Matching Items (2)
Description
This dissertation develops a multidimensional approach to examine the ways in which people in small-scale societies create, perpetuate, justify, and overcome social inequality. Inequality can exist within a number of independent domains, some of which are likely to be subtle and dissimilar from those familiar to Western society. The advantages

This dissertation develops a multidimensional approach to examine the ways in which people in small-scale societies create, perpetuate, justify, and overcome social inequality. Inequality can exist within a number of independent domains, some of which are likely to be subtle and dissimilar from those familiar to Western society. The advantages and disadvantages of inequality can shift between various groups and across social scales. Recent ethnographic work suggest that the most common domain of inequality in small-scale societies may involve status accrued to founding lineages. This hypothesis is examined in relation to four additional domains, each inspired by ethnographic data from indigenous groups of the U.S. Southwest: differential access to productive resources, ritual knowledge and practice, nonlocal objects and styles, and material wealth. Analyses are carried out with data from seven archaeological sites in the Mimbres region of southwestern New Mexico, spanning a period from approximately 250 to 1130 C.E. Results show that inequality was present throughout the Mimbres archaeological sequence but that it shifted over time, across space and social scales, and varied in magnitude in non-directional ways. Results also identify persistent factionalism wherein groups vied for moral authority based on differences in residential antecedence and justified via religious differences. Insight from this research benefits the social sciences by developing a number of methodological approaches, particularly to the archaeological study of primacy and antecedence, by demonstrating the necessity of a nuanced, multi-faceted approach to inequality, and by revealing the complex and plastic nature of inequality.
ContributorsRussell, Will G. (Author) / Nelson, Margaret C. (Thesis advisor) / Hegmon, Michelle (Thesis advisor) / Nelson, Ben (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
This study investigates the vulnerability of subsistence agriculturalists to food shortfalls associated with dry periods. I approach this effort by evaluating prominent and often implicit conceptual models of vulnerability to dry periods used by archaeologists and other scholars investigating past human adaptations in dry climates. The conceptual models

This study investigates the vulnerability of subsistence agriculturalists to food shortfalls associated with dry periods. I approach this effort by evaluating prominent and often implicit conceptual models of vulnerability to dry periods used by archaeologists and other scholars investigating past human adaptations in dry climates. The conceptual models I evaluate rely on an assumption of regional-scale resource marginality and emphasize the contribution of demographic conditions (settlement population levels and watershed population density) and environmental conditions (settlement proximity to perennial rivers and annual precipitation levels) to vulnerability to dry periods. I evaluate the models and the spatial scales they might apply by identifying the extent to which these conditions influenced the relationship between dry-period severity and residential abandonment in central Arizona from A.D. 1200 to 1450. I use this long-term relationship as an indicator of potential vulnerability to dry periods. I use tree-ring precipitation and streamflow reconstructions to identify dry periods. Critically examining the relationship between precipitation conditions and residential abandonment potentially sparked by the risk of food shortfalls due to demographic and environmental conditions is a necessary step toward advancing understanding of the influences of changing climate conditions on human behavior. Results of this study support conceptual models that emphasize the contribution of high watershed population density and watershed-scale population-resource imbalances to relatively high vulnerability to dry periods. Models that emphasize the contribution of: (1) settlement population levels, (2) settlement locations distant from perennial rivers, (3) settlement locations in areas of low average annual precipitation; and (4) settlement-scale population-resource imbalances to relatively high vulnerability to dry periods are, however, not supported. Results also suggest that people living in watersheds with the greatest access to and availability of water were the most vulnerable to dry periods, or at least most likely to move when confronted with dry conditions. Thus, commonly held assumptions of differences in vulnerability due to settlement population levels and inherently water poor conditions are not supported. The assumption of regional-scale resource marginality and widespread vulnerability to dry periods in this region of the U.S. Southwest is also not consistently supported throughout the study area.
ContributorsIngram, Scott Eric (Author) / Nelson, Margaret C. (Thesis advisor) / Abbott, David R. (Committee member) / Kintigh, Keith W. (Committee member) / Kinzig, Ann P. (Committee member) / Redman, Charles L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010