect to the study of hunter-gatherers. This chapter explores that intellectual legacy—what has been learned about hunter-gatherers in the last 150 years—as well as what remains unknown. The dis- cussion of a series of important efforts to understand and 10
- 35. explain variability in hunter-gatherer life ways undertaken by some of anthropology’s “founders” frames a sense of problem for us in the present and suggests the direction in which relevant contemporary studies of hunter-gatherers might proceed. Several Perspectives on Hunter-Gatherer Variability marcel mauss and seasonal variations One of the earliest and most thought-provoking treatments of hunter-gatherer settlement patterns and what today would be called the autocorrelated dynamics of social organization was published in 1906 by Marcel Mauss in collaboration with Henri Beuchat (1979). Given the limited ethnographic materials available to the authors,their monograph—entitled Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo: A Study in Social Mor- phology—provided a provocative description of the organi- zational differences or, as I have previously referred to them, the“structural poses”(Binford and Binford 1966 after Gear- ing 1962) within a society that can be observed seasonally. From the standpoint of interaction and internal organization, Mauss and Beuchat pointed to significant differences between larger and smaller Eskimo camps and between the winter and summer phases of organized life. There is, as it were, a summer religion and a winter religion: or rather, there is no religion during the sum- mer. The only rites that are practised are private, domes- tic rituals: everything is reduced to the rituals of birth and death and to the observation of certain prohibi- tions....By contrast,the winter settlement lives in a state of continuous religious exaltation. . . . It would appear that there are two kinds of family: one in which kinship is collective,conforming to the type that Morgan called classificatory, and the other in which kinship is individualized. . . . one is the summer family, the other [former] the winter family....During the win- ter the rules of domestic life are entirely different. The nuclear family, so clearly individualized during the summer,tends to disappear to some extent within a much wider group,a kind of joint-family which resembles that of the Zadruga Slavs, and which constitutes domestic society par excellence: this is the group who together occu- pies the same igloo or long-house. . . . Seasonal variations affect property rights even more significantly than they affect personal rights and duties. First,the objects used vary according to the seasons; food and implements are entirely different in winter and in summer. Second, the material relations that link indi- viduals to one another vary both in number and in kind. Alongside a twofold morphology and technol- ogy there is a corresponding twofold system of property rights. . . . The hunter [in summer] must bring back his entire catch to his tent, no matter how far away he is or how hungry he may be.Europeans have marveled at how strictly this rule is observed.Game and the products that can be extracted from it do not belong to the hunter, but to the family, no matter who hunted it. . . . The rules for winter are completely different. In contrast to the ego- ism of the individual or the nuclear family, a generous collectivism prevails.First,there is communal regulation of fixed property.The long-house belongs to none of the families who live in it; it is the joint property of all the “housemates.”. . . Collective rights over food, instead of being limited to the family as in the summer, extend to the entire house. Game is divided equally among all members. The exclusive economy of the nuclear fam- ily totally disappears. (Mauss and Beuchat 1979:57, 62–64, 70–72) Religion, the family, and property rights are only three of the components of Eskimo life about which Mauss noted important organizational differences between summer and winter.Seasonal contrasts were also reported in the size of set- tlements and their occupational duration, in the degree to which labor was organized cooperatively or independently, and in the procurement and consumption of food. Differ- ential aggregation and dispersion across the landscape of seg- ments of the larger Eskimo social formation that today might be called regional “bands” compose another set of distinctions in terms of which Mauss compared winter versus summer and interior versus coastal settlement distributions. Settlement patterns at this larger scale of integration were char- acterized as internally variable and responsive to shifts in seasonal conditions in the environment. Although more contemporary ethnographic studies of Eskimo peoples have provided many details that to some extent undercut the sweeping generalizations offered by Mauss and Beuchat, the authors’ basic point remains valid. More recent studies have confirmed that the major seasonal contrasts typical of the ways in which Eskimo social units were constituted, organized, and positioned are also a feature of hunter-gatherer life in many nonarctic settings. Unfortunately, Mauss and Beuchat were somewhat vague about the causal factors that might be responsible for the alter- nating occurrence of different societal states that were iden- tified as coincident with seasonal environmental change. “We have proposed, as a methodological rule, that social life in all its forms—moral, religious, and legal—is depen- dent on its material substratum and that it varies with this substratum, namely with the mass, density, form and com- position of human groups” (Mauss and Beuchat 1979:80). This statement would appear to be a fairly straightforward materialist proposition except for its failure to specify the fac- tors that would operate determinatively on the “mass, den- sity, form and composition of human groups.”With regard to this critical omission, earlier in the monograph Mauss and Beuchat made two interesting statements: All this suggests that we have come upon a law that is probably of considerable generality. Social life does not continue at the same level throughout the year; it goes chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 11
- 36. part i – explor ing pr ior know led ge and belief through regular, successive phases of increased and decreased intensity. . . .We might almost say that social life does violence to the minds and bodies of individu- als which they can sustain only for a time; and there comes a point when they must slow down and par- tially withdraw from it. . . . Instead of being the necessary and determining cause of an entire system, truly seasonal factors may merely mark the most opportune occasions in the year for these two phases to occur. (Mauss and Beuchat 1979:78–79) The explanatory framework of Mauss and Beuchat has been interpreted by some researchers (e.g., Fox 1979:1–17) as consistent with the principles of historical materialism in the original sense of this term. I think, however, that the two preceding paragraphs appear to relate alternating Eskimo orga- nizational strategies to a putative limited tolerance of intense sociality and a need for restorative periods of solitude. The monograph’s translator, James J. Fox, refers in his foreword to the somewhat different view of Mary Douglas, for whom Seasonal Variations represented “an explicit attack on geo- graphical or technological determinism in interpreting domestic organization. It demands an ecological approach in which the structure of ideas and of society, the mode of gaining a livelihood and the domestic architecture are interpreted as a single interacting whole in which no one element can be said to determine the others” (Douglas 1972:512–14). Although I might agree with Douglas that Seasonal Vari- ations presents a systems view of hunter-gatherer society in which distinguishable features are strongly integrated and therefore appear autocorrelated with one another—in other words, organized—I am not sure that a holistic view of soci- ety in which cause cannot be discussed is implied. Mauss and Beuchat seem to be saying that their “law” has reference to basic or essential human properties that govern the pursuit or avoidance of intense social life and that perhaps the oscil- lation between social poles determines the pattern of Eskimo aggregation and dispersal, with attendant shifts in struc- tural poses that were noted by the authors. In spite of the uncertainty about the authors’views on the causes of Eskimo organizational variability, Seasonal Varia- tions is a provocative work that sets the stage for future archaeological considerations of settlement pattern. It challenges the normative assumption that societies are internally homogeneous, in both action and organizational poses, and leaves open for investigation the explanation of documented forms of internal variability. There are, however, additional implications for the meth- ods of study that might or might not be appropriate to the inductive study of social forms.If,as I have suggested,the work of Mauss and Beuchat represents an argument about the orga- nizational integration of social systems, then I would expect many autocorrelations among the apparently different phenomena that are selected when a system is described. Autocorrelations may well be informative about how the sys- tem is organized, but they do not reliably signal the causes responsible for the phenomena so organized. In short, autocorrelations may suggest important vectors of orga- nization but may not be indicative of the direction that an explanatory argument about the causes for the organization itself should take. This distinction must be kept in mind as I pursue possible explanations for the variability among hunters and gatherers. julian steward and the band The primary and fundamental cultural medium in terms of which small-scale societies are articulated is referred to by anthropologists as“kinship.”Kinship conventions are the tools used to recognize and grade relatedness among persons and, by extension, among families, and they therefore provide the terms for the potential integration and organization of fam- ilies into larger social formations. There is little doubt that the focus on kinship prevalent in American anthropology in the 1920s had a formative effect on the interests and argu- ments of Julian Steward. In Steward’s student years, many of the arguments in the NorthAmerican literature had to do with the“explanation”of clans, moieties, sibs, and other forms of kinship-based social categories that were (1) relatively large, (2) commonly multilocal in their spatial and social distrib- utions, and (3) representative of institutions or networks that commonly crosscut observable groups of living people. When Steward turned his attention to the ethnographic record of hunter-gatherers, he noted that spatially exten- sive, large-scale, kinship-based institutions were seldom characteristic of the life of the formerly mobile persons among whom he worked. His challenge was to develop a sys- tematic assessment of the observable variability in hunter- gatherer social life, including many groups to whom the terms then being debated in the North American literature did not apply. The product of this research was one of the earliest arguments about variability among hunter-gatherer societies that was not based upon either diffusionist principles or the value-laden idea of progressive development. Steward recognized three“types”of hunter-gatherer soci- eties when viewed from the perspective of the principles of sociocultural integration: (1) the family level of integration, (2) the band level of integration, and (3) a level of integra- tion characterized by clans and other forms of extended, lineage-like units that were multilocal in their spatial pat- terning. The empirical model for what was called a band appears to have been largely based on nineteenth-century ethnohistoric accounts of Plains Indian societies. Within the band category, Steward identified (a) the lineal band, (b) the composite band, and (c) the predatory band. 12
- 37. One of the points about kinship that loomed large in Stew- ard’s thought concerned the relationship between different forms of kin affiliation and observable patterns of group for- mation. Kinship as the organizing principle underlying many types of group formations is a subject that, over time, has absorbed the attention of numerous anthropologists, among them Meyer Fortes (1969:276–310).1 Fortes argued that attempts to correlate systems for calculating descent with the social composition of specific human groups can produce con- fusing results. Although actual human aggregations may in some cases embody relationships defined by a set of kinship principles (as in the case of lineal descent conventions that operate according to rules of inclusion and exclusion),in other situations—such as those in which kin relations are tracked bilaterally—co-resident persons may be affiliated by kin- ship ties, but the group itself cannot be defined in terms of descent. I think Fortes was correct when he argued for the use of the term filiation in reference to cultural conventions— variable from case to case—that direct the way individuals are scaled in terms of social distance and establish expecta- tions for the behavior of persons so differentiated. In other words,filiation can be thought of as the culturally specific con- ventions for calculating social distance when viewed from the individual perspective. Filiation is fundamentally rooted in the relationship of parent to child, and it shares with genetic distance the fact that the point of reference for a filial struc- ture is simply a knowledge of the parentage of a given individual. Derivative relationships, such as the identification of persons with whom marriage would be permissible or pro- hibited, are all dependent upon this primary relationship.As Fortes said, “I have considered filiation as the primary credential or set of credentials for activating the initial status relationship of what must necessarily expand into a hierar- chy of status relationships for a person to be a complete right- and duty-bearing unit in his society” (1969:276). Filial relationships are always egocentric since, in all sit- uations, ego is socially defined by the parent-child relation- ship. Because the parent-child relationship includes both a male and a female parent, any given individual participates in equal, parallel, filial relationships with both parents. Any given individual is therefore doubly defined by his or her par- ents’relationships and is positioned, as in the case of genetic distance,with equal filial distance to the recognized kin of both male and female parents. The attempts by anthropologists to uncover within extant or historically documented social groups a set of organiza- tional principles that were fundamentally filial in form have, however, presented great difficulty. In contrast to matri- lineal descent conventions, according to which it is not uncommon for sons to marry mother’s brother’s daugh- ters, bilateral kinship reckoning often results in a situation in which the kinpersons of one’s spouse are different from one’s own kin. Therefore, co-resident sets of persons that cal- culate descent bilaterally are frequently characterized by no direct filial linkages, although persons within the group will be related to other persons through their bilateral kin net- works. Julian Steward’s identification of hunter-gatherer groups that were composed of families unrelated to one another in direct lineal terms led him to designate these groups as “composite” bands. Steward (1936:344) suggested that two very different kinds of factors promoted the existence of or, perhaps more appropriately, transformed lineal bands into composite bands. One set involved demographic or environmental conditions thought to “influence” band endogamy:2 1. Unusual band size, produced by greater population den- sity (Cupeno and many tribes who are on a higher sub- sistence level than those considered here); or unusual ecology such as reliance on migratory herds (Eastern Athabaskans). 2. Remoteness of bands into which to marry (Central African Negritos, Philippine Negritos). 3. Matrilocal residence as conditioned by a. Shortage of men in the wife’s family or more favorable conditions (subsistence) in the territory of the wife’s family (Algonkian). b. Lack of a woman to exchange with the wife’s band in marriage (Congo Negritos). Another set of circumstances that Steward (1936:344) cited as contributing to the formation of the composite band resulted from modifications of the customary rules for social inclusion or exclusion dictated by specific kinship conventions: 1. Adoption of children between bands (Andamanese). 2. Legitimacy of parallel as well as cross-cousin marriage (Cape, Namib, and !Okung Bushmen and Philippine Negritos). 3. Desire to secure the assistance of the wife’s mother in child rearing (Naron Bushmen). 4. Sufficient strength of borrowed matrilineal institutions. The last may tend to produce matrilineal bands or even societies that are not classifiable as bands. Steward’s analysis of the factors promoting the develop- ment of composite bands has several interesting features.First, and perhaps most revealing, is the fact that demographic and environmental conditions, as well as cultural practices or choices,are cited as relevant causes for changes in group com- position. Second, there is no attempt at theory building here. Steward simply listed the unique circumstances that he believed produced social arrangements that were exceptions to the“conventional”practice of lineally defined groups and then classified those groups as composite bands. chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 13
- 38. part i – explor ing pr ior know led ge and belief Steward’s listing of correlates,particularly those in the social domain, reveals a somewhat different viewpoint from that of Mauss and Beuchat,provided that one concludes that the sub- liminal message in Seasonal Variations argues that within an organized system there would be many autocorrelations that might not betray cause.This point aside,if there is an implicit theory underlying the list of conditions that, for Steward, explained the transformation from lineal to composite bands, it is one based on demographic scale. Steward seems to be arguing that in some situations,factors impinge on large social units in such a way that exogamy becomes impossible, whereas, in other cases, the demographic structure interferes with the stability of some set of conditions that are essential to the maintenance of lineal band forms. Some significant assumptions about human society are also implicit in Steward’s discussion of group structure. Of primary interest is his statement that mutual aid, coopera- tion, and sharing are “natural” benefits of group living. Greater security is found in the superfamily group than is avail- able to either isolated families or individuals:“In practically all human groups several families cooperate in some economic activity and frequently share game and even vegetable foods communally. This provides a kind of subsistence insurance or greater security than individual families could achieve” (Steward 1936:332).3 Steward seems to regard this assertion as a statement of self-evident reality that requires no explanation.Furthermore, the multifamily, mutualistic or communalistic social unit is assumed a priori to be a landowning unit: “Greater human intelligence eliminates the strife of unrestricted competi- tion for food by developing property concepts. Because of these facts, human groups will reach an equilibrium in which land is parceled among definite social groups” (Steward 1936:332). It is Steward’s apparent acceptance of primordial group ownership of land that makes the existence of bilateral kin- ship and the composite band so troubling. Kin reckoning in terms of filiation ensures that the identity of (1) who is a group member and (2) who owns the land presumably controlled by the“group”remains totally ambiguous when viewed from the perspective of egocentric kinship. There seems to be little doubt that Steward considered the composite band as a special case derived from the “normal” patrilineal band (Steward 1955:150). He assumed that in order for there to be “kin-defined” concrete groups, the ambiguity of filiation must be eliminated by the stipulation—necessary for the defi- nition of group boundaries—of a relationship to only one parent. Otherwise, the concrete group would not be kin- defined and the identity of the actual persons entitled to “landowner” status in any particular “landowning” group would be ambiguous. In his list of factors contributing to the transformation of lineal into composite bands, Steward attempted to summa- rize the conditions that would tend to introduce persons into the local group who were nonkin, in the emic sense of the word, and result in a group that was not kin-defined. It is therefore something of a paradox to consider that the unit which is most often cited by anthropologists as the funda- mental social component of larger-scale social systems is the family. This unit is always a“composite”unit from the filial perspective of the “egos” who establish such a unit, that is, the married couple.This condition creates the often-discussed reality of a male or female, living with their spouses, either of whom may not be a member of the kin group to which their marriage-based family belongs. Instead, they remain socially defined members of the lineal group of their family of origin and not of their primary life course unit, the fam- ily of procreation. One can argue that kinship and the kin conventions that Steward focused on were taken for granted, were considered fundamental properties of humankind, and were therefore only subject to examination and generalization in terms of the factors that were presumed to interfere with the normal operation of the conventional patterns of social integration. These assumptions about social organization and the limit- ing factors operating upon its several forms also constitute the basis for Steward’s later arguments regarding multilineal evolution (Steward 1953, 1955). Equally important to an understanding of the develop- ment of Steward’s ideas is the fact that in his 1936 paper on hunter-gatherers there is no reference to the“family level of sociocultural integration,” a principle that he later devel- oped and discussed in Theory of Culture Change (1955). The genesis of this concept, however, lies without question in his work with Great Basin hunter-gatherer materials. In Stew- ard’s most important publication on this subject, Basin- Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups (1938), the term family level is not used, but the following statements of great interest appear: “Western Shoshoni, probably Southern Paiute, and perhaps some Northern Paiute fall outside the scope of the previous generalizations [the 1936 classification of bands], which were too inclusive. They lacked bands and any forms of landownership. The only stable social and politi- cal unit was the family. Larger groupings for social and eco- nomic purposes were temporary and shifting” (Steward 1938:260; emphasis added). This statement reveals that Steward’s two fundamental cri- teria for identifying a “band” are (1) a relatively permanent or stable census of persons associated as a group, and (2) landownership by such a group. Steward proceeds to offer an explanation for the absence of these properties among the Western Shoshoni and other Great Basin groups: The radical departure of these peoples from the band pat- terns, however, is explainable by ecological factors not previously encountered. It has been shown that the unusually great economic importance of seeds largely 14
- 39. restricted the economic unit to the family. Communal enterprises did not always align the same families,so that there were no large groups having political unity. It has also been shown that the peculiar occurrence of certain foods, especially seed species, entailed interlocking sub- sistence areas which militated against land ownership. (Steward 1938:260) The interesting point in the preceding statement relates to the factors that Steward considered responsible for the com- posite band. In the set of causal conditions outlined in his earlier paper (1936:344), Steward was thinking primarily about the circumstances that would result in a shift from band exogamy to endogamy.When considering the environmen- tal conditions that would favor the formation of composite bands,he had proposed that large group sizes were made pos- sible by highly productive environments or large aggregations of attractive resources, such as migratory herd mammals.4 In contrast, his 1938 paper proposed that human occupation of unattractive environments was the fundamental“reason” accounting for the absence of bands and the presence of the “family level of sociocultural integration.” In Steward’s discussion of the family level of sociocultural integration, he overlooked the ambiguities of filiation and focused instead on a pattern of economic independence atypical of the articulations that were assumed to exist among families organized into bands. He observed that“vir- tually all cultural activities were carried out by the family in comparative isolation from other families”(Steward 1955:102; emphasis added).This pattern of economic independence was underscored for Steward by a lack of continuity or perpetuity in the association of and related patterns of cooperation among family units:“I classify the Shoshoneans as an exem- plification of a family level of sociocultural integration because in the few forms of collective activity the same group of families did not co-operate with one another or accept the same leader on successive occasions” (Steward 1955:109). In other words, local groups varied in size, duration of co- residence, and degree of redundancy in household compo- sition, and there was no apparent cooperation or filial regularity to the actual composition of multifamily camps. Steward’s diagnosis of familial independence was also sup- ported by related spatial patterning in settlements, notably by the reported lack of close spatial proximity among fam- ily residential locations. There was, therefore, a site structural correlate of the “family level of sociocultural integration”:5 These winter quarters have sometimes been called villages, but they were not tightly nucleated settlements which con- stituted organized communities. Instead, family houses were widely scattered within productive portions of the piñon zone. The location of each household was deter- mined primarily by its pine nut caches and secondarily by accessibility to wood and water.The scattered families were able to visit one another to dance, gamble, and exchange gossip, and the men occasionally co-operated in a deer or mountain sheep hunt. (Steward 1955:114–15) An interesting aspect of Steward’s argument is that if one adhered strictly to his criteria for discriminating between lineal and composite bands, the Shoshoni-speaking peoples of the Great Basin would be classified as composite bands since the membership in on-the-ground groups was shifting and unstructured by strict kinship conventions, and therefore the local groups could not be defined by kinship criteria. Why did Steward classify the Shoshoni,the Eskimo (he did not spec- ify which groups), and the Nambicuara, Guato, and Mura groups of South America as different and claim that they rep- resented a different level of sociocultural integration from that of composite bands? The answer to this question rests with the demographic scale or size of the groups with which Steward was working. Composite bands were described by Steward as large relative to the size of patrilineal bands, size was considered the factor responsible for the practice of endogamy, and endogamy enlarged still further the aggre- gations of families unrelated by kinship conventions. The Shoshoni, however, were organized in even smaller units than those considered characteristic of lineal bands and, therefore, required a separate category. By focusing on group size, or what Mauss and Beuchat would have called social morphology, Steward was approach- ing the ethnographic record from a similar perspective:“We have proposed, as a methodological rule, that social life in all its forms—moral, religious, and legal—is dependent on its material substratum and that it varies with this substratum, namely with the mass, density, form and composition of human groups” (Mauss and Beuchat 1979:80). He differed, however, in his belief that the“mass, density, form and com- position of human groups” were conditioned quite directly by characteristics of the environment; for Mauss and Beuchat, environmental conditions merely determined when and how the dual human needs of both solitude and social inten- sity would be indulged. Another major difference concerned the essential prop- erties of the band level of social organization. Steward’s extended arguments with Omer Stewart6 about whether Great Basin groups were landowning emphasized his crite- rion of landownership.A second criterion was based on two other attributes of social groups, demographic scale and degree of integration. The connection between these two attributes is demonstrated in the example of composite bands.These groups were large and tended to be endogamous; therefore in Steward’s judgment they were integrated. In the Great Basin, Steward had observed many very small units that related to one another in terms of interper- sonal ties and created a network of articulations that appar- ently lacked integrating institutions,consistent leadership,and chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 15
- 40. part i – explor ing pr ior know led ge and belief sustained economic ties. There was no ownership of land nor any periodic social aggregation except in extemporaneous, situational contexts. Northern Athapaskan peoples, on the other hand, were thought to aggregate in a regular and pre- dictable manner. What Steward meant by a criterion based on the scale of integration is made clear in his later work: A striking illustration of the shift of interest from the maximum group, or what was formerly called “band,” to the smaller divisions is the contrast between Helm’s and Father Morice’s reports.Morice’s data on the Dogrib Athapaskans gave the band average as 287 persons (1906a). Helm has distinguished these large groups as “regional bands”and shown that they are no more than groups of identification,whereas the“local band”of some 10 to 20 persons constitutes the permanent subsistence unit (Helm 1968, 1969). (Steward 1970:115) The difference between what Steward meant by the term band and the meaning assigned to that term in the hunter- gatherer literature generated since the mid-1960s resulted from the availability of detailed studies of on-the-ground groups containing observations that contrasted considerably with the way groups had been imagined by earlier researchers.The lat- ter had worked primarily with memory culture information and—in the Americas, at least—with an empirical model of band organization based on the Plains Indians.It is clear from Steward’s 1970 statement that he recognized the importance of this difference in observational perspective. If the seminal works of Julian Steward were the only intel- lectualresourcesavailabletoacontemporaryarchaeologistwish- ing to explore hunter-gatherer variability, Steward’s legacy would consist of the following fundamental assumptions: 1. The formation of social units larger than the biological fam- ily is a natural or essential feature of human social exis- tence. Persons belonging to these larger units engage in sharing and communal or cooperative activities in order to insure against misfortune. 2. These suprafamilial communal units are landowning units. 3. Although Steward is not as explicit as a researcher might like, it appears that he considered the original form of the hunter-gatherer band to have been patrilineal, as he defined the term.He states:“Social factors which made for composite bands where patrilineal bands normally occurred include . . .”(Steward 1955:150), after which he lists the circumstances quoted previously (see page 13) as “causes” of composite bands. In the course of Steward’s lifetime,his research in the Great Basin appears to have led him to question the second assump- tion and to have doubts about at least some aspects of the first. He postulated a family level of sociocultural integration for some, if not most, of the Paiute and Shoshoni groups of the American Great Basin, and he repeatedly included unspeci- fied Eskimo groups in this category. (At the Man the Hunter Conference in 1966 I was told by Fred Eggan that Steward was referring to the Copper Eskimo.) He also argued that in these groups there was little cooperative effort extending beyond the immediate family and that they were not landowning. Steward lived long enough to be able to examine his assumptions in the light of knowledge gained from more recent field work, reports of which were presented at Cana- dian conferences in 1965 and 1966, as well as at the Man the Hunter Conference, also held in 1966. These ethnographic studies questioned whether mobile hunter-gatherers were characteristically landowning and whether Steward’s earlier ideas about band size were accurate, at least as far as on-the- ground groups exploiting the landscape were concerned (Steward 1969:290–94). From an archaeological perspec- tive, however, the allusions to spatial phenomena embedded in Steward’s descriptions of Great Basin peoples were truly provocative. In light of the characteristics of hunter-gatherer society that were emerging from more contemporary research, his depiction of social units camping in small,widely dispersed aggregates and characterized by dispersed intrahousehold spacing illustrated the need for further investigation. arguments about acculturation by steward, speck, and eiseley Contemporary with Steward’s work, an ongoing set of argu- ments debated the precontact character of socioeconomic life among the northern Algonkian peoples. Frank Speck (1915) had argued that nuclear families of northern Algonkian hunter-gatherers in eastern Canada were landowning units. Speck was convinced that this characteristic was not restricted to northern Algonkian peoples but was, instead, prevalent in a wide variety of ethnic groups (the Veddah; Australian Abo- rigines; many groups in northeastern Asia; the Aleuts, Ona, and Yahgan; some Athapaskan cases; and Northwest Coast groups) (Speck 1926). Supporters of Speck’s position (e.g., Cooper 1939) cited the Punan and other, mostly reindeer- herding,groups from Asia as additional examples of landown- ing at the family level of organization. The context of these arguments was made explicit in a 1942 paper by Speck and Eiseley, which suggested that there were two types of hunter-gatherer societal form in the Labrador area of Canada: One is nomadic and communal in structure as regards the grouping of biological family units to form a collective band. . . . The second type is based upon the more sedentary limited nomadic family principle and seems to remain confined to the coniferous forest area. The fac- tor operating chiefly to determine the two is, we believe, traceable in large degree to the natural history of the game 16
- 41. animals which alone furnish the natives of the Labradorean area with their subsistence. (Speck and Eiseley 1942:219; emphasis added) In short, Speck and Eiseley argued that ecological factors were responsible for the presence of communal versus family- based forms of landownership and that these factors had oper- ated in the past to produce the same effect. They concluded, therefore, that the family-based form of landownership was an aboriginal pattern with considerable time-depth in the human experience,7 and they situated their arguments in the context of a wider debate within the anthropological community: Does band ownership, for example, precede the family system? Does the assignment of land to individual fam- ilies by the head man ...precede the direct handing down of territories within the family? ...These and many other questions present themselves for an answer. Their shadow must inevitably be troubling to those who, like Morgan, and many present-day Russians, would see the culture of the lower hunters as representing a stage prior to the development of the institution of individ- ualized property. (Speck and Eiseley 1942:238) This view challenged the more general consensus, sub- scribed to by Steward, that Morgan was essentially correct in his depiction of the character of early society as communalistic. It is interesting to recall that throughout Steward’s active career, his view was consistent with the prevalent contemporary assessment, which interprets the landowning practices doc- umented by Speck among the northern Algonkians as a response to changes brought about during the“culture con- tact” period initiated by the fur trade. This view argues that familial landownership was the consequence of acculturation and not an aboriginal state of affairs. The argument over landownership remains unresolved and is discussed in the work of Eleanor Leacock in the recent era (Leacock 1954; Lea- cock and Lee 1982). steward on acculturation In 1956, Robert F. Murphy collaborated with Steward on a paper entitled “Tappers and Trappers: Parallel Process in Acculturation.”The authors presented a variant of Leacock’s acculturation argument to explain the postcontact appear- ance of family hunting territories that Speck had docu- mented so extensively among the northeastern Algonkians. Acculturative event sequences, as they were described by Leacock and others, were compared to analogous event sequences documented by Murphy among the Mundurucu of Brazil. In the northeastern Algonkian cases, an increasing number of articulations with traders had produced changes in basic subsistence strategies,and,as a result,communal activ- ities were gradually replaced by individual family units trap- ping for their own benefit. This change ultimately led to the distribution of small, relatively isolated social units in a dif- fuse settlement pattern and to a system of land tenure in which families attempted to maintain control of their trapping territories by claiming property rights to ranges that they had once exploited as part of a societally sanctioned, usufruct monopoly. Although aboriginal Mundurucu social organization was thought to have been very different from what is known of northeastern Algonkian social structure, the cases are simi- lar in one respect. Exploitation of the latex in a tract of rubber trees is a solitary activity that involves tapping the trees, processing the collected latex,and maintaining on a daily basis the path (called an “avenue”) through the lowland under- growth that defines the boundary surrounding the one hundred or more trees maintained by one individual. As Murphy and Steward noted,“the distribution of rubber trees is such that each avenue gives access to trees within an area of about three to five square miles” (1956:343), depending on the density of the rubber trees.As the Mundurucu involve- ment in latex extraction increased, rubber tree avenues became more extensive and tappers and their families became more dispersed. The parallel centrifugal trajectories of both the northeastern Athapaskans and the Mundurucu were said to have resulted in the geographic dispersal of family- level units and a dissolution of integrative institutions, leadership, and cooperative endeavors. It was in this context that access monopolies were maintained by individual fam- ilies over trapping and tapping areas. Based on the ethnographic case material discussed in their paper, Murphy and Steward presented two general propositions summarizing changes in subsistence strategy and social organization in acculturative contexts: When goods manufactured by the industrialized nations with modern techniques become available through trade to aboriginal populations, the native people increasingly give up their home crafts in order to devote their efforts to producing specialized cash crops or other trade items in order to obtain more of the industrially made articles. . . . When the people of an unstratified native society barter wild products found in extensive distribution and obtained though individual effort, the structure of the native cul- ture will be destroyed, and the final culmination will be a culture type characterized by individual families having delimited rights to marketable resources and linked to the larger nation through trading centers. Tappers, trap- pers, and no doubt other collectors come under this general statement. (Murphy and Steward 1956:353; emphasis in original) These two processes have been documented in many encounters between native peoples and the global expansion of western industrial-capitalist society. One interesting fea- ture of this argument is the linkage Murphy and Steward made chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 17
- 42. part i – explor ing pr ior know led ge and belief between ownership of land or property rights and a very spe- cialized subsistence strategy. In the situations they describe, one set of related tasks is performed and the products there- from are used to acquire most of a family’s subsistence neces- sities (in most instances, some minor component is obtained while engaged in the very specialized task). It is important, however, to note in the second proposition the use of the phrase “wild products found in extensive distribution and obtained through individual effort.”This phrase should be com- pared with the previously quoted proposition by Speck and Eiseley:“The second type [the noncommunal familial form] is based upon the more sedentary limited nomadic family principle and seems to remain confined to the coniferous for- est area. The factor operating chiefly to determine the two is, we believe, traceable in large degree to the natural history of the game animals which alone furnish the natives of the Labradorean area with their subsistence” (Speck and Eiseley 1942:219; emphasis added). It is apparent that both Murphy and Steward, as well as Speck and Eiseley,believed that the distribution and character of exploited resources determined which alternative— cooperation or independence—was characteristic of resi- dential labor units. The same environmental factors also conditioned the size of those social units that were eco- nomically independent. Steward and Speck differed only over the issue of landownership, which Steward specifically denied was characteristic of the Shoshoni, and not over the actual existence of widely dispersed family units lacking strong interfamilial economic ties. This similarity in views is not surprising since I have already discussed Steward’s recog- nition, within the range of hunter-gatherer variability, of the family level of sociocultural integration exemplified for him by the Great Basin Shoshoni. Steward was certainly aware of the possibility that ecological factors could contribute to a family level of organization, and he had discussed them in detail only a year before the“Tappers and Trappers”paper was written. Clearly, Steward felt that a small social unit consisting of the family as the core economic entity was a pre- dictable feature of particular aboriginal conditions in certain environmental settings. the atomistic society The Murphy and Steward paper was roughly contemporary with a general reconsideration by anthropologists of the types of hunter-gatherer social formations observed by ethnographers. One particular focus of this wider inquiry involved the Canadian communities that had experienced a long period of Euroamerican interaction prior to extensive ethnographic documentation. Although some researchers began to use the term atomism to refer to the kinds of social articulations documented in Canada and other regions, the term itself had been introduced into the anthropological literature several decades earlier. For example, in the work of William G. Sumner, sometimes referred to as one of the major advocates of Social Darwinism, the term atomism appears in the following context: There are observed cases where the close-knit world- society of civilized mankind finds its prototype in the scarcely more than temporary and scattering kin-groups of the Australian natives or the African Bushmen and Pygmies.Not only are these societies small,unstable,and disconnected, but their members harbor sentiments toward outsiders and even toward each other that can- not, by any stretch of the imagination, be interpreted as brotherly.Where men are existing with slight resources on the edge of catastrophe—and, except in certain favored spots, we take this to have been the original state—they are full of hostility, suspicion, and other anti-social feelings and habits. (Sumner and Keller 1927, 1:16) The account of Homer concerning the Cyclopes,the rep- resentatives to him of utter savagery, is typical of atom- ism: “Each rules his consorts and children, and they pay no heed to one another.” (Sumner et al. 1927, IV:1; emphasis added) Although Sumner is not cited in the 1960s revival of the concept of “primitive atomism”and its introduction is usu- ally attributed to Ruth Benedict, the concept is nevertheless similar to some of Sumner’s ideas. The essential features of atomism were established in a series of articles characteriz- ing this societal state:“The atomistic-type of society . . . is a society in which the nuclear family represents the major structural unit and, indeed, almost the only formalized social entity” (Rubel and Kupferer 1968:189). John Honigmann,an ethnographer reporting on many dif- ferent North American groups, including Eskimos, outlined the characteristics of societies to which the term structural atomism would be applied: Structural atomism, corresponding to the empirical level, includes such observable characteristics of behav- ior as the following: (1) Primary concern is put on a person’s own indi- vidual interests and on great freedom from, or avoid- ance of, social constraint. As a result, interpersonal behavior strongly manifests the property of individu- alism. This has been the core meaning of atomism, and the word was so used by Ruth Benedict in her Bryn Mawr lectures to describe“the very simple societies as atomistic.” “They recognize only individual alle- giances and ties,” she said.“They lack the social forms necessary for group action.” (2) People reveal a tendency to retreat from too intense or unnecessary contact with neighbors, with the result that interpersonal relations are marked by empirically demonstrable reserve, restraint, or caution . . . interest is most often confined to short-term con- 18
- 43. sequences or expected reciprocities; such relationships do not give rise to long-term structural obligations. . . . (3) A reluctance of people to commit themselves to large groups, even when ecological conditions allow such forms to appear. . . . The nuclear family repre- sents the major structural unit and, in fact, almost the only formalized social entity. . . . Benedict in her Bryn Mawr lectures maintained that when mutual helpfulness does occur in an atomistic social setting, the individual helps others “on their enterprises as they help him on his,rather than carrying out enterprises which some per- manently constituted group engages in together, where the results are common property.” Subsequently, she observed that “anthropologists have not found any atomistic society with high synergy”—that is, with a social system geared to mutual advantage. . . . (4) Weak and ineffectual leadership and reluctance to delegate or even to assume political authority are further features of social atomism, . . . (5) Finally, social relations in an atomistic commu- nity are marked by strain, contention, or invidiousness. (Honigmann 1968:220–21) Honigmann regards atomism as a characteristic of“simple” societies and seems to expect that“simple”hunter-gatherers would exhibit the defining atomistic attributes whether or not they had also experienced a period of acculturation. The following summary of the attributes of atomistic society demonstrates that the anthropologists who were concen- trating on this issue were attempting to define a social type or, as Steward would say, a level of sociocultural integration: Structural atomism is characterized by a lack of co- operation beyond that of the immediate family. Inter- personal relations beyond the family are weak and short-lived, occurring primarily to achieve individual- istic short-range goals rather than persisting group goals. Such societies are frequently encountered among the hunting peoples of the world—for example, Stew- ard’s family level of social integration, and many of the groups which Service classifies as on the band level but with primarily familistic bonds of interpersonal rela- tionships.These are the societies that illustrate Benedict’s notion of atomism due to the lack of those social forms which unite larger groups of people into concerted action. On the surface, the causal factor would seem to be the low level of technology which prohibits large population aggregates. (Lévy 1968:230–31) Instead of involving any communal sharing of goals or ongoing commitment of persons to one another beyond the family unit, structural atomism was a social form in which individualism was dominant, communal obligations and actions were minimal, and cooperation took the form that Sahlins (1972) would later call balanced reciprocity. Those who explored the notion of atomism, particularly with reference to northern hunter-gatherers, argued that society was simply an integration of individuals rather than an integration of statuses: Allegiances and ties of social obligation, in other words, are not lacking in social atomism. On the contrary, the individual member of an atomistic society“may attain his goals by helpfulness to other individuals, but he helps them on their enterprises and they help him on his, rather than carrying out enterprises that some per- manently constituted group engage in together. . . . Individual acts [of helpfulness] are at the discretion of the individual. Munch and Marske (1981:161) quoting Benedict in Maslow and Honigmann (1970:323) Among those persons contributing to hunter-gatherer research and debate today, Peter Gardner was the first to argue that atomism was characteristic of recently docu- mented hunter-gatherer systems (Gardner 1965, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1988). In his 1965 Ph.D. the- sis, the social life of the Paliyans of South India was such that “individualism, familism, general social atomism, and covert revenge join forces with demography so that reliance can be placed only on primary kin bilaterally reckoned. . . .Weak leadership is one of the implications of atomism, symmet- ric respect, and avoidance of overt aggression. Supernatural sanctions are similarly consistent with lack of cooperation and lack of authority hierarchy” (Gardner 1965:103–4). In attempting to explain the factors responsible for the atomistic character of Paliyan social life, Gardner identified three causal domains: (1) the cultural environment, (2) the natural environment,and (3) demographic patterns.The fea- tures that prompted Gardner to classify the Paliyans as an atomistic society were, however, attributed primarily to the cultural environment: The Paliyans dwell in the hills, but, conspicuously, their habitat is further limited to just the lower slopes.Above live the shifting agriculturists and below,the Tamils.This particular zone lacks all of the requisite resources for profitable agriculture, and is, in fact, most forbidding to gatherers too. . . . The Paliyan is vocal on all these points; he is aware of his lack of fortune. It is not the area that persons with unlimited freedom would choose, what- ever their subsistence pattern. In other words, the Paliyans have withdrawn, or been pushed, into their present natural environment.Further validity to this find- ing is given by our review of the history of culture contact. . . . Pressure from outsiders leads to retreat.It is clear that in the event of unavoidable contact, the Paliyans have little alternative but to act submissively.It is the expected response and the one which most quickly brings cessa- tion of hostility from the outsiders. This aspect of envi- ronment is a contributor to the whole complex of retreat, avoidance of overt aggression, and framing interpersonal relations in terms of symmetric respect. (Gardner 1965:101–2) The Paliyans clearly exhibited many of the social char- acteristics implied by the term structural atomism, and Gard- ner advanced an argument attributing at least some of the chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 19
- 44. part i – explor ing pr ior know led ge and belief features of the complex—particularly their withdrawal response in a competitive situation as well as their refugee status—to cultural pressures from more powerful neigh- bors. He then examined a sample of twenty-seven social groups in terms of a list of characteristics that he considered integral to the cultural state of the Paliyans and identified six different types of hunter-gatherer sociocultural organizations in the data set. The type most relevant to the history of hunter-gatherer research is the suite of cases most like the Paliyans in their response to intercultural pressure from more socially dominant neighbors. This set consisted of (1) the Malapandaram (referred to as the Hill Pandaram in this study), who lived in the same region as the Paliyans and have been more recently studied by Brian Morris (1982a); (2) the Kadar, also located in South India and described by Ehrenfels (1952); (3) the Semang of the Malay Peninsula,who have been characterized by Fox (1969) as“professional prim- itives”; (4) the !Kung of Botswana and Namibia, who were presented in the anthropological literature (in the year after Gardner’s thesis submission) as an archetypal form of hunter- gatherer society, previously isolated from outside contact (Lee 1968);8 (5) the Mbuti, another group claimed to exem- plify an original hunter-gatherer social form (Meillassoux 1972); and (6) the Paiute-Shoshoni, whom Steward (1936) identified as an example of the family level of sociocultural integration. The 1960s discussion of social atomism emphasized soci- etal forms and features that contrasted sharply with the views of researchers who assumed that “primal” hunter- gatherer societies were characterized by a kind of “primitive communism.” Investigators of structural atomism also ignored earlier arguments about family ownership of terri- tory that had represented a challenge to the assumption that “original” hunter-gatherer societies were communalistic. Gardner’s analysis ignored the issue of landownership and attributed the similarities between the Paliyan and the Great Basin Shoshoni to the consequences of intersocial competi- tion and acculturation rather than to the distribution and scarcity of resources (sensu Steward). He also argued that a similar set of dynamics had affected the !Kung in the Kalahari. During the 1960s, Gardner was not the only anthropol- ogist to claim that social atomism was attributable to processes of acculturation and its social consequences. The primary advocate of this viewpoint was Elman Service, although Gardner does not cite his research. elman service and the acculturation view The intellectual ancestry of Service’s formulations can be traced to two arguments by Julian Steward,one of which con- cerned the circumstances promoting the formation of com- posite bands. Another logically parallel discussion claimed that hunter-gatherers differed in the character of the basic economic units into which local groups were organized. Steward had recognized that nuclear and even minimally extended families were invariably organized within local groups as subunits. There did, however, appear to be differ- ences among hunter-gatherer groups in the degree to which economic principles or forms of behavior assumed to be char- acteristic of families could be said to characterize the broader economic interaction among households living together in camps. The emphasis by both Steward and Speck on the character and distribution of resources as causal factors in the devel- opment of social forms was replaced in Service’s arguments by the elevation of acculturation to the position of an explanatory principle. For Service, the band was an inte- grated and familially linked social formation that constituted the primal,fundamental cooperative unit of hunter-gatherer society. Bands were communal and were characterized eco- nomically by what Sahlins (1972) later referred to as “the domestic mode of production.”Since bands were by defini- tion kin-based, the ambiguously defined, composite local groups noted by Steward were to be understood in the fol- lowing terms:“The causes of the modern fluid,informal,com- posite band clearly lie in the initial shocks, depopulation, relocation, and other disturbances in the early contact period which produced refugee-like groups of unrelated families among the Indians even before the time of the American Rev- olutionary War. Depopulation owing to European diseases had the first and most devastating social effects” (Service 1962:88; see also page 108). Steward’s characterization of Shoshoni and Eskimo eco- nomic organization as operating at the family level was explainable, in Service’s view, as the product of a sequence of historical events that disrupted the “natural state” of hunter-gatherer social organization and was therefore epiphenomenal: Most of the bands under survey here, including patrilo- cal bands like the central Australians, are composed of nuclear family units that themselves undertake most of the economic tasks. The families are rarely all together in a total meeting of the band or bands. The big differ- ence in any of these bands is whether reciprocal exogamy between groups or sodalities and virilocal residence rules are operative; this is what determines whether several nuclear families, scattered or not, are a struc- tured band of families or are at a“family level,”with the larger society being merely informal, haphazard, and ad hoc. (Service 1962:95; emphasis in original) Service paid relatively little attention to economics.Instead, his concept of the band rested heavily on one set of implicit preconditions that included territoriality (or what Steward would have called landownership) as well as the formal rules for marriage and postmarital residence governing the behav- 20
- 45. ior of territorial or geographically bounded corporate groups. In Service’s typology of human social organization, hunter- gatherers constituted the band level, and it was argued that there were no ecological or environmental correlates of the archetypal or primal organizational form, the patrilocal band:“It is truly an important, even astonishing, fact that we find this social structure in all the major quarters of the earth and in such tremendously varying habitats as deserts, seacoasts,plains,and jungles,in tropical,polar,and temperate zones, with great variations in kinds and amounts of food, and with seasonal and yearly alterations in the supplies. This is an even better reason for thinking that the patrilocal band is early; it seems almost an inevitable kind of organization” (Service 1962:107–8). Service makes two key points in this revealing statement. First, the distribution of the patrilocal band, which appears to vary randomly with environmental variables, justifies his rejection of the relevance of ecology to an understanding of social variability among hunter-gatherers (Service 1962:73). And second, by appealing to diffusionist principles from an earlier era of anthropology—in particular the “age area hypothesis,”which argued that the traits with the most gen- eral distribution were the oldest—Service posits the patrilocal band as the original form of social structure among ancient hunter-gatherers. Earlier in his monograph Service had discussed the con- ditions responsible for the formation of the primal, patrilo- cal band: “It has been argued so far that rules of reciprocal band exogamy are related to peacemaking alliance and offense-defense situations,that is,to the superorganic environ- ment rather than to food-getting alone. The rule of virilo- cal residence is also related to male cooperation in offense-defense, and not always to hunting alone. . . . Band exogamy and virilocal residence make a patrilocal band” (Service 1962:75). It is clear that if one accepts that the patrilocal band was the original, generic form of hunter-gatherer organiza- tion, one must also accept that the alleged causes (conflict and its social ramifications) were early and essentially per- petual and ubiquitous. Second, one would have to be com- fortable with the essentialist notion that territoriality and its correlates—local band exogamy and virilocal residence— were the essential, defining features of hunter-gatherer social life. Service’s arguments were so well insulated by sweeping claims for the effects of culture contact that counterarguments based on empirical evidence could always be dismissed by asserting that the challenging cases were not representative of primal conditions.Despite the fact that Service’s arguments were discussed and accepted by many anthropologists, they were never tested in any technical sense and were, instead, merely replaced later with an alternative argument purporting to identify a different primal form of hunter-gatherer society. Implications for spatial phenomena that archaeologists could pursue were embedded in Julian Steward’s arguments, but there were no similar implications for archaeologists in Service’s arguments. The issue generated by Service’s views was, instead, the relevance of ethnographic experience to an understanding of the past.His arguments indirectly challenged the generalizations from ethnographic experience previ- ously discussed here, i.e., the work of Mauss, Speck, Steward, and the proponents of social atomism, which all addressed some aspect of social organization among ethnographically documented cases. Service’s argument postulated an invari- able primal form of social organization for past hunter- gatherers and related observed organizational variability to the more recent historical, colonial context. This static view of the past referred variability in the present to conditions of acculturation in the present—in other words,it was a historical explanation. Service specifically denied the relevance of the ecological factors that were explored by Steward,Speck,and even Mauss and were implicit in Leacock’s critique (1954) of Speck’s position. There was little discussion of the issue of individ- ualism versus communalism, but the form of past society imagined by Service was consistent with a communalist formulation. the conference synthesis The Conference on Band Societies held in Canada in 1965 (Damas 1969) and the 1966 Man the Hunter Conference in Chicago (Lee and DeVore 1968) had a tremendous impact on the anthropological view of hunter-gatherers and, for a large group of students,defined what was considered germane to know about them. Certainly, the summary characteriza- tion by Richard Lee and Irvin DeVore (1968) of the“nomadic style”has set the tone for discussion up through the present time. The following statement about hunter-gatherers is particularly important:“The economic system is based on sev- eral core features including a home base or camp, a division of labor—with males hunting and females gathering—and, most important, a pattern of sharing out the collected food resources” (Lee and DeVore 1968:11). What Lee and DeVore are doing here—that is, charac- terizing hunting and gathering as a way of life or a mode of production by abstracting a set of essential characteristics of a normatively conceived life way—is still very much in the tradition of preceding authors, although the typifying terms are different. (A contrasting approach would involve a con- sideration of variables that might be expected to vary across cases and perhaps be seen as responsive to other variables in terms of causal processes.) If Lee and DeVore’s static char- acterization of the“organizational base line of the small-scale society from which subsequent developments can be derived” chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 21
- 46. part i – explor ing pr ior know led ge and belief (1968:11) is accepted as the primal human condition (Isaac 1978a, 1978b; Leakey and Lewin 1977) or as an archetypal form,then the task of researchers is to uncover the factors that disrupted, modified, or distorted this original “persistent and well-adapted way of life” (Lee 1968:43).9 Lee and DeVore’s formulation of the five essential char- acteristics contributing to the character of the“organizational base line”was rather clearly drawn from Lee’s experiences with the !Kung Bushmen. Their normative or archetypal view of the original form of hunter-gatherer society has remained rel- atively unchanged in Lee’s writing over the years.For instance: “Historical materialism argues that there exists a core of culture in primitive society that is intimately linked to mode of production.It is much longer lived,has a much deeper time- depth, than our own Western capitalist culture. Historical materialism further argues that this culture core is commu- nal: the collective right to basic resources and the egalitarian political culture. By a dictionary definition of communism, our ancestors were communist” (Lee 1990:232). This perspective shaped Lee’s thinking prior to his initial field work among the !Kung and has been expressed more and more clearly in recent years, although, as Gellner has pointed out, it represents a reversion to nineteenth-century ideas: “Social anthropology was born of the hope of using the contemporary savage as a time machine, and modern West- ern anthropology emerged from the rejection of this aspi- ration” (Gellner 1973:537–38). By “modern Western anthropology” Gellner is referring to the view that variability in cultural phenomena does not simply represent deviations from a primal form but is instead the consequence of contingent processes in which variables interact differentially and affect one another to produce variety.In light of the variability documented in contemporary ethnographic cases, the research challenge is to isolate, study, and understand the causal processes responsible for the observable range of differences. If one adopts a position claiming that there was an original, invariable form of social organization, then the intellectual goal is to identify it and to explain how subsequent diversity occurred. Either the primeval state was good (sensu Rousseau) and the problem is to identify the factors that led to the corruption of the ideal condition (which has been the quest of historical material- ists and others who are less easy to label),or the primeval state was bad (sensu Hobbes) and the challenge is to explain what factors caused conditions to improve and were responsible for human progress. Except for the occasional intrusion of antiquated nine- teenth-century notions of essential social forms, the terms in which hunter-gatherers were discussed in the conferences of 1965 and 1966 demonstrated that significant knowledge growth had occurred.For example,the recognition that a sta- tic model of social units was no longer a productive perspective was illustrated by Woodburn’s (1968) descriptions of the Hadza. Lee (1968) and Turnbull (1968) stressed the same observations that had impressed Julian Steward: that is, fam- ilies were reported to change their associations regularly, and thus the composition of local groups could be highly vari- able from one time to another within a single camp and also varied as camps were established and abandoned. This observation was even extended to societies that appeared to exhibit strict lineal definition of corporate groups,such as the Australian Aborigines, although this view of Australian sys- tems was also criticized (Hiatt 1962; Stanner 1965). The issue of territoriality, which earlier anthropologists had assumed was an original feature of human life, was reassessed in light of reports that many mobile hunter- gatherer claims to exclusive use of territory were not in any way comparable to the ownership of private property. It was argued that their relationships to the habitat were orga- nized in very different terms than previous notions of cor- porate control of territory had specified. In another important development at the conferences, the assumption that hunter-gatherers were overworked and underdeveloped because of the difficulty of meeting basic sub- sistence needs was challenged. Implicit in the old idea that “starvation stalks the stalker”(Sahlins 1968:85) was the belief that hunter-gatherers did not have sufficient leisure time to invent more complex cultural forms. If anything, the pen- dulum swung to the opposite pole of opinion with regard to the amount of leisure time available to hunter-gatherers. All of these topics, as well as the issue of sharing, continue to be investigated and discussed in the contemporary hunter- gatherer literature.At the Man the Hunter Conference, shar- ing was viewed by some participants as a behavioral manifestation of the primeval communal ethic, even though it was clear that there were many situations in which hunter- gatherer groups did not share. Some researchers felt a more productive approach was to attempt to explain the contin- uum of sharing behavior rather than label those cases that did not fit the archetypal model as deviant or progressive (depending upon whether one accepted Rousseau’s or Hobbes’s view of the original condition of man). The con- trast in views is made vivid by comparing Lee’s statement on hunter-gatherers and sharing (see page 21) with Fred Eggan’s (1968) remarks at the conference: I want to follow up one of Washburn’s points on adap- tation versus flexibility.There is a series of norms or sanc- tions with regard to the sharing of food. It seems to me that they often differ with the kind of food—meat, fish, or vegetable—with the size of the animals involved, and with the latitude of the location. I remember look- ing at the Siberian-central Asian data, and in that area food-sharing increases to the north and decreases to the south. I wonder whether these patterns of sharing, if we worked them out, might not give us something relevant to the problem of adaptation, even an index to it. (Eggan 1968:85) 22
- 47. The focus in the anthropological literature on sharing behavior has increased since the Man the Hunter Conference, but unfortunately not enough attention has been devoted to reporting and attempting to explain the“patterns of sharing” to which Eggan referred. Instead, an increasingly integrated argument has been developed and systematically presented by Marshall Sahlins, defining the relationships between com- munalism, social solidarity, economics, sharing, and the spa- tial relationships among households, as well as scales of social integration. sahlins and the domestic focus If I were to ask several anthropological theorists to enu- merate the propositions that they accept as justified unifor- mitarian assumptions, their statements would provide a logical baseline in terms of which to compare their theories. If one of the theorists was Marshall Sahlins, he would prob- ably offer two uniformitarian assumptions as the foundation of his arguments. The first would be that the fundamental building block of society is the family, which is also the fun- damental reproductive unit, and that all societies in the pre- capitalist world were organized articulations of these fundamental units. The second assumption would be that human societies articulate such units into larger social for- mations using extrasomatic or cultural mechanisms. Sahlins might add that the cultural definitions of just what consti- tutes a family, the ways that families are socially articulated, and the conventions for recognizing and organizing more dis- tant kin are emic phenomena and may therefore be expected to vary from setting to setting. Probably the arguments most commonly invoked by archaeologists when they attempt to make inferences about social organization in the past have been derived from Sahlins’s work. These arguments may be considered trans- formational in that various domains such as kinship, eco- nomics, family well-being, social distance, interactional intensities, and knowledge of others are viewed as integrated and therefore autocorrelated phenomena. That is, everything is embedded in the single social phenomenon of kinship, which is said to be the conventional locus for the organized features of small-scale societies, particularly those of hunter- gatherers. Sahlins’s argument, which has several components, was first introduced in his much-misunderstood article in the book Man the Hunter (1968), entitled “Notes on the Original Af- fluent Society.”His point was elaborated more fully in his own book, Stone Age Economics (1972:1–39). It represents an argument that can be viewed in several ways. I prefer to see it as a particularly important challenge to the idea, prevalent in the anthropological literature in the mid-1960s, that life was so difficult and uncertain that hunter-gatherers had no alternative than to spend all available time searching for food.The temporal demands of the hunter-gatherer food quest had been held responsible for the apparent stability, docu- mented archaeologically, in hunter-gatherer life ways. There had been no time,it was argued,for the development of social complexity, philosophy, art, and other highly valued fea- tures of Western industrialized society. Sahlins’s“leisure time hypothesis”challenged the view that “man’s wants are great, not to say infinite, whereas his means are limited”(Sahlins 1968:85).Sahlins argued (1) that hunter- gatherers did have leisure time and that temporal invest- ment in subsistence could not be the factor inhibiting “progress”; and (2) that the essentialist assumption that all people had unlimited “wants” was questionable. Despite suggestions by subsequent authors (Bettinger 1991:100; Foley 1988:207; Hawkes and O’Connell 1981; Riches 1982:213) to the contrary, Sahlins was not suggesting that life was easy or secure. He was saying, rather, that there was no vitalistic force in the form of unlimited needs that drove hunter- gatherers to produce surplus and “build culture” (Sahlins 1968:85). It was in this context that he later proposed the “domestic mode of production”as characteristic of hunter- gatherer and other societies that he claimed were organized by a “production for use” strategy that resulted in chronic underproduction (Sahlins 1972:86). Sahlins argued that the family was the unit that produced for use and that when its needs were met production ceased: The DMP [domestic mode of production] harbors an antisurplus principle. Geared to the production of liveli- hood, it is endowed with the tendency to come to a halt at that point. Hence if “surplus” is defined as out- put above the producers’ requirements, the household system is not organized for it. Nothing within the struc- ture of production for use pushes it to transcend itself. The entire society is constructed on an obstinate eco- nomic base,therefore on a contradiction,because unless the domestic economy is forced beyond itself the entire society does not survive. (Sahlins 1972:86) Sahlins is making a classic Marxist argument here, the struc- ture of which involves establishing a contradiction and then proceeding to define a dialectic through which the apparent contradiction is resolved. Sahlins himself commented on his use of this logical device: “The determination of the main organization of production at an infrastructural level of kinship is one way of facing the dilemma presented by prim- itive societies to Marxist analyses, namely, between the deci- sive role accorded by theory to the economic base and the fact that the dominant economic relations are in quality super- structural, e.g., kinship relations”(Sahlins 1972:102, note 1). This statement introduces another important compo- nent of Sahlins’s argument, the assertion that “primitive societies” are kin-based societies. For Sahlins, kinship is the ideological (superstructural) context in which the domestic chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 23
- 48. part i – explor ing pr ior know led ge and belief mode of production is embedded and integrated,and the vital- ity of the larger multifamily society is derived from this context.Crucial to this argument is acceptance of the premise that within communities there is a quasi-normal distribution of household production such that some households produce below their needs and others produce beyond their needs. Sahlins also suggested that some communities, relative to their needs, overproduce while others underproduce. It is at this juncture that kinship plays a pivotal role in the argument: “The kinship relations prevailing between households must affect their economic behavior. Descent groups and marital alliances of different structure, even interpersonal kin net- works of different pattern,should differentially encourage sur- plus domestic labor. And with varying success, too, kinship relations counter the centrifugal movement of the DMP, to determine a more or less intensive exploitation of local resources” (Sahlins 1972:123). Clearly the superstructural principle of kinship is viewed as a scale of social distance that differentially incorporates per- sons into larger domestic and quasi-domestic units. Sahlins made this point in the following example: “Where Eskimo kinship categorically isolates the immediate family, placing others in a social space definitely outside, Hawaiian extends familial relationships indefinitely along collateral lines. The Hawaiian household economy risks an analogous integration in the community of households. Everything depends on the strength and spread of solidarity in the kinship system. Hawaiian kinship is in these respects superior to Eskimo . . . specifying in this way a wider cooperation” (Sahlins 1972:123). As the solidarity of the domestic unit expands to include a broader social formation, the negative properties of the domestic mode of production—Sahlins used the terms anti- surplus, antisocial, centrifugal, a segmentary fragility, and a species of anarchy to characterize the DMP—are offset. (The term primitive atomism might be added to Sahlins’s list of neg- ative properties.)“Maximum dispersion is the settlement pat- tern of the state of nature....Left to its own devices,the DMP is inclined toward a maximum dispersion of homesteads, because maximum dispersion is the absence of interdepen- dence and a common authority, and these are by and large the way production is organized” (Sahlins 1972:97). Having advanced this perspective, Sahlins proceeded to discuss the relationship between kinship and economics in terms of a scale of economic transactions ranging from gen- eralized reciprocity to negative reciprocity (Sahlins 1972: 193–96). Generalized reciprocity borders on altruism and is said to characterize economic transactions within the domes- tic unit. It embodies behaviors that in the archaeological literature are usually referred to as sharing, and it is frequently assumed to be a basic characteristic of hunter-gatherer social- ity. Balanced reciprocity occurs at the midpoint of the scale and involves direct exchanges in which“reciprocation is the customary equivalent of the thing received and is without delay” (Sahlins 1972:194). Negative reciprocity is the polar opposite of generalized reciprocity, involving the attempt to get something for nothing, as in an exploitative relationship. After outlining the continuum of economic relation- ships, Sahlins linked reciprocity to its determining criteria: “The span of social distance between those who exchange con- ditions the mode of exchange. Kinship distance, as has already been suggested, is especially relevant to the form of reciprocity.Reciprocity is inclined toward the generalized pole by close kinship, toward the negative extreme in propor- tion to kinship distance” (Sahlins 1972:196). This statement provides not only an intellectual frame- work within which we may accommodate our expectations for social forms at the dawn of human existence but also a scalar focus for accommodating the variability that is documented in small-scale societies. It reflects a Marxist perspective in which changes in the superstructure determine the character of the observed system states, and it is in op- position to “vulgar materialist” notions that the means of production and the fundamental character of work are the major determinants of social forms and their scales of organization. Sahlins was aware of the variability in labor organization and forms of cooperation observable among hunter-gatherers: I do not suggest that the household everywhere is an exclusive work group, and production merely a domes- tic activity. Local techniques demand more or less co- operation, so production may be organized in diverse social forms, and sometimes at levels higher than the household. Members of one family may regularly col- laborate on an individual basis with kith and kin from other houses: certain projects are collectively under- taken by constituted groups such as lineages or village communities. But the issue is not the social composi- tion of work. Larger working parties are in the main just so many ways the domestic mode of production realizes itself. Often the collective organization of work merely disguises by its massiveness its essential social simplicity. A series of persons or small groups act side by side on parallel and duplicate tasks, or they labor together for the benefit of each participant in turn. . . . Cooperation remains for the most part a technical fact, without inde- pendent social realization on the level of economic control. It does not compromise the autonomy of the household or its economic purpose, the domestic management of labor-power or the prevalence of domestic objectives across the social activities of work. (Sahlins 1972:77–78; emphasis added) This is just another way of expressing the recurrent view that neither ecology,nor the articulation of humans with their envi- ronments (both natural and social), nor subsistence strate- gies, nor the means of production are germane to the investigation and explanation of social change. Ingold has made this point quite forcefully: “It cannot be emphasised 24
- 49. too strongly that the concept of adaptation loses all signifi- cance unless it is combined with a demonstrable principle of selection. . . . If this principle is contained within the social system, it is evident that the latter cannot be the object of a selective process” (Ingold 1981:126). For the neo-Marxist,evolutionary ecology is irrelevant and general explanations are futile since it is the superstruc- ture—the ideological domain—that directs change and man- ifests itself as historically particular variability. Sahlins was attempting to transform emic phenomena into etic phenomena.Kinship distance becomes social distance and social distance becomes transactional distance once the spec- trum of reciprocal relations has been introduced. The fun- damental social unit—the family—becomes extended through emic kinship conventions, a process that widens the social domain of the domestic mode of production to include more and more persons. These extensions represent scales of solidarity that should be distributed isomorphically with economic connections in those situations in which general- ized reciprocity is extended to larger and larger sets of per- sons, producing larger and larger communal units. Given Sahlins’s linkage of these scales, there is a clear autocorrela- tional equation in which (1) kinship distance, (2) social dis- tance,and (3) physical distance or spatial association constitute a measure of communal solidarity. It should therefore be clear that for the archaeologist who seeks interpretive guidance by invoking Sahlins’s prin- ciples, variability in both site structure and settlement pat- tern would be referred for explanation to the domains of kinship,social distance,and mutual aid and sharing.Variability in the size and dispersion of social units within a settlement system would be thought to reflect a single scale of degree of relationship, ranging from familial independence (atom- ism) to the integration of families into a broader-scale social formation in which the economic solidarity of the domes- tic mode of production is extended to others. With regard to site structure, those camps in which res- idences were placed close to one another would be thought to exemplify solidarity,whereas camps with widely spaced res- idences would reflect household independence, a lack of interhousehold integration, and, by extension, a lack of sol- idarity. This same scale would be expected to reflect the emic scaling of kinship distance since, as Sahlins suggested, variability in familial inclusion and assimilation fosters inte- gration and therefore solidarity.Another implication of this view is that as the kin-integrated unit becomes larger, pro- ductivity and “culture building” will increase. Sahlins’s scalar arguments about kinship and economic integration are consistent with the original proposals of Lewis H.Morgan regarding aboriginal house design.Ever since the publication of Morgan’s seminal work,Houses and House- Life of the American Aborigines (1881), many anthropologists have regarded communal shelter as a direct clue to the char- acter of the economic articulations between persons occu- pying the same residence. For his time, Morgan made a convincing case. He certainly influenced the thinking of Marx and Engels,and his assumptions are a fundamental com- ponent of the argument for “primitive communism” (Lee 1988). They also underlie the efforts by archaeologists (e.g., Movius 1965, 1966) to infer communal living based on archaeological house forms and camp plans: Communism in living had its origin in the necessities of the family. . . . Several families, related by kin, united as a rule in a common household and made a common stock of the provisions acquired by fishing and hunting, and by the cultivation of maize and plants. They erected joint tenement houses large enough to accommodate sev- eral families, so that, instead of a single family in the exclusive occupation of a single house, large house- holds as a rule existed in all parts of America in the abo- riginal period. . . . To a very great extent communism in living . . . entered into their plan of life and determined the character of their houses. (Morgan 1881:63; emphasis added) To use Sahlins’s terms, the construction and use of multi- family dwellings were the ultimate manifestations of the principles of kinship-based scaling according to which many families are integrated into a large domestic unit to which all of the characteristics of the domestic mode of production are said to apply. It is not unreasonable to suggest that implicit in this argument is an additional normative expectation. Since the emic kin terms employed within societies and the social for- mations they imply are not, according to Sahlins, modified drastically in short-term situations, normative patterning in both site structure and settlement patterning should be expected. For Sahlins, kinship and scale of kin distance are the factors conditioning social integration, which, in turn, is directly reflected in spatial association and proximity among fundamental family units. (It is hard to accommodate these normative views to the within-systems variability emphasized by Mauss in describing Eskimo societies.) Another set of expectations contained in Sahlins’s argu- ments may be anticipated in experience. The differences between strong and weak social solidarity, selfishness instead of sharing, and minimally integrated as opposed to strongly integrated social forms are said to be caused by factors belonging to the superstructure (in Sahlins’s argument the domain would be kinship conventions). Social organization would therefore be expected to remain unaffected by the char- acter of task groups, the forms of cooperative labor, and the organization of work in general. One would expect the scale of social solidarity to vary independently of labor organiza- tion and its attendant, cooperative characteristics as condi- tioned by the nature of the tasks themselves. In short, there should be little variability in either settlement pattern or chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 25
- 50. part i – explor ing pr ior know led ge and belief site structure in response to the many quite different demands that a range of subsistence strategies place on individuals in terms of the organization of labor and the amount of work required to operationalize those strategies. The arguments proposed by Sahlins contrast in their entirety with earlier views expressed by Chang, who believed that settlement pattern was “directly related to ecology and subsistence of the inhabitants,” whereas site structure—or community pattern as he preferred to call it—would be referable to“those aspects that can best be interpreted in terms of social organization and social psychology”(Chang 1962:36). Sahlins instead attributed spatial separation in either settle- ment pattern or site structure to a simple scale of variabil- ity in social integration—that is,to an expanded or contracted state of the domestic mode of production. It is reasonable to say that, in spite of their deficiencies,10 Sahlins’s views are central to or at least underlie most of the arguments currently offered by archaeologists regarding the importance of sharing. Not only is sharing invoked to pro- vide an understanding of hunter-gatherer socioeconomic organization, it also forms the basis for the interpretation of variability in site structure, particularly for such features as interhousehold spacing in the layout of hunter-gatherer camps (Gargett and Hayden 1991). From one perspective, Sahlins’s formulations are con- cerned with the structure and extension of relationships among persons for whom sharing is the characteristic trans- action. Food sharing in particular has become the definitive and pivotal criterion of human relationships for many archae- ologists. The following passage from Speth (1990:148–49) is a good example of this point of view: Food sharing, particularly sharing involving meat from larger mammals, is widely held to be one of the princi- pal hallmarks of so-called “egalitarian” hunter-gath- erer or “band” societies (e.g., Isaac 1978a; Lee and DeVore 1968; Service 1971).Almost every ethnographic study of foragers mentions the occurrence of some form of food sharing,and most comment on the impor- tance of meat from larger mammals in these exchanges. The reciprocal give and take of hunted foods as well as other resources, assured among egalitarian foragers by powerful social sanctions,is thought to play a crucial role in maintaining amicable and cooperative relations among the society’s members. . . . Sharing of food, espe- cially meat, is believed by many anthropologists to be so basic a part of the forager way-of-life that archaeo- logical evidence for its apparent emergence more than one-and-a-half or two million years ago in the Plio-Pleis- tocene has been taken as one of the first clear signs of true “humanness.” (Isaac 1978a) Several recent publications on archaeological site struc- ture contain propositions that reflect Sahlins’s emphasis on communalism. Sharing is considered to be a clue to, if not the basis of, communalism, and the absence of sharing is thought to be indicative of individualism or the lack of com- munal ties:“In sharing, the rule is that a subunit engages in exchange only with a larger unit which includes it. That is, each unit is obliged to give only to the whole of which it is a part, and is entitled to receive only from that whole, or as an undifferentiated part of it. Recipients do not become indebted to the sponsor of the moment: their obligation is only to the group as a whole”(Gibson 1988:175). Of course, one way to ensure that sharing represents collectivism is to define it as such. The tendency to equate sharing with communalism is well represented in an argument by Parkington and Mills (1991), who contend that close interhousehold spacing is one means of reinforcing and educating new recruits to the communal- egalitarian ethic. Tight interhousehold spacing also acts to “guarantee the evenness of resource acquisition and the rel- ative egalitarianism of interpersonal relations” (Parkington and Mills 1991:357). This functional argument is consis- tent with Sahlins’s expectations that the caring-sharing egal- itarian ethic of the domestic unit is extended to those living in tightly clustered houses. As interesting as all of the preceding arguments may be, they cannot contribute significantly to an understanding of the organization of human behavior until their accuracy is examined. For instance, it is essential to determine whether or not the “atomistic” Paliyan camps are widely spaced and whether the !Kung, Paliyan, and Great Basin Shoshoni camps are similar in site structural terms.It would be equally impor- tant to know what are the spatial relationships of structures in Montagnais and Naskapi camps that date to the fur trade era. The site structural implications of all of the competing arguments about “atomism” and “communalism” simply have not been evaluated,in spite of the ethnographic resources that could be brought to bear on this problem. It is especially dimwitted that archaeologists, rather than using their data to evaluate the accuracy of these arguments, instead appeal to them as justifications for the inferences that they make about the past! human social organization from the perspective of evolutionary biology Subsequent to the work of Marshall Sahlins, the single most important discussion of sharing,cooperation,task group for- mation, and related behavior to appear in the anthropolog- ical literature is found in the work of evolutionary biologists (the initial label for this research focus was sociobiology).Cru- cial to many of the early debates out of which the sociobio- logical perspective coalesced was the controversy over what unit constituted the fundamental element of evolutionary process. Opposing sides argued about whether change occurred at the level of the individual organism or whether 26
- 51. selection operated on social groups.According to the former perspective, social behavior was viewed as a consequence of evolutionary processes operating on the individual as the fun- damental processual unit (e.g., Axelrod 1981; Axelrod and Hamilton 1981; Hamilton 1963). It was in the context of this initial argument over units of processual dynamics that research attention was directed toward altruism or behavior that appeared to serve the needs of others rather than those of the altruist (Trivers 1971). Another important set of arguments, now referred to as “optimal foraging theory,” emerged directly from the fields of ecology and microeconomics and was adopted and elaborated upon by researchers in the field of evolutionary ecology (see Stephens and Krebs 1986 for a review). Optimal foraging theory has implications not only for sharing behav- ior but also for the controversy over which units of analysis should be used in investigating the role of evolutionary processes in the diversification of human systems of adaptation. Perhaps the greatest impact of efforts to develop an evo- lutionary theory explaining variability will be on those explanatory approaches that postulate the existence of “orig- inal human conditions” and “primal states” that are subse- quently corrupted by the accidents of history.11 These arguments become irrelevant when the original conditions are expected to have been variable and the history of change is in fact what one seeks to explain. One of the earliest attempts to challenge an explanatory argument based on alleged“primal conditions”was made by Elizabeth Cashdan and focused on the !Kung Bushmen. The citation of !Kung social organization as the quintessential example of primi- tive communism—a “group selectionist” proposition writ large—has been dealt with by Cashdan: The literature of anthropology is rich in theories and dis- cussions on the causes of stratification, while egalitar- ianism has largely been considered to be simply the baseline upon which stratification develops. Material from !Kung ethnographers, however, indicates that the egalitarianism found among most Bushman groups is a phenomenon resulting from stringent constraints, not simply a natural condition that represents the absence of stratification.These constraints arise from high spatial and temporal variability in food supply, together with a paucity of means to buffer this variability. (Cashdan 1980:116) Cashdan then discussed the social sanctions that were implemented among the !Kung to ensure that sharing occurred at the group level. (In this regard see the descrip- tion by Richard Lee [1969b] of the !Kung response to his dis- play of “wealth” on the occasion of Christmas dinner.) She contrasted her observations among the !Kung with her expe- riences among the //Gana, who live south and slightly to the east of the !Kung. The //Gana, Cashdan noted, were less dependent upon “the insurance provided by the economic leveling mechanisms typical of other Bushman groups” (Cashdan 1980:118). Leveling mechanisms include both direct sharing between social units and household mobility as a means of reducing security differentials among geo- graphic ranges. Implied in this argument, as well as in earlier discussions by Draper (1975) and Wiessner (1977, 1982), is the proposition that sharing was selected for and is advan- tageous only under certain ecological conditions. Prece- dence for this conclusion is found in Steward (1936, 1955) and in Eggan’s (1968:85) comments at the Man the Hunter Conference. During the time that Hillard Kaplan was working on his doctoral dissertation,he participated in a major study of shar- ing among the Ache of eastern Paraguay (Kaplan 1983). This research formed the basis of a series of important papers dealing specifically with sharing and the arguments that had previously been offered to account for this behav- ior (Jones 1983; Kaplan et al. 1984; Kaplan and Hill 1985; Kaplan et al. 1990). This body of literature is methodologi- cally sophisticated, internally consistent, and comprehensive, and it is the most provocative examination of the subject of sharing currently available. Throughout the remainder of this book I refer to perti- nent observations and arguments presented in the research of evolutionary biologists. At this juncture, however, I pre- fer to deal with the issue of sharing as a risk-reducing mech- anism—that is, one in which variance in productive success is leveled by sharing among cooperating producers.(The term leveling describes a situation in which the mean value of the food acquired by a set of producers is available to all within the set, as opposed to each producer having to rely on the product of his or her individual efforts during the term of the cooperation.) In order to understand variability in this domain of hunter-gatherer social phenomena, a set of cooperating pro- ducers and a term or duration of the cooperation must be specified so that behavior can be monitored and risk reduc- tion strategies can be evaluated. To obtain a measurement of mean and variance in the results of work effort within a socially defined labor unit, both categories of data are required, not only for field research but also for theory build- ing. Thus far, data are available for only one group of hunter- gatherers, the Ache, although observations germane to the proposition of risk reduction are available for other groups. The following summary of detailed research on sharing is abstracted from recent work by Kaplan et al. (1990):12 1. Risk: Risk is defined not as danger or insecurity13 but rather as temporal variability in the amount of food available for consumption, resulting from the productive efforts of a finite set of producers over a given time period of obser- vation. Risk may be thought of as a particular conse- chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 27
- 52. part i – explor ing pr ior know led ge and belief quence of exploiting certain types of foods, in the course of which the skill, knowledge, and ability of different producers is not considered to vary during the period of observation. Nevertheless (a) the number of occasions on which a single producer is successful in a series of efforts is variable and (b) the total productivity of the set of producers is itself variable when the time frame is held con- stant (e.g., a day or a week). This kind of variability is fre- quently referred to as “luck” by many researchers. 2. Risk management decisions:A number of decisions are made in the course of implementing any particular risk man- agement strategy.Food producers must decide with whom to cooperate in a risk-pooling unit, how many persons to include in the group (see E. A. Smith 1991 for extensive field-based research focused on task group formation),and what productive output to aim for during the period of cooperation. Whether producers envision a long-term cooperative effort or a task-specific cooperation must be established before rational discussion may proceed. (Remember that in order to calculate mean productivity and variance, a set of outcomes must be distributed across individuals when time is held constant or among outcomes for a single individual across a suite of events, or both.) In the Ache study, it was necessary to distinguish between male and female behavior in terms of the extent to which they pursued a risk-prone versus a risk-averse strategy. This dis- tinction illuminates another set of decisions having to do with the production targets or biased prey choices observed in co- operative action. As Kaplan et al. ask: “do they consistently choose either the high variance (unstable food supply) or the low variance (stable food supply) option?” (Kaplan et al. 1990:110–11). When detailed Ache data were used to eval- uate the proposition that food sharing represents a risk reduction strategy, it was found that“without food sharing, families are likely to experience 2 weeks in which they acquire less than 50% of their caloric needs about once every 2 years”(Kaplan et al. 1990:114; emphasis in original). The risk reduction argument was therefore empirically supported in the Ache case. Perhaps of even greater importance were the results of research that focused on the relationship between prey choice and variance in returns. Here the authors noted that “the amount of reduction in variance conferred by food sharing appears to depend on the acquisition pattern of food”(Kaplan et al. 1990:118; emphasis added). In other words, sharing is conditioned both by the character of the environment and by the labor organization appropriate to the exploitation of given prey targets. The sharing argument is therefore directly linked to the optimal foraging argument regarding prey choice. For purposes of this discussion, the observations of Ache foraging and sharing behavior, as well as the optimal forag- ing theory to which they are linked, directly challenge argu- ments claiming that“superstructure”conditions the relations of production. These data have similar implications for the viewpoints of Service and others who consider social solidarity or integration an essential property of small-scale society and attribute the existence of societies in which sharing is min- imal to processes of social disintegration. Kaplan et al. have presented a set of propositions based on the definition of risk as “temporal variation in individ- ual returns and . . . inter-individual variation in returns at single points in time. . . . When both kinds of variation are present (that is,when the returns of individuals vary over time and that variation is not synchronized across individuals),food sharing confers the greatest reduction in risk”(1990:118–19). This proposition covers those situations in which hunters collectively experience stochastic variance in their combined productivity while at the same time the productivity of each individual hunter also varies stochastically relative to other hunters in the risk pool: “If individual returns vary over time but that variation is synchronized across members of a social group, as in the case of seasonal gluts and shortages, food sharing does little to reduce variance because when food supply is low for some it is also low for others. When the inter-individual variance is high but temporal variance for individuals is low, food sharing does not reduce risk” (Kaplan et al. 1990:119). This second proposition is important since it acknowledges that a change in security simultaneously experienced by all of the participants in a risk-pooling labor group is not buffered by sharing associated with any one production event, such as one animal kill. The content of this proposi- tion contrasts sharply with the meaning inherent in the expression“risk-minimizing strategies”used by some authors, who are simply referring to all of those strategies that tend to enhance subsistence security in an otherwise“poor”habi- tat (Gould 1980:87). (Later in this book I discuss the kinds of strategies adopted by hunter-gatherers when gluts and shortages characterize seasonal variability in the habitat.) When interindividual variance is high but temporal variance for individuals is low, food sharing does not reduce risk. It simply raises the mean of low producers and lowers the mean of high producers. While from a group perspective this reduction in interindividual vari- ance may or may not be beneficial, it does not benefit high-producing individuals. Under these circumstances, high producers are not likely to elect to share food unless there are other compensatory benefits, or alter- natively, unless there are costs associated with not shar- ing food. (Kaplan et al. 1990:119) This proposition will assume more importance when I dis- cuss differential productivity as a function of individual age and, in particular, the role of young unmarried males as producers in the labor force. Situations in which food shar- 28
- 53. ing may occur as a result of other compensatory benefits, or those in which the refusal to share results in social sanctions, are variable among hunter-gatherers and will be kept in mind as I discuss variability in organizational forms among hunter-gatherers. Kaplan et al. (1990) have raised some additional issues regarding the preconditions for effective sharing as a risk- reducing strategy and make some assessments about the likelihood that these conditions occur in real-life social sit- uations. They point out that sharing does not work as a risk-reducing strategy if some participants in the risk-reducing labor pool do not share or if they hoard food for their exclu- sive use. In short, in order to be successful, sharing must be a“response-contingent”strategy, which means that failure to share by participants in a risk-pooling group is dealt with by withholding shares to freeloaders or applying other negative sanctions.A successful response-contingent strategy implies that members of a risk-pooling unit must have extensive and dependable prior knowledge of the persons with whom they plan to share labor and output or the anticipated successful outcome will be jeopardized. For food sharing to either evolve or be maintained, group size, group stability, and the value of reciprocal food sharing will interact in determining whether it will evolve. . . . As group size increases or stability decreases (such that old partners leave and new partners enter the group), the value of food sharing must also increase. . . . If food sharing evolves in order to reduce variance, then,all other things being equal,it is most likely to occur when . . . [there is] high temporal variability in food acquisition which is not synchronized across the pool of potential sharers, repeated interactions, and small group size. (Kaplan et al. 1990:120–21) These statements constitute a bare bones outline of a theory of sharing, which is justification for some excitement since, in fact, theories are rare in the anthropological and archaeological literature.14 Theories are the fundamental tools of the learning strategy that is generally referred to as science, and as such they outline dynamic relationships and permit the reasoned derivation of hypotheses that stipulate when a condition can be expected to occur and when it will not. The use of theory is well illustrated in the investigations conducted by Kaplan et al. among the Ache, and their work contrasts starkly with another kind of variability in the field of hunter-gatherer studies that is derived from the adoption by various authors of particular intellectual postures. It is not possible to review this voluminous literature here, but it may be summarized as advocating the utility of particular cog- nitive criteria for characterizing hunter-gatherer societies.A currently popular example distinguishes between social groups in terms of immediate- versus delayed-return reci- procity (Morris 1982b; Woodburn 1980, 1988) whereas another heated set of arguments disputes the essential char- acteristics of “real” hunter-gatherers (Bower 1989; Head- land and Reid 1989; Kent 1992; Lee 1992; Lewin 1988; Schrire 1984a, 1984b; Wilmsen 1983, 1989). I do not find either of these characterizing exercises use- ful. Arguments about “real” hunter-gatherers proceed from a failure to address the question of what is an explanatory theory, and they ignore the vital concern of how knowl- edge—which exists in the present—is most productively used to structure research to accomplish the goal of making knowledge grow. My approach to the strategic use of con- temporary knowledge is described as part of a set of funda- mental arguments that I make in subsequent chapters of this book. Conclusion This chapter has been concerned with what has been learned about hunter-gatherers from some of our intellectual pre- decessors in the discipline of anthropology and about how this knowledge contributes to a definition of the challeng- ing research problems to be addressed by the contempo- rary generation of researchers. The work of Mauss and Beuchat was introduced to demonstrate that some early scholars who investigated orga- nizational variety in hunter-gatherer life ways had tried to establish that behavior in many small-scale societies was organized in ways that were neither normative nor static.Their research demonstrated that hunter-gatherer behavior appeared to exhibit regularities that were at least influenced, if not caused, by large-scale environmental cyclicities. For the greater part of the twentieth century,this approach to research was frequently cited, but the processual implications were ignored until quite recently.Work at the pattern recognition level has repeatedly informed us that hunter-gatherers are vari- able in the extent to which their social and labor organiza- tion is stable or cyclically changing, and yet little work has been directed to explaining why within-systems variability should or should not occur. One could say, then, that Mauss and Beuchat’s intellectual bequest to future generations of hunter-gatherer researchers was inadvertently placed in trust and remained there for several generations. We believe that the time has come to gain access to that bequest and manip- ulate it productively. The work of Julian Steward illustrates very graphically what happens when the units of observation in terms of which vari- ability is monitored are ambiguous or indistinct. Steward’s idea of the band was stated clearly enough.For him“the func- tional basis of band organization, then, was the habitual cooperation of its members in joint enterprises and its objec- tive expression was the common name, chieftainship, and ownership of territory” (Steward 1938:51). chapter 1 – “founder’s effect” 29
- 54. part i – explor ing pr ior know led ge and belief The problem was that no amount of definitional speci- ficity could make reality correspond to Steward’s terms. The Shoshoni did not appear to demonstrate much cooperation among spatially dispersed, small social units, nor did they maintain a chieftainship or appear to exercise property rights over the territory that they exploited. Steward’s response to the lack of correspondence between his definitional units and reality was to conceive of a new unit, the family level of sociocultural integration, which fit the observations that he had made on Great Basin peoples.Steward later acknowledged that the size criterion embedded in his notion of a band was misguided, and he modified his view in light of more detailed field work. Since Steward’s time, the term band has been used to refer to a number of different kinds of observational units, some defined by proximity criteria, or by the social compo- sition of residential camps, or by criteria that monitor lev- els of economic integration. One pattern emerges in this chapter from my overview of the stipulative approach: obser- vational units require constant redefinition in order to accommodate the variability that is sequentially uncovered in the world of dynamics. The unproductiveness of a stipu- lative research strategy has prompted me to follow a more pragmatic approach to unit conceptualization in the research and analysis reported in this book. By recognizing and concentrating on the variability in set- tlement pattern and site structural data, both within and among hunter-gatherer systems, it becomes possible to pro- pose that patterns of organization relate to conditions exter- nal to the examined systems and to begin to do pattern recognition studies in these domains. Steward, of course, was a pioneer in the investigation of the ecological relationships that hunter-gatherers maintained with their environment,and it may be that of all his work,his research in this domain con- stitutes our most important inheritance.15 The research by Speck, Leacock, and Murphy and Steward pointed to interesting patterns of social organization in the present and took the view that traditional interpretations of the past could not explain them. These authors argued instead that processes operating in the present accounted for some features of a pattern of organization that was referred to as“atomism.”It was theorized that a lack of economic inte- gration among some groups of hunter-gatherers who had become productive specialists in the context of a market economy was accounted for by their exposure to forces of acculturation. It was argued that these processes were unique to their his- torical context, but is it not reasonable to ask whether sin- gular historical events are themselves the outcome of ongoing, more fundamental processes and, if so, might not some of the same conditioning variables have been at work in the past? A processual perspective is strongly opposed to the view that events cause events, and to the extent that historicism is a major explanatory theme in anthropology,16 archaeol- ogists would be well advised to reject this aspect of our intel- lectual patrimony. Social types and primal forms were important conceptual tools for Steward, Service, the atomists, and researchers like Richard Lee. Lee has argued that the original condition of hunter-gatherers was one of primitive communism and that this original form is extant in the modern world (e.g.,the Dobe peoples of the Kalahari area). I would suggest that the whole purpose of tools, intellectual or otherwise, is to facilitate doing work, and if our theoretical tools tell us that we already know what the past was like and why it was that way, then we have to conclude that there is no significant work left to be done. Obviously I believe that constructs such as primal social forms are useless when we explore the research challenges facing our discipline. In Sahlins’s work there is a strong emphasis on the sys- temic characteristics of domestic life. Sahlins makes many arguments about the bases of culturally organized life, but these all proceed from an assumption about what human life was like in a“state of nature.”His bias regarding where or in what domain we are to look for the causes of variability places causation in the superstructural realm of ideation.Sug- gestions that causal relationships occur in the interrelations between humanity and the environment are generally denied. Sahlins’s work has provided archaeologists with a clear- cut set of expectations for site structure and settlement pat- tern and for what the variability might mean in terms of social integration.It is therefore unfortunate that these expectations are stipulative and derived from Sahlins’s a priori assump- tions about human nature. I suspect that those archaeologists who interpret their data in terms of Sahlins-like precepts will inevitably be surprised by the results of more rigorous theory building. In this review of some of the more recent anthropolog- ical literature, it is clear that many elements of Sahlins’s work remain relevant—particularly those having to do with sharing and the pooling of resources as fundamental forms of cooperation—but these elements are now embedded in some new and interesting perspectives. Recent studies sug- gest that sharing is not just an idiosyncratically expressed human characteristic but that, instead, it varies in practice with different environmental contexts according to whether there either is or is not a tangible payoff. If this pattern is sus- tained by continued research, such an understanding would be particularly germane to the problems posed by earlier writ- ers who viewed cooperation, sharing, and communalism as essential to human life, particularly in prehistory, and it would lead us to expect much greater variety in the archae- ologically documented settlement patterns and features of site structure remaining from the past. Overall, this review of the utility of the intellectual tools bequeathed to subsequent generations by the “founders” of 30
- 55. Random documents with unrelated content Scribd suggests to you:
- 56. hear of, before the two elections preceding this last, which has been performed with uncommon pomp and magnificence, in the plebeian mode of pageantry. And, as it has been taken notice of in our public newspapers, it may probably have a run, through those channels, to many parts of the kingdom, and, in time, become the inquiry of the curious, when and why such a mock usage was commenced. I have herewith sent you copies of some of the hand-bills of the candidates, that were printed and plentifully dispersed (in imitation of the grand monde) before the election came on, by which you may judge of the humour in which the other parts of it were conducted. Their pseudo-titles, as you will observe, are Lord Twankum, Squire Blow-me-down, and Squire Gubbins. Lord Twankum’s right name is John Gardiner, and is grave-digger to this parish; Blow-me-down is —— Willis, a waterman; and Squire Gubbins, whose name is —— Simmonds, keeps a publichouse, the sign of the Gubbins’ Head, in Blackman-street, Southwark. Some time hence, perhaps, also it may be a matter of inquiry what is meant by the Gubbins’ Head. This Simmonds formerly lived at Wandsworth, and went from hence to keep a public-house in Blackman-street; he being a droll companion in what is called low-life, several of his old acquaintance of this town used to call at his house, when they were in London, to drink a pot or two; and, as he generally had some cold provisions (which by a cant name he usually called “his gubbins”), he made them welcome to such as he had, from whence he obtained that name; and putting up a man’s head for the sign, it was called the “Gubbins’ Head.” A hundred years hence, perhaps, if some knowledge of the occasion of the name of this sign should not be preserved in writing, our future antiquaries might puzzle themselves to find out the meaning of it. I make no question, but that we have many elaborate dissertations upon antique subjects, whose originals, being obscure or whimsy, like this, were never truly discovered. This leads me to the commendation of the utility of your design in recording singular accidents and odd usages, the causes and origin of which might otherwise be lost in a long tract of time. Garrett Election, 1826.
- 57. It seems to be the desire of certain admirers of certain popular customs to get up another burlesque election for Garrett; the last was thirty years ago. The following is a copy of a Notice, now executing (June 23, 1826) at a sign-painters, on a board ten feet high, for the purpose of being publicly exhibited. It need scarcely be observed that the commencing word of this very singular composition, which ought to be Oyez, is improperly spelt and divided, and “yes” is unaccountably placed between three inverted commas; the transcript is verbatim, and is arranged in this column as the original is on the signboard. O ‘‘‘Yes’’’ NOTICE That on Thursday 6th July, 1826 In conformity of THE HIGH AUTHORITIES, Of the United KINGDOM will assemble THROUGHOUT the EMPIRE and particularly at the Hustings at GARRAT, to whit, conformable to the Custom Of our Ancient LIBERTY. SIR JOHN
- 58. PAUL PRY, now offers himself to a Generous PUBLIC GOD SAVE THE KING The last representative of Garrett was a “remarkable character” in the streets of the metropolis for many years. His ordinary costume was very different from the court dress he wore on the hustings, wherein he is here represented—
- 59. Sir Jeffery Dunstan, M. P. for Garrett, COSMOPOLITE, AND MUFFIN-SELLER. The individual who figured as conspicuously as the most conspicuous, and who may be regarded as the last really humorous candidate at this election was Sir Jeffery Dunstan, M. P. for Garrett, AND ITINERANT DEALER IN OLD WIGS. The kind of oratory and the nature of the argument employed by the candidates in their addresses to their constituents, can scarcely be better exemplified than by the following Speech of Sir Jeffery Dunstan.
- 60. My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen, A landed property being the only unexceptionable qualification that entitles me to a seat in the august parliament of Great Britain, I presume my estate in the Isle of Mud will, in point of propriety, secure to me your votes and interests, to represent you in the ensuing parliament. Ladies and gem’men, I propose, for the good of mankind, to anticipate a few promises like other great men, but which I will strictly adhere to, that is, as long as I find it’s my interest so to do. First, in regard to his Majesty’s want of money, I am determined to make him easy on that point—(Lord bless him!)—by abolishing the use of it entirely, and reducing the price of gold, it being the worst canker to the soul of man; and the only expedient I can think of to prevent bribery and corruption, an evil which all the great big wigs of Westminster cannot prevent, notwithstanding all their gravity and knowledge, as the late proceedings against governor Green Peas can fully testify. Next, as my worthy constituents may be assured, I shall use all my honest endeavours to get a majority in the house. I shall always take the popular side of the question; and to do all I can to oblige that jewel of a man, Sugar-Plumb Billy, I shall assist him in paying off the national debt, without wetting a sponge. My scheme for this, ladies and gem’men, is to unmarry all those who choose it, on such terms as the minister shall think fit. This being a glorious opportunity for women of spirit to exert themselves, and regain their long lost empire over their husbands, I hope they will use all their coaxing arts to get me elected in their husband’s place; and this will greatly increase the influence of the crown, and vastly lower India bonds. As I detest the idea of a placeman, I pledge myself not to accept of anything less than the government of Duck Island, or the bishoprick of Durham, for I am very fond of a clean shirt, and lawn sleeves, I think, look well; besides, the sine qua non is the thing I aim at, like other great men. The India Company, too, I will convey from Leadenhall-street to Westminster, and, according to my own wig principles, I will create all the directors’ and nabobs’ titles, and, besides, show them how to get what they have been long aiming at—
- 61. the way to Botany Bay. I shall likewise prove the Excise Office to be the greatest smuggle in the nation, for they smuggled the ground from the public on which their office stands, and for which I shall conjure up Old Gresham’s ghost, to read them a lecture upon thieving. Like the great men, I pledge my honour, life, and fortune, that I will remove all heavy taxes, and by a glorious scheme, contrived by me and my friend Lord George Gordon, I shall, by a philosophical, aristocratical thermometer, or such-like hydraulics, discover the longitude among the Jews of Duke’s Place, and the secret of Masonry. City honours I never courted, nor would I give an old wig to be drawn in idle state through Cheapside’s foggy air on a 9th of November.—No, I would rather sit by the side of my great friend Mr. Fox, in the Duke of Devonshire’s coach, and make another coalition, or go with him to India, and be a governor’s great man; for, Hated by fools, and fools to hate, Was always Jeffery Dunstan’s fate. Though my Lord George has turned Jew, and wears a broom about his chin[221], I never intend to do so until his informer is dead, or the time elapsed of his imprisonment in the county castle, when we shall both go into Duke’s Place, and be sworn true friends; then woe be to the informing busy bookseller of Spitalfields, who was lately turned out of the Snogo for eating pork with the rind on. Depend upon it his windows shall chatter more Hebrew than he ever understood. All this shall be done by me, in spite of him. Yes, by me, your humble servant, Sir Jeffery Dunstan, M.P. Exparte Dimsdale, Bart. “Two single Gentlemen roll’d into one.” TAKE NOTICE. Whereas, on or upon the last page but one of the last sheet, that is to say, columns 829 and 830 of the Every-Day Book, there are two whole length portraits, each whereof is subscribed, or inscribed beneath, with one name. And whereas each, and both, is and are, thereby, that is to say, by the said one name, called, or purported to be called, “Sir Jeffery
- 62. Dunstan, M.P. for Garrett, &c.” And whereas the said two engravings are portraits of two several, separate, and distinct individuals. And whereas it is hereby declared to be true and certain, and not to be gainsayed or denied, that two neither are, nor is, nor can be, one. Therefore, All whom it may concern are hereby intended, and required to be instructed, and informed thereof. And further, that the first, or top, or uppermost portrait, although subscribed “Sir Jeffery Dunstan, &c.” is to be seen, taken, and received, as and for the true and faithful likeness of sir Harry Dimsdale, Bart. M.P. for Garrett, and for no or none other. And furthermore, that the second, or last portrait is, in truth, a like true, and faithful likeness of sir Jeffery Dunstan, as is there truly stated: And more, furthermore, that the misnomer, as to the said Sir Harry Dimsdale, was unpurposed and accidentally made and written by the undersigned, and overseen by the overseer, when the same was set up or composed in type by the compositor; and that he, the said compositor, was bound in duty not to think, but unthinkingly, and without thought, to do as he did, that is to say, follow his copy, and not think: And lastly, that the last portrait, subscribed “Sir Jeffery Dunstan,” is rightly and truly so subscribed: Wherefore, the portrait of the “cosmopolite and muffin seller,” was, and is, only, and alone, and no other, than the just and faithful likeness of sir Harry Dimsdale, according, and notwithstanding as aforesaid. And therefore, the well-disposed are enjoined and required to dele, or strike out, the misnomer thereof, or thereto affixed, and in tender consideration of the premises to forget and forgive the same, which proceeded wholly, solely, entirely, and unhappily from A. B. June 28, 1826. Attestation, &c.
- 63. This is to certify, that so much of the above contents as are within my knowledge, and the whole thereof, according to my full and perfect belief, is, and are, strictly and entirely true: And that the signature thereto subjoined is true and honest, in manner and form following, to wit,—the letter “A” is, of itself alone, what it purports to be, that is to say, “A,” by itself, “A;” And the letter “B,” in alphabetical order, is, also in nominal order, the literal beginning, or initial, of the real name, which is, or ought, or is meant to be attached thereto, namely—“Blunder:” And that the said “Blunder” is altogether honest, and much to be pitied; and is known so to be, by every one as well acquainted with the said “Blunder,” and the rest of the family, as myself.— The Printer. Mock Election at Garrett, 25th of June, 1781. This is the burlesque election referred to at column 825, when “upwards of 50,000 people were, on that ludicrous occasion, assembled at Wandsworth.” That notice, with the interesting letter concerning the origin of this popular custom, from Mr. Massey to Dr. Ducarel, on column 826, was inserted with other particulars, in the last sheet, for the purpose of inciting attention to the subject and under an expectation that the request there urged, for further information, might be further complied with. The hope has been realized to a certain extent, and there will now be placed before the reader the communications of correspondents, and whatever has been obtained from personal intercourse with those who remember the old elections for Garrett. To mention the earliest within remembrance, it is proper to say that this public burlesque was conducted in 1777 with great spirit; sir John Harper was then elected, and a man in armour rode in that procession. The name of this champion was “Jem Anderson,” a breeches-maker of Wandsworth, and a wonderful humorist. At sir John Harper’s election, on the 25th of June, 1781, he had six rivals to contend with. A printed bill now before the editor, sets forth
- 64. their titles and qualifications in the following manner:— “THE GARRATT ELECTION. “The Possessions and Characters of the Seven Candidates that put up for that Great and Important Office, called THE MAYOR OF GARRETT. “Sir Jeffery Dunstan, sir William Blase, sir Christopher Dashwood, sir John Harper, sir William Swallowtail, sir John Gnawpost, and sir Thomas Nameless. “On Wednesday, the 25th instant, being the day appointed for the Garrat election, the candidates proceeded from different parts of London to Garrat-green, Wandsworth. “Sir Jeffery Dunstan: he is a man of low stature, but very great in character and abilities; his principal view is to serve his king and country, his worthy friends and himself. “The next gentleman that offered himself was sir William Blase, a man of great honour and reputation, and was of high rank in the army, serving his king and country near forty years, and had the honour to be a corporal in the city trainbands, the last rebellion. “The third, admiral Dashwood, well known in the county of Surry, to many who has felt the weight of his hand on their shoulders, and shewing an execution in the other. “Sir John Harper is a man of the greatest abilities and integrity, and his estate lies wherever he goes; his wants are supplied by the oil of his tongue, and is of the strictest honour: he made an oath against work when in his youth, and was never known to break it. “Sir William Swallow-tail is an eminent merchant in the county of Surry, and supplies most of the gardeners with strawberry-baskets, and others to bring their fruit to market. “Sir John Gnawpost is a man well known to the public; he carries his traffic under his left arm, and there is not a schoolboy in London or Westminster but what has had dealings with him:—His general cry is ‘twenty if you win, and five if you lose.’ “Sir Thomas Nameless,”—of reputation unmentionable.
- 65. Having thus described the candidates from the original printed “Hustings paper,” it is proper to state that its description of them is followed by a woodcut representing two figures—one, of sir Jeffery Dunstan, in the costume and attitude of his portrait given at column 830, but holding a pipe in his right hand, and one of another candidate, who, for want of a name to the figure, can scarcely be guessed at; he is in a court dress, with a star on the right breast of his coat, his right arm gracefully reposing in the pocket of his unmentionables, and his left hand holding a bag, which is thrown over his left shoulder. Beneath that engraving is “The speech of sir Jeffery Dunstan, Bart. delivered from the hustings. “Gentlemen, “I am heartily glad to see so great a number of my friends attend so early on the great and important business of this day. If I should be so happy as to be the object of your choice, you may depend on it that your great requests shall be my sole study both asleep and awake. I am determined to oppose lord N(ort)h in every measure he proposes; and that my electors shall have porter at threepence a pot; that bread shall be sold at four pence a quartern loaf, and corn be brought fairly to market, not stived up in granaries to be eat by rats and mice; and that neither Scotchmen or Irishmen shall have a seat in our parliament. “Gentlemen, as I am not an orator or personable man, be assured I am an honest member. Having been abused in the public papers, I am resolved, if it cost me a thousand pounds, to take the free votes of the electors. It is true, it has cost me ten shillings for a coach, to raise which, I have pawned my cloathes; but that I regard not, since I am now in a situation to serve my king, whom I wish God to bless, also his precious queen, who, under the blessing of a king above, hath produced a progeny which has presaged a happy omen to this country. “Gentlemen, I can assure you with the greatest truth, that the cloaths I have on are all my own, for the meanness of borrowing
- 66. cloaths to appear before you, my worthy electors, I highly detest; and bribery and other meanness I abhor;—but if any gentleman chuse to give me any thing, I am ready to receive their favours.” The above oration is headed by “This is my original speech;” below it is added as follows:— “N. B. When sir John Harper’s man arrived on the hustings with flying colours, he began to insult sir Jeffery, who immediately made him walk six times round the hustings, ask his honour’s pardon, drop his colours and dismount.” With this information the bill concludes. A song printed at the time, but now so rare as not to be met with, further particularizes some of the candidates at this election. In the absence of an original copy, the parol evidence of “old John Jones of Wandsworth,” has been admitted as to certain verses which are here recorded accordingly.
- 67. Garrett Election Song, 1781. Recited by the “ex-master of the horse,” at the “Plume of Feathers,” Wandsworth, on the 14th of June, 1826. At Garratt, lackaday, what fun! To see the sight what thousands run! Sir William Blase, and all his crew, Sure, it was a droll sight to view. Sir William Blase, a snob by trade, In Wandsworth town did there parade; With his high cap and wooden sword He look’d as noble as a lord! Sir William Swallowtail came next In basket-coach, so neatly drest; With hand-bells playing all the way, For Swallowtail, my boys, huzza! Sir Christopher Dashwood so gay, With drums and fifes did sweetly play; He, in a boat, was drawn along, Amongst a mighty gazing throng. In blue and gold he grand appeared, Behind the boat old Pluto steer’d; The Andrew, riding by his side, Across a horse, did nobly stride. On sir John Harper next we gaze All in his carriage, and six bays, With star upon his breast, so fine, He did each candidate outshine. And when he on the hustings came He bow’d to all in gallant strain, The speech he made was smart and cute, And did each candidate confute. In this procession to excel, The droll sir William acted well; And when they came to Garrett green, Sure what laughing there was seen! No Wilkes, but liberty, was there; And every thing honest and fair, For surely Garrett is the place, Where pleasure is and no disgrace!
- 68. Where pleasure is, and no disgrace! Sir William Swallowtail was one William Cock, a whimsical basket- maker of Brentford, who deeming it proper to have an equipage every way suitable to the honour he aspired to, built his own carriage, with his own hands, to his own taste. It was made of wicker, and drawn by four high hollow-backed horses; whereon were seated dwarfish boys, whimsically dressed for postilions. In allusion to the American war, two footmen rode before the carriage tarred and feathered, the coachman wore a wicker hat, and sir William himself, from the seat of his vehicle, maintained his mock dignity in grotesque array, amidst unbounded applause. The song says, that sir William Swallowtail came “with hand-bells playing all the way,” and “old John Jones,” after he “rehearsed” the song, gave some account of the player on the hand-bells. The hand-bell player was Thomas Cracknell, who, at that time, was a publican at Brentford, and kept the “Wilkes’s Head.” He had been a cow-boy in the service of lady Holderness; and after he took that public-house, he so raised its custom that it was a place of the first resort in Brentford “for man and horse.” With an eye to business, as well as a disposition to waggery, he played the hand-bells in support of sir William Swallowtail, as much for the good of the “Wilkes’s Head” as in honour of his neighbour Cock, the basket-maker, who, with his followers, had opened Cracknell’s house. Soon after the election he let the “Wilkes’s Head,” and receiving a handsome sum for good-will and coming-in, bound himself in a penalty of 20l. not to set up within ten miles of the spot. In the afternoon of the day he gave up possession, he went to his successor with the 20l. penalty, and informed him he had taken another house in the neighbourhood. It was the sign of the “Aaron and Driver,” two race-horses, of as great celebrity as the most favoured of the then Garrett candidates. Cracknell afterwards became a rectifier or distiller at Brentford. Sir John Harper was by trade a weaver, and qualified, by power of face and speech, and infinite humour, to sustain the burlesque character he assumed. His chief pretensions to represent Garrett were
- 69. grounded on his reputation, circulated in printed hand-bills, which described him as a “rectifier of mistakes and blunders.” He made his grand entry through Wandsworth, into Garrett, in a phaeton and six bays, with postilions in scarlet and silver, surrounded by thousands of supporters, huzzaing, and declaring him to be “able to give any man an answer.” MOCK ELECTION FOR GARRETT.
- 70. Sir John Harper’s Election, 1781.
- 71. Long as we live there’ll be no more Such scenes as these, in days of yore, When little folks deem’d great ones less, And aped their manners and address; When, further still to counterfeit, To mountebanks they gave a seat, By virtue of a mobbing summons, As members of the House of Commons. Through Garrett, then, a cavalcade, A long procession, longer made. For why, the way was not so wide That horsemen, there, abreast, could ride, As they had rode, when they came down, In order due, to Wandsworth town; Whence, to the Leather Bottle driven, With shouts that rent the welkin given, And given also, many blows In strife, the great “Sir John” arose On high, in high phaeton, stood, And pledged his last, best, drop of blood, As sure as he was “Harper,” to Undo all things that wouldn’t do, And vow’d he’d do, as well as undo, He’d do—in short, he’d do—what none do: Although his speech, precisely, is Unknown, yet here, concisely, is Related all, which, sought with pains, Is found to be the last remains, Of all, at Garrett, done and said; And more than elsewhere can be read. The preceding engraving is from a large drawing, by Green, of a scene at this election in 1781, taken on the spot. Until now, this drawing has not been submitted to the public eye. In the above accurate representation of the spot, the sign of the Leather Bottle in Garrett-lane is conspicuous. Its site at that time was different from that of the present public-house bearing that name. It is further observable, that “Harper for ever” is inscribed on the phaeton of the mock candidate for the mock honours of the mock
- 72. electors; and that the candidate himself is in the act of haranguing his worthy constituents, some of whose whimsical dresses will give a partial idea of the whimsical appearance of the assembled multitude. Every species of extravagant habiliment seems to have been resorted to. The little humourist in a large laced cocked hat, and his donkey in trappings, are particularly rich, and divide the attention of the people on foot with sir John Harper himself. The vender of a printed paper, in a large wig, leers round at him in merry glee. The sweeps, elevated on their bit of “come-up,” are attracted by the popular candidate, whose voice seems rivalled by the patient animal, from whose back they are cheering their favourite man. In this election, we find the never-to-be-forgotten sir Jeffery Dunstan, who it is not right to pass without saying something more of him than that on this occasion he was a mere candidate, and unsuccessful. He succeeded afterwards to the seat he sought, and will be particularly noticed hereafter; until when, it would perhaps be more appropriate to defer what is about to be offered respecting him; but the distinguished favour of a communication from C. L. on such a subject, seems to require a distinguished place; his paper is therefore selected to prematurely herald the fame of the celebrated crier of “old wigs” in odd fashioned days, when wigs were a common and necessary addition to every person’s dress. Reminiscence of Sir Jeffery Dunstan By C. L. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. To your account of sir Jeffery Dunstan in columns 829-30 (where, by an unfortunate Erratum the effigies of two Sir Jefferys appear, when the uppermost figure is clearly meant for sir Harry Dimsdale) you may add, that the writer of this has frequently met him in his latter days, about 1790 or 1791, returning in an evening, after his long day’s itinerancy, to his domicile—a wretched shed in the most beggarly purlieu of Bethnal Green, a little on this side the Mile-end Turnpike. The lower figure in that leaf most correctly describes his
- 73. then appearance, except that no graphic art can convey an idea of the general squalor of it, and of his bag (his constant concomitant) in particular. Whether it contained “old wigs” at that time I know not, but it seemed a fitter repository for bones snatched out of kennels, than for any part of a Gentleman’s dress even at second hand. The Ex-member for Garrat was a melancholy instance of a great man whose popularity is worn out. He still carried his sack, but it seemed a part of his identity rather than an implement of his profession; a badge of past grandeur; could any thing have divested him of that, he would have shown a “poor forked animal” indeed. My life upon it, it contained no curls at the time I speak of. The most decayed and spiritless remnants of what was once a peruke would have scorned the filthy case; would absolutely have “burst its cearments.” No, it was empty, or brought home bones, or a few cinders possibly. A strong odour of burnt bones, I remember, blended with the scent of horse-flesh seething into dog’s meat, and only relieved a little by the breathings of a few brick kilns, made up the atmosphere of the delicate suburban spot, which this great man had chosen for the last scene of his earthly vanities. The cry of “old wigs” had ceased with the possession of any such fripperies; his sack might have contained not unaptly a little mould to scatter upon that grave, to which he was now advancing; but it told of vacancy and desolation. His quips were silent too, and his brain was empty as his sack; he slank along, and seemed to decline popular observation. If a few boys followed him, it seemed rather from habit, than any expectation of fun. Alas! how changed from him, The life of humour, and the soul of whim, Gallant and gay on Garrat’s hustings proud. But it is thus that the world rewards its favourites in decay. What faults he had, I know not. I have heard something of a peccadillo or so. But some little deviation from the precise line of rectitude, might have been winked at in so tortuous and stigmatic a frame. Poor Sir Jeffery! it were well if some M. P.’s in earnest have passed their
- 74. parliamentary existence with no more offences against integrity, than could be laid to thy charge! A fair dismissal was thy due, not so unkind a degradation; some little snug retreat, with a bit of green before thine eyes, and not a burial alive in the fetid beggaries of Bethnal. Thou wouldst have ended thy days in a manner more appropriate to thy pristine dignity, installed in munificent mockery (as in mock honours you had lived)—a Poor Knight of Windsor! Every distinct place of public speaking demands an oratory peculiar to itself. The forensic fails within the walls of St. Stephen. Sir Jeffery was a living instance of this, for in the flower of his popularity an attempt was made to bring him out upon the stage (at which of the winter theatres I forget, but I well remember the anecdote) in the part of Doctor Last.[222] The announcement drew a crowded house; but notwithstanding infinite tutoring—by Foote, or Garrick, I forget which—when the curtain drew up, the heart of Sir Jeffery failed, and he faultered on, and made nothing of his part, till the hisses of the house at last in very kindness dismissed him from the boards. Great as his parliamentary eloquence had shown itself; brilliantly as his off-hand sallies had sparkled on a hustings; they here totally failed him. Perhaps he had an aversion to borrowed wit; and, like my Lord Foppington, disdained to entertain himself (or others) with the forced products of another man’s brain. Your man of quality is more diverted with the natural sprouts of his own. C. L. The Garrett Oath. Almost all that can be said of the oath of qualification, administered to the electors at the Garrett hustings, has been already said in the letter to Dr. Ducarel, on column 826. It was printed, and from one of these once manifold documents, which are now so rare as not to be attainable in a perfect state, the following title, &c. is copied literally. “The OATH
- 75. “Sworn (coram nobis) at our Great Hall on Garrat Green, covered with the plenteous harvest of the Goddess Ceres, and dedi- cated to the Jovial God Comus.” } of Qualification for the Ancient Borough of GARRAT According as it stands in the Old Record handed down to us By the Grand Volgee by order of the Great CHIN KAW CHIPO First Emperor of the Moon Anno Mundi 75. “That you have been admitted peaceably and quietly into possession of a Freehold— * * * * [Here the original, referred to, is so defective as not to be copyable.] * * * * ——“within the said manor of Garrat; and that you did (bona fide) keep (ad rem) possession —— (durante bene placito) without any let, suit, hindrance, or molestation whatever —— * * * * More than this it is not possible to give of the Garrett oath.
- 76. During a Garrett election all Wandsworth was in an uproar. It was the resort of people of all descriptions, and the publicans entertained them as conveniently as possible; yet, on one occasion, the influx of visiters was so immense that every ordinary beverage was exhausted, and water sold at twopence a glass. By “old John Jones,” “the doings at Wandsworth” on the election day are described as “past description.” Besides the “hustings” at Garrett, scaffoldings and booths were erected in Wandsworth at every open space: these were filled with spectators to the topmost rows, and boys climbed to the tops of the poles; flags and colours were hung across the road; and the place was crowded by a dense population full of activity and noise. For accommodation to view the humours of the day extraordinary prices were paid to the proveditors. John Jones remembers “when Foote the player came to Wandsworth, to have a full view of all the goings on.” According to his account, the English Aristophanes “paid nine guineas for the fore room at surgeon Squire’s, facing the church, for himself and his friends to sit in and see the fun.” There was an immense scaffolding of spectators and mob-orators, at the corner by the churchyard, opposite the window where Foote and his companions were seated. It has been already noticed, that Foote dramatised this mock election by his “Mayor of Garratt:” the first edition, printed in 1764, is called “a comedy in two acts; as it is performed at the theatre- royal in Drury-lane.” On turning to the “dramatis personæ,” it will be found he performed Major Sturgeon himself, and, likewise, Matthew Mug in the same piece: Mrs. Clive playing Mrs. Sneak to Weston’s Jerry Sneak. Foote’s “Mayor of Garratt” may be deemed an outline of the prevailing drollery and manners of the populace at Wandsworth: a scene or two here will be amusing and in place. This dramatist sketched so much from the life, that it is doubtful whether every
- 77. [exit. marked character in his “comedy” had not its living original. It is certain, that he drew Major Sturgeon from old Justice Lamb, a fishmonger at Acton, and a petty trading justice, whose daughter was married by Major Fleming, a gentleman also “in the commission of the peace,” yet every way a more respectable man than his father-in-law. Referring, then, to Foote’s “comedy,” sir Jacob Jollup, who has a house at Garratt, holds a dialogue with his man Roger concerning the company they expect— Sir J. Are the candidates near upon coming? Roger. Nic Goose, the tailor from Putney, they say, will be here in a crack, sir Jacob. Sir J. Has Margery fetch’d in the linen? Roger. Yes, sir Jacob. Sir J. Are the pigs and the poultry lock’d up in the barn? Roger. Safe, sir Jacob. Sir J. And the plate and spoons in the pantry? Roger. Yes, sir Jacob. Sir J. Then give me the key; the mob will soon be upon us; and all is fish that comes to their net. Has Ralph laid the cloth in the hall? Roger. Yes, sir Jacob. Sir J. Then let him bring out the turkey and chine, and be sure there is plenty of mustard; and, d’ye hear, Roger, do you stand yourself at the gate, and be careful who you let in. Roger. I will, sir Jacob. Sir J. So, now I believe thing: are pretty secure.— Mob. [Without.] Huzza! Re-enter Roger. Sir J. What’s the matter now, Roger? Roger. The electors desire to know if your worship has any body to recommend? Sir J. By no means; let them be free in their choice: I shan’t interfere. Roger. And if your worship has any objection to Crispin Heeltap, the cobler, being returning officer?
- 78. Sir J. None, provided the rascal can keep himself sober. Is he there? Roger. Yes, sir Jacob. Make way there! stand further off from the gate: here is madam Sneak in a chaise along with her husband. Sir Jacob has work enough on his hands with his relations, and other visiters, who have arrived to see the election from his mansion; he calls his “son Bruin” to come in;—“we are all seated at table man; we have but just time for a snack; the candidates are near upon coming.” Then, in another scene,— Enter Mob, with Heeltap at their head; some crying “a Goose,” others “a Mug,” others “a Primmer.” Heel. Silence, there; silence! 1 Mob. Hear neighbour Heeltap. 2 Mob. Ay, ay, hear Crispin. 3 Mob. Ay, ay, hear him, hear Crispin: he will put us into the model of the thing at once. Heel. Why then, silence! I say. All. Silence. Heel. Silence, and let us proceed, neighbours, with all the decency and confusion usual on these occasions. 1 Mob. Ay, ay, there is no doing without that. All. No, no, no. Heel. Silence then, and keep the peace; what! is there no respect paid to authority? Am not I the returning officer? All. Ay, ay, ay. Heel. Chosen by yourselves, and approved of by sir Jacob? All. True, true. Heel. Well then, be silent and civil; stand back there that gentleman without a shirt, and make room for your betters. Where’s Simon Snuffle the sexton? Snuffle. Here. Heel. Let him come forward; we appoint him our secretary: for Simon is a scollard, and can read written hand; and so let him be
- 79. respected accordingly. 3 Mob. Room for master Snuffle. Heel. Here, stand by me: and let us, neighbours, proceed to open the premunire of the thing: but first, your reverence to the lord of the manor: a long life and a merry one to our landlord, sir Jacob huzza! Mob. Huzza! Sneak. How fares it, honest Crispin? Heel. Servant, master Sneak. Let us now open the premunire of the thing, which I shall do briefly, with all the loquacity possible; that is, in a medium way; which, that we may the better do it, let the secretary read the names of the candidates, and what they say for themselves; and then we shall know what to say of them. Master Snuffle, begin. Snuffle. [Reads.] “To the worthy inhabitants of the ancient corporation of Garratt: gentlemen, your votes and interest are humbly requested in favour of Timothy Goose, to succeed your late worthy mayor, Mr. Richard Dripping, in the said office, he being”—— Heel. This Goose is but a kind of gosling, a sort of sneaking scoundrel. Who is he? Snuffle. A journeyman tailor from Putney. Heel. A journeyman tailor! A rascal, has he the impudence to transpire to be mayor? D’ye consider, neighbours, the weight of this office? Why, it is a burthen for the back of a porter; and can you think that this cross-legg’d cabbage-eating son of a cucumber, this whey-fac’d ninny, who is but the ninth part of a man, has strength to support it? 1 Mob. No Goose! no Goose! 2 Mob. A Goose! Heel. Hold your hissing, and proceed to the next. Snuffle. [Reads.] “Your votes are desired for Matthew Mug.” 1 Mob. A Mug! a Mug! Heel. Oh, oh, what you are ready to have a touch of the tankard; but fair and soft, good neighbours, let us taste this master Mug before we swallow him; and, unless I am mistaken, you’ll find him a bitter draught.
- 80. 1 Mob. A Mug! a Mug! 2 Mob. Hear him; hear master Heeltap. 1 Mob. A Mug! a Mug! Heel. Harkye, you fellow with your mouth full of Mug, let me ask you a question: bring him forward. Pray is not this Matthew Mug a victualler? 3 Mob. I believe he may. Heel. And lives at the sign of the Adam and Eve? 3 Mob. I believe he may. Heel. Now, answer upon your honour and as you are a gentleman, what is the present price of a quart of home-brew’d at the Adam and Eve? 3 Mob. I don’t know. Heel. You lie, sirrah: an’t it a groat? 3 Mob. I believe it may. Heel. Oh, may be so. Now, neighbours, here’s a pretty rascal; this same Mug, because, d’ye see, state affairs would not jog glibly without laying a farthing a quart upon ale; this scoundrel, not contented to take things in a medium way, has had the impudence to raise it a penny. Mob. No Mug! no Mug! Heel. So, I thought I should crack Mr. Mug. Come, proceed to the next, Simon. Snuffle. The next upon the list is Peter Primmer, the schoolmaster. Heel. Ay, neighbours, and a sufficient man: let me tell you, master Primmer is a man for my money; a man of learning, that can lay down the law: why, adzooks, he is wise enough to puzzle the parson; and then, how you have heard him oration at the Adam and Eve of a Saturday night, about Russia and Prussia. ’Ecod, George Gage, the exciseman, is nothing at all to un. 4 Mob. A Primmer. Heel. Ay, if the folks above did but know him. Why, lads, he will make us all statesmen in time. 2 Mob. Indeed!
- 81. [Exeunt Mob, &c. Heel. Why, he swears as how all the miscarriages are owing to the great people’s not learning to read. 3 Mob. Indeed! Heel. “For,” says Peter, says he, “if they would but once submit to be learned by me, there is no knowing to what a pitch the nation might rise.” 1 Mob. Ay, I wish they would. Sneak. Crispin, what, is Peter Primmer a candidate? Heel. He is, master Sneak. Sneak. Lord I know him, mun, as well as my mother: why, I used to go to his lectures to Pewterers’-hall, ’long with deputy Firkin. Heel. Like enough. Mob. [Without.] Huzza! Heel. Gad-so! the candidates are coming. Re-enter Sir Jacob Jollup, Bruin, and Mrs. Bruin, through the garden gate. Sir J. Well, son Bruin, how d’ye relish the corporation of Garratt? Bruin. Why, lookye, sir Jacob, my way is always to speak what I think; I don’t approve on’t at all. Mrs. B. No? Sir J. And what’s your objection? Bruin. Why, I was never over fond of your May-games: besides corporations are too serious things; they are edgetools, sir Jacob. Sir J. That they are frequently tools, I can readily grant: but I never heard much of their edge. Afterwards we find the knight exclaiming— Sir J. Hey-day! What, is the election over already? Enter Crispin, Heeltap, &c. Heel. Where is master Sneak! Sneak. Here, Crispin. Heel. The ancient corporation of Garratt, in consideration of your great parts and abilities, and out of respect to their landlord, sir Jacob, have unanimously chosen you mayor.
- 82. [Huzza! Sneak. Me? huzza! Good lord, who would have thought it? But how came master Primmer to lose it? Heel. Why, Phil Fleam had told the electors, that master Primmer was an Irishman; and so they would none of them give their vote for a foreigner. Sneak. So then I have it for certain. ELECTION FOR GARRETT, June 25, 1781. Sir William and Lady Blase’s Equipage, BETWEEN THE SPREAD EAGLE AND THE RAM AT WANDSWORTH, ON THE ROAD TO
- 83. GARRETT. This engraving is from another large unpublished drawing by Green, and is very curious. Being topographically correct, it represents the signs of the inns at Wandsworth as they then stood; the Spread Eagle carved on a pillar, and the Ram opposite painted and projecting. The opening, seen between the buildings on the Spread Eagle side, is the commencement of Garrett-lane, which runs from Wandsworth to Tooting, and includes the mock borough of Garrett. This animated scene is full of character. The boat is drawn by horses, which could not be conspicuously represented here without omitting certain bipeds; it is in the act of turning up Garrett-lane. Its chief figure is “my lady Blase” dressed beyond the extreme, and into broad caricature of the fashion of the times. “I remember her very well,” says Mrs. ——, of Wandsworth, “and so I ought, for I had a good hand in the dressing of her. I helped to put together many a good pound of wool to make her hair up. I suppose it was more than three feet high at least: and as for her stays, I also helped to make them, down in Anderson’s barn: they were neither more nor less than a washing tub without the bottom, well covered, and bedizened outside to look like a stomacher. She was to be the lady of sir William Blase, one of the candidates, and, as she sat in his boat, she was one of the drollest creatures, for size and dress, that ever was seen. I was quite a girl at the time, and we made her as comical and as fine as possible.” In Green’s drawing, here engraven in miniature, there is an excellent group, which from reduction the original has rendered almost too small to be noticed without thus pointing it out. It consists of a fellow, who appears more fond of his dog than of his own offspring; for, to give the animal as good a sight of lady Blase as he had himself, he seats him on his own shoulders, and is insensible to the entreaty of one of his children to occupy the dog’s place. His wife, with another child by her side, carries a third with its arms thrust into the sleeves of her husband’s coat, which the fellow has pulled off, and given her to take care of, without the least regard
- 84. to its increase of her living burthen. Before them are dancing dogs, which have the steady regard of a “most thinking” personage in a large wig. Another wigged, or, rather, an over-wigged character, is the little crippled “dealer and chapman,” who is in evident fear of a vociferous dog, which is encouraged to alarm him by a mischievous urchin. The one-legged veteran, with a crutch and a glass in his hand, seems mightily to enjoy the two horsemen of the mop and broom. We see that printed addresses were posted, by an elector giving his unmixed attention to one of them pasted on the Ram sign- post. The Pierrot-dressed character, with spectacles and a guitar, on an ass led by a woman, is full of life; and the celebrated “Sam House,” the bald-headed publican of Westminster, with a pot in his hand, is here enjoying the burlesque of an election, almost as much, perhaps, as he did the real one in his own “city and liberties” the year before, when he distinguished himself, by his activity, in behalf of Mr. Fox, whose cause he always zealously supported by voice and fist. The last Westminster election, wherein Sam House engaged, was in 1784, when on voting, and being asked his trade by the poll-clerk, he answered, “I am a publican and republican.” This memorable contest is described by the well-known colonel Hanger. He says:— “The year I came to England the contested election for Westminster, (Fox, Hood, and Wray, candidates,) took place. The walking travellers, Spillard and Stewart; the Abyssinian Bruce, who feasted on steaks cut from the rump of a living ox; and various others, who, in their extensive travels, encountered wild beasts, serpents, and crocodiles; breakfasted and toasted muffins on the mouth of a Volcano; whom hunger compelled to banquet with joy on the leavings of a lion or tiger, or on the carcase of a dead alligator; who boast of smoking the pipe of peace with the little carpenter, and the mad dog; on having lived on terms of the strictest intimacy with the Cherokees, the Chickasaws, the Chuctaws, and with all the aws and ees of that immense continent, who from the more temperate shore of the Mississippi, have extended their course to the burning soil of India, and to the banks of the Ganges; from the
- 85. frozen ocean to the banks of the more genial Po;—may boast their experience of the world, and their knowledge of human life: but no one, in my opinion, has seen real life, or can know it, unless he has taken an active part in a contested election for Westminster! “In no school can a man be taught a better lesson of human life; —there can he view human nature in her basest attire; riot, murder, and drunkenness, are the order of the day, and bribery and perjury walk hand in hand:—for men who had no pretensions to vote, were to be found in the garden in as great plenty as turnips, and at a very moderate rate were induced to poll. “A gentleman, to make himself of any considerable use to either party, must possess a number of engaging, familiar, and condescending qualities; he must help a porter up with his load, shake hands with a fisherman, pull his hat off to an oyster wench, kiss a ballad-singer, and be familiar with a beggar. If, in addition to these amiable qualities, he is a tolerable good boxer, can play a good stick, and in the evening drink a pailful of all sorts of liquors, in going the rounds to solicit voters at their various clubs, then, indeed, he is a most highly finished useful agent. In all the above accomplishments and sciences, except drinking, which I never was fond of, I have the vanity to believe that I arrived nearer to perfection than any of my rivals. I should be ungrateful, indeed, if I did not testify my thanks to those gallant troops of high rank and distinguished fame—the knights of the strap, and the black diamond knights, (the Irish chairmen and coal heavers,) who displayed such bravery and attachment to our cause.”[223] This was the cause to which Sam House was attached; and, perhaps, there was not greater difference between the scenes described by Hanger, and those at Garrett, than between the same scenes, and more recent ones, on similar occasions in the same city. What has hitherto been related concerning the Garrett election, in 1781, is in consequence of the editor having had recourse to the remarkable drawings from whence the present engravings have been made. From that circumstance he was strongly induced to inquire concerning it, and, as a faithful historian, he has recorded
- 86. Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world, offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth. That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to self-development guides and children's books. More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading. Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and personal growth every day! ebookbell.com