Introduction
In this virtual exhibit, we’ll be introducing you to a history of theoretical thought regarding social complexity. As you likely noticed, our area of particular interest lies in archaeology or the study of past societies. Therefore, we will focus on a few major questions. What are some of the ways that archaeologists have attempted to define social complexity? What features, if any, can be nailed down as hallmarks of complexity? And how do scientists take their theoretical understanding of complexity, and apply it to the actual data they find in the archaeological record?
Our goal throughout this exhibit is to present you with the information you need to start answering these questions. To this end, we will present first a brief history of archaeological thought, followed by a discussion of a concept known as the politics of representation. We hope that these discussions will allow you to get into the mindset of an archaeologist, and encourage you to really think about the various characteristics that make up societies, how those characteristics come to be, and how they can be organized into a cohesive whole. Next, we will challenge you to take your newfound archaeological mindset and apply it to some actual case studies. Using what you've learned, you'll be able to take a look at data from past societies and determine whether or not you think they fit different definitions of complexity. In other words, you'll be going through the same steps and thought processes that actual archaeologists use to make interpretations of the past!
A brief disclaimer before we move forward: as we said, a true understanding of social complexity is something that has eluded archaeologists for many, many years. This exhibit isn't meant to provide you with straightforward answers, to point out any single definition of complexity as the "best" one. Rather, we hope to challenge some of the previously conceived ideas that you might have had about this topic, and to make you aware of some of the difficulties that social scientists face on a regular basis. As you move through the following pages, make sure you are thinking critically, considering your own perspectives alongside those of other theorists, and using your own creativity to make links and draw conclusions. On that note, welcome to the world of archaeology, and have fun reading!
One Word, Many Definitions: A (Very) Brief History of Archaeological Theory
Before introducing you to how we have chosen to present our virtual exhibit, it is important that we pay homage to how others have approached the question of complexity. Across disciplines of social sciences, "theory" may be defined as a framework of ideas intended to explain certain phenomena, such as the development of complex societies. Yet, just as your view of the world changes as you grow older and wiser, so do theoretical frameworks, through external critiques or development of new ideas.We are building our tribute to seven different societies across time and space off of prior theorists, starting from the very beginning. You have probably heard the famous quote, “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains?” Well, early sociological thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau questioned whether or not it was a part of human nature to be social, and once organized, how society becomes efficient and productive. Hobbes believed that the State was a source of protection and order and particularly helped to order society around the threat of punishment, while Rousseau - wonderful metaphorist that he was - argued the State is a living organism that creates social order based upon the general will of society itself. With these theories, Hobbes and Rousseau provided a foundational basis for later theorists.
Although we could stop at Hobbes and Rousseau, that would be doing you a gross injustice. Unilineal evolution was one of the next early frameworks for understanding complex societies. This theory is based on the assumption that societies undergo predictable evolution with definable and observational stages. Imagine how you grow up - you are guaranteed to grow and lose your teeth, get taller, go through puberty, and eventually start to age. Lewis H. Morgan’s stages of societal evolution range from “savagery to barbarism to civilization” in a unilineal model that bases this evolution largely on technological advancement and cultural “achievement.” The state of “Savagery” included the development of fire and the bow, “Barbarism” included animal and plant domestication as well as craft specialization, and “Civilization” included the mastery of craft, destructive weapons, language, and education. Although these typologies were popular and fairly beneficial, they left the door open for plenty of elaboration.
V. Gordon Childe later understood cultural evolution as the increase of population which itself was a product of changes occurring in economic base structures and the social organization of communities. Childe argued that increases in complexity were due to increases in surpluses that stimulated an increase in population as well as a governing body to make decisions. If you ordered seven pizzas for three friends, there might be some leftovers. What would you do with those leftovers? Who takes them home? Do you throw them out? To Childe, the classification of “Civilization” was equated to the rise of early cities. In attempting to define what would indicate complex civilization, Childe came up with ten criterion observational in the archaeological data to indicate complexity. Among these ten criteria included things like a writing system, monumental architecture, increases in urban populations, craft specialization, and a state organization based on residence rather than kinship. But no, the theory doesn’t stop there!
You have probably heard of Marx and the Communist Manifesto, but how much do you really know? Believe it or not, Marxist theory pervades many archaeological frameworks. Focusing on the modes of production, Marxist theory is concerned with the process in which humans come together to produce various means of subsistence. This mode of production -- which focuses mainly on material aspects of life -- forms the economic base from which social and political institutions arise. As the economic base changes, so too can social institutions and ideology. These three factors (economic base, social institutions, ideology) are in constant interaction with each other and are therefore able to affect one another. This interaction between the parts is what is known as the “dialectic”. Ultimately, this theory seeks to understand the relationship between changing social forms and the objective conditions of the natural world. To Marx, the focus of understanding increasing complexity became how the mode of production changed from being a kinship based set of social relations to an increasingly hierarchical one where groups of elites could control the mode of production and the ideology. If you’ve ever wondered why mainstream media on news channels or Facebook choose to focus on certain stories, Marx is your answer.
The earliest anthropological thinkers, such as Lewis H. Morgan, attempted to come up with how societies have grown more complex throughout history. Morgan and others, believing that their own modern western culture was the most complex (and thus most civilized) culture, argued that cultures have moved steadily in a linear fashion towards greater complexity towards civilization. The word ethnocentrism might have come to mind, and you’re not wrong. Anthropologists eventually pushed away from this argument, realizing that this thinking was far too linear to explain the variations that actually exist in the archaeological record, as well as being incredibly biased towards a Eurocentric view of the world. However, these typologies did have their benefits, and now explanation was still needed to understand how a society could become more complex over time.
White suggested that there are three factors that determine the growth of a culture: the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year, the efficiency of its use, and the magnitude of need-based goods and services which are produced from it. The amount of energy used is the most important aspect in developing culture. Rather than focusing solely on energy, as did White, Sahlins and Service decided that one needed to focus on the social and political relationships in a society to identify change. While disavowing that cultures evolve in a directional, linear way, they proposed several stages based in differences in political institutions. The stages are: band, tribe, chiefdom, and state.
Recently, many archaeologists have argued that societies are a complex system of interrelated parts. Think about how the gears of a clock work, or maybe the way your car is organized. Individuals, or actors within society, are constantly operating within this complex system of networks and are constantly adapting to their cultural and natural environments. Individuals help shape cultural practices through innovation and by choosing new strategies to succeed in their environments, while larger societal institutions can shape and constrain the choices of the individuals. If enough individuals adopt a new social strategy in one system, then that could trigger changes across other systems. Therefore, no one part of society creates or limits what drives cultural evolutions, but it is self-organizing by the choices of the members of that society.
Our Strategy
Now that we’ve shown you how “they” did it, you may have a better idea about why we organized our exhibit the way we did. In order to discuss complexity, and whether a state is complex or not, we have decided not to take one theoretical approach. Instead, we have picked five different aspects of society that have been used in past theoretical discussions of complexity: the environment, economic and subsistence strategies, technology, social organization, and ideology. Over the years, all five of these aspects have been considered as being important in the rise of complex societies. We then decided to compare those five categories between seven famous archaeological sites. Some of these sites are traditionally considered “complex”, while others are considered less so. What makes a society complex or not? Are there certain traits that the complex societies have that the others do not? Or is there no commonalities and every society is the product of its own history? What exactly is a complex society?
