Cheifdoms
Key Concepts
Types of human societies
Definitions and what do we look for when we see these four?
Four correlated aspects of human societies
1. Population size
2. Subsistence: how food is acquired
3. Political centralization: How decisions are made, by who
4. Social Stratification: Extent of social hierarchy
Four types of human societies:
1. Bands: Dozens of individuals; foragers; egalitarian, no social stratification
2. Tribes: Hundreds of individuals; small-scale agriculture; egalitarian, no formal
leaders
3. Chiefdoms: first evidence of wealth inequality. Social status inherited
• Unlike other type of society, this one disappeared in the 20th century
• More intensive agriculture, such as field irrigation. Food surplus is produced
• Political centralization: Chief has formal authority. Status inherited
• Archaeological signature of chiefdom, vs bands /tribes: luxury goods, monumental
architecture
• Farming leads to food surplus, leads to specialists, leads to extensive trade
4. States: Next lecture
Stonehenge, an example of Chiefdom
• Megaliths (large stones monuments) spread in Western/Northern Europe 4000 B.C.
• Stonehenge is one of these monument
• Was built over 1,500 years: over this time function, purpose, meaning of site likely
changed
• Construction began 3000 B.C. Multiple construction phases
• Phase 1: Round bank and ditch, wooden posts inside, animal bones, cremated human
remains
• Phase 2: Ditch is filled. Post holes of unknown significance
• Phase 3: Earth and wood replaced by stone. Divided into sub-phases.
• Sub-phase 3a: 80 bluestones erected
• Bluestone comes from 240 miles
• Sub-phase 3b: Sarsen circle, the iconic monumental structure
• Stonehenge is part of a larger regional landscape
• Village at Durrington Walls
• The Avenue, a path that links Avon River and Stonehenge
• Stonehenge used for > 1,500 years, i.e. 80 generations
Cahokia
• Outside of St-Louis, USA.
• Complex of mounds and plaza
• Short-lived, boom-and-bust?
• Built over 400 years, between A.D. 1000-1400
• Region goes from dispersed villages, to sudden rise of Cahokia, back to small
dispersed villages
• Main features: Monk’s Mound, central plaza
• Mound 72: Evidence of differential status and wealth, <Birdman=, human sacrifices
