When attempting to reconstruct the social and political organization of prehistoric societies, it can be a bit challenging. Archaeologists have to solely rely on the archaeological record that is recovered from the site. Archaeologists use a variety of techniques to identify the social dynamics of the past societies they study.
Settlement Analysis
Settlement analysis identifies patterns in how different groups of people use particular locations using surveys, remote sensing, and other techniques and then compares those patterns to patterns of settlement at other sites. Traded and other non-local items are useful when identifying multiple sites occupied by a single group at different times. For example, site surveys, some excavation, and ethnoarchaeology methods can be used to better understand how a hunter-gatherer group used a regional location in its seasonal rounds. All of these lines of evidence can be used by an archaeologist to determine if any and what type of social stratification was practiced by a particular group whose remains are being studied archaeologically.
settlement analysis
The study of settlement patterns and the use of the landscape.
Burial Analysis
Another approach used by archaeologists to analyze the social organization of a group is burial analysis, which examines human remains and analyzes the rank and status indicated by the grave goods that accompany them. They analyze the skeletons to reveal the age and sex of the individuals when they died, their causes of death (e.g., disease, dietary deficiencies), and whether the remains were buried individually or communally. Sex and age differences contribute to determining potential differences in wealth and status. If, for example, only some older adults were buried with status goods, archaeologists interpret those burials as reflecting an egalitarian society. Status goods sometimes found buried with children and babies point to ascribed status, indicating a stratified society.
burial analysis
The process of studying human remains, burial practices, and grave goods to establish a possible rank or status of the individual.
Monuments and Public Works
Monuments and public works are particularly useful when analyzing the type of stratification present in a society. The size, spacing, and construction requirements associated with public works such as roads, irrigation systems, earthen works, monuments, and large-scale buildings tell us a great deal about the social structure of the society that produced them. The larger and more involved the project, the more hours of labor required to construct it. Thus, large-scale projects require a greater level of social and political organization. The Great Wall of China, for example, represents multiple generations of labor organized during a series of dynasties spanning 2,000 years. The oldest sections cover more than 13,000 miles, representing the labor of at least 400,000 people, many of whom died from the harsh conditions experienced during construction.
Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Machu Picchu, PeruFigure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Roman Aqueduct in Segovia, Spain.Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): Great Wall of China.
Historical Records
Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\): Upper portion of a stele from the Babylonian King Nabonidus, 555-539 BCE.
Naturally, a society’s historical records provide important information about the social structure at the time. The ancient Egyptians and the Chinese during some of the earliest dynasties kept detailed records of family lineages and individual families’ ties with past leaders. Other cultures have recorded business transactions, taxations, literature, and laws. Of course, many cultures did not keep written records, and many of the records that were kept were lost to time or poorly preserved. Inscriptions in clay and on stone buildings and stelae (inscribed upright stone markers) can potentially survive, but records made using papyrus and other perishable organic materials are only rarely preserved.
Other Types of Social Analysis
Ethnicity
Ethnicity—one’s membership in a particular cultural group defined by language, religion, and other cultural traits—can be challenging to identify in the archaeological record. One indicator archaeologists use is distinctive styles of pottery and other materials. For example, excavations in one section of the Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan have uncovered distinctive pottery styles and burial practices associated with the Zapotecs in Oaxaca. Archaeologists believe that this site reflects a community of Oaxacan Zapotec immigrants living in Teotihuacan. Much of the information discovered so far about ethnicity has come from written records. But even when documents remain, it is difficult to infer much about people’s ethnicities and potential differences in their social status unless there is some kind of obvious separation as there is in Teotihuacan.
ethnicity
The degree to which a person identifies with and feels an attachment to a particular group based on shared cultural characteristics and ancestry (Ethnicity, 2021).
Gender Analysis
Gender analysis is used by anthropologists and archaeologists to understand the gender roles and relationships assigned to each biological sex (male, female, and sometimes other sexes). We can often infer more about gender roles than about ethnicity from documents and representations of daily life and rituals for some ancient cultures, but much of that information is not preserved. For example, a Viking burial that was first excavated in the 1870s was recently re-analyzed, and archaeologists discovered that a highly ranked warrior uncovered during those early excavations was not a man, as had always been assumed, but was a woman. None of the items in the burial were typically associated with women in Viking culture. Some have speculated that this grave points to a transgender warrior, but researchers have cautioned against trying to interpret the site through such a narrow lens. Archaeologists recognize that gender roles within a culture are unique and that we cannot apply terminologies and categories from Western cultures to ancient civilizations.
gender roles
The set of expectations about tasks, attitudes, and behaviors that are culturally assigned based on biological sex and gender.
Consider the ethnic groups and gender identities present in our culture today. What aspects of those identities could be preserved for future archaeologists to discover and what types of sites would those archaeologists study? What kinds of evidence of ethnic and gender identities likely would not be preserved? Despite the challenges associated with interpreting the archaeological record to understand ethnic groups and gender roles of past cultures, the potential discoveries are worth the effort and benefit from new technologies.
Figure 10.2.1 Early morning in wonderful Machu Picchu. (2007). By Pedro Szekely by CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Figure 10.2.2 Aqueduct of Segovia, located in the city of Segovia, Spain. (2009). By Bernard Gagnon under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Figure 10.2.3 The Great Wall of China at Jinshanling. (2013). By Severin.stalder under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Figure 10.2.4 Detail. Stele of the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus, 555-539 BCE. (2013). By Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
A derivative work from
"Digging into Archaeology:A Brief OER Introduction to Archaeology with Activities" by Amanda Wolcott Paskey and AnnMarie Beasley Cisneros, Faculty (Anthropology) at Cosumnes River College & American River College, ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI), 2020, under CC BY-NC 4.0.
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