CHAPTER 28
The Archaeology of Rank
Kenneth M. Ames
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
—Julius Caesar 1.2
In this scene from Julius Caesar, Cassius speaks to
Brutus, “the noblest Roman of them all.” He is not explaining why Roman society is a class system ruled by a
small, wealthy oligarchy. He is trying to convince Brutus to join a plot to assassinate Caesar, whose power
menaces those same oligarchs, including Cassius and
Brutus. Speaking of Caesar, Cassius says, “Why, man,
he doth bestride the narrow world/Like a Colossus;
and we petty men/Walk under his huge legs, and peep
about/To find ourselves dishonourable graves.”
Cassius is not questioning Rome’s system of power
and dominance; rather, he wants to kill a man who
has grown too powerful: “bestrides the narrow world.”
Archaeologists, on the other hand, do want to explain
not only why Rome had a class system, but how and
why systems of permanent inequality developed in
human societies at all; how and why systems with permanent underlings evolved and where the “fault” lies,
if not in our stars.
Explaining the origins and evolution of permanent
social inequality among humans is one of archaeology’s fundamental tasks (Chapman 2003a). To do this,
we must recognize it in the archaeological record. This
chapter reviews methods archaeologists use to investigate the presence and forms of permanent inequality
in ancient societies. While it can be difficult to separate
systems of inequality from political and economic organization, the focus here is on inequality.
While all human beings are fundamentally alike, we
differ in our personalities, interests, talents, strength,
speed, endurance, intelligence, and so on. These are
differences, not inequalities. Inequality exists when
a society invests these differences with cultural and
social meanings, prizing and rewarding some over
others. For example, we are all female or male. Sex is a
form of difference, but it is not inherently an inequality. It becomes a form of inequality when a society
prefers one sex to the other, and members of that sex
are regularly awarded privileges, even power, by virtue
of their sex.
Inequality based on sex is founded on recognizable
biological differences between people. We are male
or female. Inequality can also be based on social or
cultural differences between people, including religious and ethnic affiliation. These are often treated as
biologically based and as inevitable as sex differences
but they are not.
While all societies recognize differences among
their members and display some forms of inequality, not all have permanent forms of institutionalized
inequality aside from age and sex. Societies also differ
in the strength, pervasiveness, and scale of permanent
inequality. In some, the degree of inequality may be
slight; in others, enormous. Societies also vary over
whether inequality operates at the levels of individuals
or groups. In some societies, inequality is a continuum
from highest to lowest, with each member ranked relative to every other member, while in others groups are
ranked relative to other groups.
In seeking to understand the origins and evolution
of permanent inequality, we endeavor to answer fundamental questions about human nature and societies. Are forms of inequality inevitable? Have societies
ever existed in which there was no inequality, only
differences? If so, how and why did inequality evolve?
How and why do societies vary in the strength of inequality? Why are there different forms of inequality?
Why do some societies have class systems and others
castes or neither?
This chapter is an introduction to the archaeology
of permanent social inequality, to how archaeologists
go about trying to answer questions like those in the
previous paragraph (see Wason 1994 for a thorough,
balanced treatment of these methods). This chapter
has six sections, including this introduction. In the
second section, we examine what archaeologists and
their colleagues in the social sciences mean by “permanent social inequality.” This means reviewing definitions and classifications of inequality and of societies.
The third section reviews theories about why and
48 7
how inequality develops. The fourth discusses some
methods archaeologists use to establish whether a
particular ancient society had one form or another of
inequality. This is accomplished by briefly discussing
case studies drawn from the archaeological literature.
The fifth section looks at two cases studies in which
inequality has proven to be very difficult to find. The
last section contains the conclusion.
Table 28.1. Dominance- and Prestige-Related Behaviors
PERMANENT SOCIAL INEQUALITY:
DEFINITIONS AND CLASSIFICATIONS
In the introduction, I discussed some of the differences, or differentiation, among human beings. Societies may differentiate on the basis of kin group
membership, club associations, skin color, occupation, left or right-handedness, and so on. Inequality
refers to “the social evaluation of whatever differences
are regarded by a given society as relevant,” while
dominance is “the behavioral expression of these differences” (Berreman 1981:8). Dominance and power
mean essentially the same thing. Social inequality is
defined as “the combination of these two processes,
inequality and dominance” (Berreman 1981:8). A society lacking inequality and dominance is theoretically
possible but has never been encountered among humans (Berreman 1981:8).
Berreman’s use of “dominance” differs from how
the term is more commonly used. Henrich and GilWhite (2001), for example, distinguish between prestige and dominance. Prestige is freely given or awarded
to individuals by others in their social group while
dominance is enforced through agonistic behavior and
fear. People to whom prestige is awarded are honored,
even reverenced. They are “listened to, their opinions
are heavily weighed (not obeyed) because the person
enjoys credit, estimation or standing in general opinion” (Henrich and Gil-White 2001:168). They contrast
prestige with dominance, which is based on fear and is
marked by generally different behaviors (table 28.1).
Prestige may or may not carry authority. Authority
is the ability to channel the behavior of others in the
absence of power (Fried 1967), particularly in the absence of coercive power—the ability to force people to
behave in certain ways (see below for a discussion of
power). The pope as head of the Catholic Church enjoys considerable authority outside the Church, while
within it, he wields great power. His authority stems
from his prestige as head of the church.
Status can be based on dominance and/or prestige (Henrich and Gil-White 2001), but for humans
either form of status is symbolically meaningful (Ber4 88
kennet h m . am es
Behavior
Dominance
Prestige
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No
High-Status Individual
Challenges and attacks
Is frequently imitated
Swaggers
Yes
No
A lot
Receives gifts and services
Transivity1
Yes
More
No
Yes
A little;
sometimes
behaves like a
subdominant
Yes
Less
Low-Status Individual
Approaches often
(proximity)
Prolonged stares
Occasional attack
(to challenges)
Fears high-status
individual
Source: Henrich and Gil-White 2001.
1
“If A defers to B, and B defers to C, than A defers to C” (Henrich and
Gil-White 2001:169).
reman 1981). High status is usually invested with
moral worth—an aspect of prestige—which may vary
culturally. In some societies it may come from greater
proximity to a founding ancestor or to ruling deities,
in others from greater ritual purity. Moral worthiness
can justify dominance, and yet those with low moral
worth (low prestige) can also dominate.
While inequality is invested with meaning, systems
of inequality are archaeologically visible only through
the material record, that is, the objects humans make
that carry meaning. The behaviors in table 28.1 will
have no archaeological impact.
Power differs from dominance because power also
carries meaning in human systems. Eric Wolf (1999:5)
distinguishes four “modalities” of power, including
(1) the inherent power of an individual (e.g., physical
power or compelling personality) that enables direct
interpersonal dominance, (2) ability to impose one’s
will through social interactions, which I will refer to
as social power, (3) tactical or organizational power
(an example of this below), and (4) structural power,
achieved via settings and domains, particularly the
ability to deploy and allocate energy flows and labor
(Wolf 1999:5). The first two approximate Henrich
and Gil-White’s conception of dominance, whereas
the latter two have no organizational parallel in any
nonhuman systems of dominance.
The theater is a useful analogy for Wolf ’s four
modes of power. An unknown actor who rises to stardom due to extraordinary talent is an example of the
first form of power, as is a bully. The second form is
held by one who dominates and controls a company of
actors through an ability to play people off against each
other, manipulate their friends, spread gossip, and so
on. Iago, in Shakespeare’s Othello, also exemplifies this
second form of power. The director of a play exemplifies tactical power by controlling the actors—where to
stand, how to say their lines—through the “determinate setting” of the stage and the play, with power derived from a position within the theater company, not
necessarily from any power inherent in his personality.
Prestige contributes to a director’s power, but he can
also be despised. The producer of the play exercises
structural power by paying the bills and controls the
flow of resources; she hires and fires the director and
the actor, she may own the theater and have selected its
uncomfortable seats. Structural power can be vast—a
U.S. president or a CEO of a large corporation can
orchestrate and even create—or destroy—the settings
in which the rest of us live our lives.
Using these ideas, we can distinguish between egalitarian (following Fried 1967; Berreman calls them
unranked) and ranked (Fried 1967; Berreman 1981)
societies.
EGALITARIAN SOCIETIES
Differentiation in egalitarian societies is usually based
on sex, age, personal qualities, and sometimes on kinship and family relationships, with “as many positions
of prestige . . . as there are persons capable of filling
them” (Fried 1967:715). Aside from age and sex, there
is equal access to status and positions of prestige,
which are fluid from generation to generation, informal, and reflective of qualities of individuals. There
are no permanent positions of power or dominance,
and leaders are situational, chosen for their abilities
in certain circumstances and not usually carried over
into other situations. Power (or dominance) is essentially Wolf ’s first and second modes; it plays out in interpersonal relationships and depends on eloquence,
social ability, and other personal traits. Dominance
may have little or nothing to do with prestige. Bullies
can exert power without prestige. High prestige may
carry privileges without dominance, beyond what one
can exercise interpersonally.
According to Fried (1967), egalitarian societies have
an egalitarian economy in which reciprocity and generosity are valued—awarded prestige. There may be
strong social expectations against accumulation of
material goods; prestige may come by giving things
away, by being generous, rather than by being thrifty.
Reciprocal relations are kept balanced over some long
term, and no single individual or group controls access to the necessities of life, which are accessible to all
members of the society. In sum, egalitarian societies
are those in which there is equal access to (1) positions
of prestige and (2) the means of production.
RANKED SOCIETIES
In ranked societies there is differential access to positions of high status and prestige, with fewer positions
than there are people to occupy them. These positions
are permanent. They always exist. Access to these positions can be achieved (acquired in life through effort
of some kind) or ascribed (acquired through birth).
Anthropologists do not treat sex and age as ascribed
statuses. President of the United States is an achieved
status (acquired through successful politics and an
election) while the Emperor of Japan is an ascribed
position through inheritance. There are two forms
of ranked social organization: rank and stratification.
These are, in many ways, quite different from each
other.
In ranked societies, there is still equal access to the
means of production and to resources fundamental to
life. The number of high-status positions may be fixed
from one generation to the next. High rank is generally ascribed, but not inevitably so, and is based on
position in the kinship system. Individuals are ranked
relative to each other based on their position in the
kinship system (which may extend to supernatural beings). There are permanent leadership positions, with
leaders generally enjoying high prestige, authority,
and status, but without power or dominance beyond
Wolf ’s second mode, what I term social power. High
status or prestige can be used to manipulate social
relationships to one’s purposes; in some Polynesian
chiefdoms, for example, leaders may have had real
tactical and structural power.
The way in which stratified societies differ from
rank societies is perhaps the most important in human social history. In stratified societies, there is differential access to positions of high status and prestige
and, very importantly, differential access to the means
of production and to basic, life-sustaining resources.
Some group of individuals, usually a small one, enjoys
tactical and structural power. According to Berreman (1981:10) all members of stratified society are
ranked by socially defined, nonkin characteristics,
with people of similar class, status, and power characteristics (i.e., similar social classes) sharing similar
access to resources. Upper-class Americans, for example, have far greater access to resources, includThe Archaeology of Rank
48 9
ing money, than do lower-class Americans. Implicitly
comparing stratified societies with rank and egalitarian societies, Berreman (1981:10–11) defines authority as based on territory rather than kin group, prestige
based on accumulation rather than distribution, and
power through control over productive resources. As
a result, whole categories of people can be exploited
through “economic sanctions, threats, and physical
force” Berreman (1981:11)
In rank and egalitarian societies, individual authority, if any, is based on position in a kinship
system, not on social class, and prestige is based on
generosity and redistribution of goods as qualities
essential for a successful leader. In stratified societies, people may use their accumulated wealth to
acquire or increase their power, without generosity.
Finally, Berreman speaks of power. Fundamentally,
only stratified societies have positions of high rank
that convey power to their holder and it is only in
stratified societies that we consistently encounter
individuals or groups wielding Wolf ’s tactical and
organizational power.
The key element in all of this terminology is the
concept of differential access. In egalitarian societies,
there is equal access to positions of prestige and to
basic resources; in rank societies there is differential
access to positions of prestige but equal access to basic
resources. In stratified societies, there is unequal access
to both positions of prestige and basic resources, with
people in high strata also having structural and organizational power. Differential access to resources can
be reflected in nutrition, health, and life expectancy
(Nguyen and Peschard 2003; Sapolsky 2004).
BANDS, CHIEFDOMS, STATES,
TRANSEGALITARIAN, AND COMPLEX SOCIETIES
Anthropologists and archaeologists have used the definitions above, as summarized in table 28.2, to classify sociopolitical organization on a very broad scale,
with summary terms for shared features considered
important. The classes can be used to predict what we
might expect archaeologically. Thus, if we decide that
the societies found in an area 15,000 years ago were all
“bands,” that carries implications about the archaeological record may look like.
Despite their utility, terms like bands, tribes, and
chiefdoms obscure variability (Drennan 1996, O’Shea
and Barker 1996), and many workers prefer to distinguish among small societies (essentially bands), middle-level (or transegalitarian; Blake and Clark 1999;
Clark and Blake 1994) societies, and states only. Like
many archaeologists, I will use “social complexity” to
refer to permanent social inequality (i.e., ranking; Arnold 1996), although some argue that social inequality
and complexity should be analytically separate (Paynter 1989).
ISSUES IN THE ORIGINS OF
INEQUALITY AND RANKING
No coherent single body of social theory explains the
origins and evolution of permanent social inequality
(Diehl 2000a), with a diverse array of theoretical orientations ranging from Darwinian evolution to humanistic interpretation. Until quite recently, however, they
all assumed that humans are, by default, egalitarian in
their social organization, so that all recently evolved
systems of permanent social inequality are departures
Table 28.2. Types of societies defined by anthropologists and archaeologists, based on socio-political
organization.
Bands
Egalitarian, demographically small (25–50 people), fluid membership, band membership based
on kinship, friendship, hunter-gatherers.
Egalitarian, demographically larger (500+), membership fixed, based on kinship, huntergatherers, and farmers; concept of tribe controversial.
Tribes
Chiefdoms
States
Transegalitarian societies
Middle-range societies
Complex societies
4 90
Ranked, ascribed leadership positions, demographically larger (2,000+), decision making
centralized with a two-tier decision-making hierarchy, leadership lacks coercive power; chiefs
usually have social power.
Stratified, with minimally a three-tier decision-making hierarchy; leadership has both tactical
and strategic power; states usually have a territorial base.
Term for societies that are neither egalitarian nor ranked. There may be unequal access
to prestige, but numbers of high-prestige positions fluid, positions are achieved, based on
generosity, ability to attract followers, social power.
Broad term for societies falling between bands and states.
Can have three meanings: (1) “civilization,” (2) societies with many parts, implying social
hierarchies and/or occupational specialization (the usage here), or, more narrowly (3)
societies with permanent ranking. At a basic level, all human societies are complex, some
more than others.
kennet h m . am es
from our ancient norm. This section briefly discusses
explanations for the origins and evolution of permanent social inequality.
ULTIMATE CAUSES, PROXIMATE CAUSES,
NECESSARY PRECONDITIONS, AND
EVOLUTIONARY PATTERNS
Mayr (1982) stresses the distinction between proximate and ultimate causes; proximate explanations
show how a structure performs, whereas ultimate explanations describe how the structure evolved. Necessary preconditions do not cause inequality or other
cultural traits to evolve, but their presence is necessary
for their evolution to occur (see Bentley et al., chapter 8; Collard et al., chapter 13). For example, many
archaeologists believe logistical mobility patterns
(Binford 1980) are necessary for complexity among
hunter-gatherers (Ames 1985; Rowley-Conwy 2001;
Fitzhugh and Habu 2002). However, the development
of logistical patterns does not trigger the immediate
evolution of complexity (Ames 2005a).
Social theorists have long assumed that some variety of egalitarianism is the basic human condition
(Hobbes 1651; Rousseau 1782). This assumption
derives from notions of progress. Modern scholars
similarly expect that when social complexity, including inequality, begins to evolve, social systems will
continue to “progress,” become increasingly complex
through time. Social complexity is seen as a threshold
phenomenon; once it exists, there is no going back
to egalitarian systems. It is indeed true that globally,
social systems became more complex during the past
10,000 years, particularly in the last 5,000 (Richerson
and Boyd 2000). Even at a smaller geographic scale,
western North America for example, social systems
were more complex in the recent past than 12,000
years ago (Ames 2005a).
However, local sequences can be exceptions to both
of these expectations, often displaying shifts from
more to less complex (Ames 2005a; Rowley-Conwy
2001). In fact, the assumption that egalitarianism is
our default social condition has come to be challenged (Diehl 2000b). Researchers have observed that
egalitarianism is hard social work (Erdal and Whiten
1996; Hayden 1995, 1998, 2001; Trigger 2003), involving repression of individual ambitions and long-term,
obligatory reciprocal social rewards and sanctions,
which carry strong weight in terms of moral worth and
prestige. If egalitarianism is our default, why should it
require hard work in every known egalitarian society?
Some (Arnold 2001; Blake and Clarke 1999; Hayden
1995) attribute this to variations in personality types.
Some personalities, termed “aggrandizers,” are more
likely to manipulate social and economic systems to
their benefit and that of their descendants. To sustain
egalitarianism and reciprocity, aggrandizers must be
repressed in each new generation, and the work never
ends. This of course begs the question of why the aggrandizer personality type exists at all.
More recently scholars (Boehm 1992, 1997, 1999;
Henrich and Gil-White 2001) have hypothesized that
humans have an innate tendency to form dominance
hierarchies. All of our nearest relatives, chimpanzees,
bonobos and gorillas, have such hierarchies, which
suggests that our common ancestor with these apes,
had social dominance hierarchies. If so, how do we
explain egalitarianism?
Boehm (1992, 1999) actually argues that egalitarianism never existed. What we label egalitarianism is,
in fact, a kind of reverse dominance hierarchy in which
factions of subdominant and low-status individuals
combine to repress otherwise dominant individuals.
This also happens among chimpanzees. Boehm (1999)
believes egalitarianism is a learned behavior, and that
once it developed it spread rapidly. Hayden (1981,
2001), among many others (Richerson and Boyd 2000),
sees egalitarianism as an adaptation to the climatic and
environmental extremes of the Pleistocene. Egalitarianism, with its balanced long-term social reciprocity,
ensured access to and sharing of food in the Pleistocene’s highly variable, high-risk environments, in
which group and individual survival required strong
repression of aggrandizers whose activities would undermine the reciprocity essential to human survival.
Hayden (2001) postulates that egalitarianism has existed for perhaps the past 2 million years.
Maschner (1992) and others suggest permanent
inequality arises from competition among people for
prestige, which is ultimately a competition for differential reproductive success. In small societies, individuals who are successful in acquiring more prestige or
higher status will have more offspring. The competition may take different forms in different societies, depending on how particular cultures mark high prestige
and status. Successful hunters have higher fitness. Hill
et al. (1993; Smith 2004) demonstrate that among the
Ache, a hunting-gathering group in South America,
successful male hunters are the most likely to have sex,
and presumably offspring. Maschner is not arguing
that inequality is the result of natural selection, but
inequality is a consequence of a naturally selected,
genetic propensity to compete for mates (the ultimate
The Archaeology of Rank
49 1
cause), which is accomplished through competing for
prestige (the proximate cause). For Maschner, warfare
is an important avenue for prestige competition.
Finally, Richerson and Boyd (2004) among others (Erdal and Whiten 1996; Henrich and Gil-White
2001) propose that egalitarianism rests on two sets
of social instincts that evolved within the last 100,000
years or so: very ancient ones on one hand, and more
recent ones, termed “tribal instincts,” on the other,
which give rise to our ambivalent tendencies to develop dominance hierarchies and resist authority and
power (Richerson and Boyd 2004). Permanent inequality arose through intensified food production
and population growth during the more benign environmental conditions of the past 12,000 years and
what Richerson and Boyd (2004) term a competitive
“ratchet,” which is “intra and inter-society competition.” The roots of modern inequality in this approach
rest in the granting of prestige (Henrich and Gil-White
2001; Richerson and Boyd 2004) and the more ancient
dominance instincts. In their theory, granting prestige
is one of the recent social instincts, evolved because it
facilitates the transmission of cultural information.
DISCUSSION
Clearly we are far from an understanding of the ultimate causes of human inequality. Indeed, default
egalitarianism suggests there are no ultimate causes,
only proximate ones (Blake and Clark 1999; Pauketat
2004, 2005; Sassaman 2004). However, this cannot
be so. As Trigger (2003) shows, while human social
evolution occurs along many diverse lines, the outcomes are quite limited. In the development of ten
ancient “pristine” civilizations (begun without outside
influence), Trigger (2003) notes tremendous variation
in evolutionary sequences, culture, and organization,
and yet profound similarities in their organization,
including permanent inequality. Some of these similarities may be functional, with only so many ways to
organize human societies, but this does not explain the
limited number of outcomes. Inequality has evolved
in societies marked by great ranges in population size,
economy, and so on. Trigger (2003) concludes that our
evolved human nature is part of the explanation.
It seems likely that humans, as part of their ancient
anthropoid inheritance, tend to organize themselves
into dominance hierarchies. Egalitarianism indicates
that dominance hierarchies are not inevitable, but
the tendency toward dominance makes it necessary
to first explain egalitarianism. Egalitarianism appears
to rest on social norms that grant prestige to people
4 92
kennet h m . am es
who exemplify egalitarian values. This requires the
human capacity to invest relationships with moral
values, which is impossible, I believe, without modern
cognitive abilities. This carries the further implication that hominid societies were organized around
dominance hierarchies for several million years. Such
hierarchies may not have been particularly strong.
Hominid sexual dimorphism has declined over that
period, at least until the appearance of Homo erectus,
suggesting a decline in the role of dominance and/or
of agonistic displays for its enforcement (Klein 1999;
McHenry and Coffing 2000). Boehm (1999) argues
that tools, particularly weapons, undercut dominance,
and in fact overt physical threats may have shifted
over time toward the social manipulations and social
power discussed above. Unfortunately, such behavior
is archaeologically invisible.
This argument contrasts with Hayden’s (2001) suggestion that egalitarian hunting and gathering societies
have existed for perhaps 2 million years. He assumes
early hominid cognition differed little from that of modern humans. Hayden (2001) argues that egalitarianism
is an adaptation to the very high-risk, low-productivity
environments of the Pleistocene (Hayden 1981), attributing the scant evidence for some inequality among
Neanderthals to the sporadic environmental richness,
as opposed any symbolic capacity of Neanderthals (see
Gabora, chapter 17). Even if one were to accept that
the previous 2 million years (including interglacials)
featured no productive environments, Hayden’s assumption that inequality arises with low-risk, productive subsistence systems and/or environments implies
we should see evidence of Homo erectus aggrandizers,
which is unlikely given the lack of evidence of symbolic
behavior in Lower Paleolithic record.
I have speculated (Ames 2003) that egalitarianism
and its values evolved along with the expanding territorial ranges and higher mobility of the Upper Paleolithic. Mobility is how hunter-gatherers cope with
high-risk environments, maintaining durable yet elastic social relationships over sometimes great distances
and even time spans. I suspect this combination of
mobility and resilient social relationships—egalitarianism—are tied together with modern cognition and
language (Richerson and Boyd 2000).
ULTIMATE AND PROXIMATE CAUSES
Any acceptable ultimate explanation of inequality
would still need a proximate explanation for the great
diversity in human culture and social organization
(Trigger 2003). A myriad proximate causes has been
proposed reflecting the theoretical diversity, or fragmentation, of anthropology and archaeology. Many
authors have offered classifications and critiques of
some or all of them (Chapman 2003b; Flanagan 1989;
Fried 1968; Hass 1982; Hayden 1995; McGuire 1992a,b;
Paynter 1989; Service 1975; Wason 1994).
Summarized in Box 28.1, these theories have deep
roots in Western thought. Most seek to explain the
origins and persistence of institutionalized inequality—tactical power—not the origins of inequality
per se. They intend to elucidate the shift from Wolf ’s
social power to tactical power, or the development of
a permanent political economy, which Earle (2002:1)
defines as “the material flows of goods and labor
through a society, channeled to create wealth and to
finance institutions of rule.” As Blake and Clark (1999)
note, to be permanent, ranking has to last at least two
or three generations. That necessitates the evolution
of a political economy to, among other things, control
the surplus (Hayden 1998, 2001) needed to finance
conspicuous consumption (Earle 2000).
Much current theory emphasizes cultural and organizational diversity rather than uniformities. Some
of this diversity can be attributed to differences in
Box 28.1. Anthropologists, archaeologists, and others have suggested a great array of final and
proximate causes for the origins and development of social inequality and cultural complexity.
The box contains summaries of most of the major ones.
High populations. While it is evident that complex societies are almost always larger than simple societies,
the causal role of population size has long been the
topic of acrimonious debate (Keeley 1988; Hayden
2001). Some scholars have identified population
thresholds for different degrees of social complexity
(Kosse 1990; Upham 1990; table 28.4). Currently the
focus has been on community size (the number of
people in regular face-to-face contact) rather than
on overall population size or density. Higher population densities lead to a greater need for coordination
and centralized decision making. They also produce
higher levels of social conflict necessitating methods
of dispute resolution (Cohen 1985). The central issue is whether population growth and/or increasing
community size drives economic and social change or
is a consequence of it. More recently, Boone (2000)
suggests status differential is a consequence of selection arising from population collapse (Escoffier and
Schneider 1999).
Specialization and regional interaction. Specialization in production has long been associated with
social complexity. In one version, society becomes increasingly differentiated through growing specialization, necessitating increased coordination among
the parts, and ensuring the flow of raw materials
and finished goods from specialists to specialists.
Elites arise as a consequence of these needs (Childe
1942; Service 1975). Elites may arise by controlling or
manipulating production of key resources or goods
(Haas 1982; Arnold 1987; Arnold and Munns 1994).
Regional interaction spheres may also provide a
field in which competition can occur (Hayden and
Schulting 1997). Rank is often measured regionally
rather than locally (Renfrew and TK). Some suggest that interaction spheres are a consequence of
elite formation (Hayden and Schulting 1997), others
that elites can form within the context of regional
interaction (Colten and Stewart 1996; Ames and
Maschner 1999).
Feasting. Aggrandizers compete for followers and
resources. Feasting is widely seen as a major form
of competition (Hayden 1994, 1995, 2001; Spielman
2002).
Productive subsistence bases and surpluses. Surplus
production has been widely seen as the ultimate
cause of permanent inequality among hunter-gatherers and farmers. In this view, the economic base is
productive enough to produce surpluses, which aggrandizers (either as individuals or groups) manipulate to further their own ends (Childe 1942; Hayden
1995). Surplus production may also may lead to an
easing of the strictures against aggrandizers (Clark
and Blake 1994; Blake and Clark 1999; Hayden 1998,
2001). Control of surplus production can be either
direct or indirect through control of labor (Arnold
1993, 1996) or through debt (Gosden 1989). Control
of surplus production is generally seen as fundamental to a political economy (Muller 1997; Earle 1997,
2002).
Scalar stress. There is a broad, general relationship
between the size of a society and its organizational
complexity (Johnson 1982). Scalar stress arguments
suggest that this relationship may rest ultimately in
cognitive limits on human ability to process information or limits on the effective size of decision-making
groups, leading to stress caused by organizational
size (Ames 1985; Kosse 1990). Leadership emerges as
a solution to these problems.
Sedentism. Settled populations have been widely
seen as a proximate cause or a necessary precondition to the evolution of social complexity (Wilson
1988; Bar-Yosef 2002), although many aspects of
The Archaeology of Rank
49 3
complexity are visible among pastoralists. Sedentism
is associated with population growth, the development of property, scalar stress, and institutions for
dispute resolution, territorial defense, and permanent leadership. The most complex hunter-gatherer
groups appear to be those that are sedentary, store
foods, and defend territories (Rowley-Conwy 2001).
gies and mobility patterns that do terrestrial huntergatherers. As a consequence, maritime societies are
thought more likely to evolve permanent inequality
than are terrestrial groups (Renouf 1991). This is usually attributed to the greater productivity of aquatic
environments. It is as likely due to the transportation
advantages of boats.
Storage. Stored foods can be a surplus necessary for
aggrandizers or that can be used in prestige competitions. It is property. It can lead to and support
higher population sizes and densities and to more
settled or sedentary populations (Testart 1982; Sofer
1989; Wesson 1999).
Subsistence intensification. Increased food production is sometimes seen as a trigger for subsequent
social changes, including the development of social
inequality. It can lead to population growth, scalar stresses, production of surpluses, or to organizational changes leading to inequality (Price and
Brown 1985a).
Mobility and settlement patterns. Logistical mobility
is organizationally more complicated than foraging (Ames 1985; Rowley-Conway 2001; Habu 2002,
2004; Bergsvik 2002). Collectors are also, virtually by
definition, at least semisedentary. Also, virtually by
definition, collectors depend on food storage. Collectors are thought to evolve (1) in middle latitudes
where winter food storage is obligatory for any but
the lowest population densities; (2) when available
means (boats, pack animals) allow transportation of
large volumes of field-processed foods (Ames 2002);
(3) under conditions of demographic packing that
preclude the high levels of mobility associated with
foraging (Binford 1980, 2001).
Patchy heterogeneous environments. There are several versions. In one, variation in patch quality leads
to defense of patches with high-quality, predictable
patches, and the owners of those patches become
“haves” (Matson 1985; Coupland 1985, 1986). Alternatively, local resource fluctuation requires maintaining long-distance social ties to ensure access to
distant resources when local ones fail. Permanent
leaders emerge as the intermediaries who create and
maintain these ties (Kelly 1995). Heterogeneous environments coupled with sedentism have also been
thought to produce specialization in produce, leading in turn to the rise of elites to coordinate and
redistribute raw materials and finished products to
specialists (Service 1972).
Aquatic/maritime economies. Maritime or aquatic
hunter-gatherers tend to have larger populations, be
more sedentary, and have more complex technolo-
how political economies can be organized. Heterarchy
(Crumley 1995; Ehrenreich et al. 1995) refers to the
presence of multiple systems of inequality with different sources of power in a same society.
Earle (1997) suggests four potential sources of
power in a society, including our familiar social power
as well as economic, military, and ideological power.
4 94
kennet h m . am es
Corporate households. Evidence of households (in
the form of houses) can be a precursor to or accompany evidence for social complexity in huntergatherer sequences (Hayden and Cannon 1982).
Cross-culturally, these households may but do not
necessarily have considerable genealogical and temporal depth. There is also no consistency in size. In
some instances small corporate households develop;
in others, such as the Northwest Coast, large households do. Large, permanent households appear to
evolve to accomplish complex sequential tasks (Netting 1982).
Competition and warfare. A number of otherwise
very different theories postulate that competition
is the ratchet driving social change and the evolution of elites (Maschner 1991, 1992; Maschner and
Reedy-Maschner 1998; Hayden 1995, 2001; Richerson
and Boyd 2000; Ames 2003). Warfare is an arena for
competition as well as a form of regional interaction.
It also can be a means by which control is established
over crucial resources or surpluses. Simple conquest
may also produce stratification (Carniero 1970).
Property. Property has been seen as central to the
development of social inequality, at least since
Hobbes and Rousseau. Property is variously seen as
a source of disputes, social friction, and control over
production (Park 1992, discussion and citations in
Earle 2000). The importance of property weaves its
way through many of the foregoing preconditions
and is explicit both in Woodburn’s “delayed return”
class of hunter-gatherers (Rowley-Conwy 2001).
These are the basis for political economy. Economic
power is “being able to buy compliance” through “material rewards and deprivations” (Earle 1997:6). Military power coerces or forces compliance. Ideologies
“present the code of social order,” and establish “an
authority structure and institutionalizes practices of
rule” (Earle 1997:8).
Earle (1997:12–13) argues that economic power
is the most important route to social complexity and
centralized institutions, but both Hayden (1995) and
Earle speak of “many routes” to ranking. Blanton et
al. (1996), Feinman (1995), and others propose these
routes lay along a continuum between what they call
term network and corporate strategies (Table 28.3).
According to Feinman et al. (2000:453), “The network
strategy . . . is associated with heavily personalized
or centralized forms of leadership. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, who use their network
of personal connections to enhance and expand their
individualized power and authority,” and aggrandizers seek to control food and/or wealth through social networks. Corporate strategies are quite different,
with more dispersed economic resources, less personal
leadership or personal aggrandizement (Feinman et
al. 2000). Instead, “communal ritual, public construction, large cooperative labor tasks, shared power, social
segments . . . [are] woven together through broad integrative ritual and ideological means, and suppressed
economic differentiation are emphasized . . . [with]
large architectural spaces” (Feinman et al. 2000:453).
These different leadership strategies have different archaeological implications.
While it is often assumed that elite development
automatically creates subdominant individuals and
groups, agency theory (Dornan 2002; see Gardner,
chapter 7) argues that elite formation is “a two-way
negotiation” (Pauketat 2005:207), and asks how people participated in their own subordination or resisted
it (Joyce et al. 2001). Similar questions are addressed in
Darwinian theory, as there may be fitness advantages
not only to having high status during food shortages,
but also to being a dependent or client of high-status
individuals (Boone 2000).
A significant gap in our theory building is explaining why the transition to ranking and political economies (tactical power) may not occur despite the likely
presence of inequality, as discussed below concerning
the Japanese Jomon hunter-gatherer tradition. Jomon
societies may have hovered at the edge of permanent
inequality and political economies—ranking—for
several millennia, despite the presence of many of the
necessary preconditions and proximate causes for inequality. Explaining why ranking did not evolve under
such circumstances, if indeed it did not, is as important as explaining how it did.
METHODS
The rest of this chapter discusses methods and techniques archaeologists use to establish whether an ancient society was marked by inequality, and whether it
was ranked or stratified. The key is in the phrase “differential access.” In rank societies, there is differential
access to prestige but not to basic resources, while in
stratified societies there is differential access to both
prestige and basic resources. As we have seen, stratified
societies are also marked by elites wielding tactical and
organizational power, based on a political economy.
Thus the archaeologist’s task is to measure differential
access to prestige and resources and to establish the
existence or absence minimally of tactical power.
If stratification is strongly developed, we will see
it archaeologically. For example, the royal cemetery
at Anyang, the last capital of the Shang dynasty of
northern China (c. 1300 b.c.), contains thirteen shaft
tombs in an enormous pit with a timbered tomb at the
bottom (Chang 1986). The largest was 12 meters deep.
These tombs are accompanied by some 1,200 other
graves, perhaps containing the remains of people sacrificed as part of the mortuary ritual. The shaft graves
Table 28.3. Leadership strategies and their organizational and material correlates
Network
Corporate
Concentrated wealth
Individual power
Ostentatious consumption
Prestige goods
Patron\client factions
Attached specialization
Wealth finance
Princely burials
Lineal kinship systems
Power inherited through personal glorification
Ostentatious elite adornment
Personal glorification
More even wealth distribution
Shared power arrangements
More balanced accumulation
Control of knowledge, cognitive codes
Corporate labor systems
Emphasis on food production
Stable finance
Monumental ritual spaces
Segmental organization
Power embedded in group association\affiliation
Symbols of office
Broad concerns with fertility, rain
Source: Feinman et al 1996.
Note: Bold indicates those that may be archaeologically visible.
The Archaeology of Rank
49 5
themselves contain sacrificial victims. Here we have
clear evidence of control over labor (construction of
the tombs) and over the lives of people (sacrifice at a
relatively large scale). We may not always have tombs,
but we may have elaborate palaces, other monumental
constructions (the Great Wall of China), highly developed craft production, and so on.
In transegalitarian societies, societies in which rank
or stratification are not strongly marked, or cases
where rank and stratification evolved slowly and gradually, differences in wealth, status, prestige, and/or
power may not be highly visible archaeologically, even
if important in people’s daily lives. On the Northwest
Coast of North America, for example, many aspects
of the daily lives of chiefs differed little from everyone
else’s, and consequently rank can be hard to detect
archaeologically.
There may have been many experiments at ranking
and stratification over the past 10,000 years or more.
One might imagine efforts by aggrandizers in the Upper Paleolithic of France around 18,000 years ago to
gain power and influence, to even found a chiefdom
that ultimately failed. They could have lasted five years,
or a century or two. Such short-lived experiments
may be archaeologically invisible–we only see those
that succeeded, or at least lasted long enough to leave
a visible record. If Earle is correct, they succeeded
because they had strong economic foundations (and
perhaps were just plain lucky). The archaeological
record of some areas and periods may be tantalizingly full of ephemeral evidence for ranking or social
complexity generally, and it is possible that we could
see signs of many experiments that went nowhere, at
the threshold of archaeological visibility. It depends
on our own vantage point, what David Hurst Thomas
calls “monitoring position” (Thomas 1983). For example, in studying the subsistence systems of ancient
hunting-and-gathering economies, our monitoring
position is often hunting. Animal bones and hunting
tools (stone projectile points) will be preserved while
plant tissues can rot and disappear. Rank may not be
expressed in parts of the material culture that preserve,
or at the sites we happen to have found.
Despite these many difficulties, archaeologists have
been remarkably successful at investigating and establishing the presence of inequality in ancient societies.
While methods vary, at their heart is establishing who
had differential access to prestige and basic resources,
determining to what degree an elite controlled production, and whether it wielded tactical or strategic
power. Archaeologists look for evidence of conspicu4 96
kennet h m . am es
ous consumption (Veblen 1899), which is “the ‘wasteful’ expenditure of time and energy beyond what is
needed for survival and maintenance in order to gain,
increase, or reinforce social position and prestige”
(Boone 2000:85).
Hayden (1998) distinguishes between practical
and prestige technologies. Practical technologies solve
problems of survival and maintenance. Prestige technology is nonutilitarian and beyond basic survival and
reproduction, and Hayden (1998) argues it appears
as a consequence of stable food surpluses, such that
aggrandizers were already present in a culture and
driving technological and social changes. The scale
and scope of prestige technology (and of inequality) is
limited by the “resources that can be extracted with a
community’s existing technology and labor” (Hayden
1998, 22).
Evolutionary ecologists (Bird and Smith 2005;
Boone 2000) and some anthropologists (Henrich and
Gil-White 2001; Richerson and Boyd 2004) and archaeologists (Neiman 1997; Kornbacher and Madsen
1999) take a different approach. Their focus is to explain behavior that is costly in energy and resources
and consequently reduces evolutionary fitness, with a
core hypothesis being the concept of costly signaling
(Grafen 1990; Zahavi 1997; Bird and Smith 2005). In
the costly signaling model, conspicuous consumption is an advertisement that (for humans) signals
social power: the capacity to impose social costs on
competitors and “dispense benefits to potential allies,
clients, mates, and other conspecifics who may be in
a position to assist” (Boone 2000:88). In a sense, this
is not at all new. What is new is the notion that costly
signaling does not generally lie. An individual can lie
verbally, but the sustained capacity to expend energy
in costly signaling provides a visible measure of the individual or social group’s ability to control resources.
An alternative hypothesis is that prestige (sensu Henrich and Gil-White 2001) evolved as a mechanism to
increase the efficiency of cultural learning (Richerson
and Boyd 2004). In any case, conspicuous consumption or costly signaling is central to human systems
of prestige and rank. The amount of energy available
to invest in such signaling is limited by the society’s
economy and environment, as Hayden notes.
For example, consider Tikal, the preeminent Classic
Maya center, which is located in northern Guatemala
and was the dominant Maya city during much, but
not all of the Classic period (a.d. 200–900). Haviland
and Moholy-Nagy (1992) summarize the evidence for
the presence of elites at Tikal (table 28.4), including
housing, burials, individual belongings, and osteology
(evidence from human skeletons) contrasting elites
and nonelites. Their goal is simply to demonstrate the
presence of an elite, rather than grades or ranks. This
was supported by Feinman and Neitzel (1984), who
demonstrated complicated and variable relationships
between inequality, leadership, and political organization among ethnographically documented societies,
by accounting for the leaders’ tasks, status differentiation, political decisions, settlement patterns, and community size (O’Shea and Barker 1996). In a sample of
fifty-one middle-range societies, the two most common status markers (table 28.5a, b) were special houses
(including house size, decoration, special construction
materials, and techniques) and multiple wives. These
were followed by special dress, ornaments, bodily decoration, and burial treatment (Feinman and Neitzel
1984:57). Analysis of burials plays a major role in archaeological methods for establishing ranking; special
burial treatment was found in only 16 percent of their
sample, which suggests that while burial evidence for
ranking is strong, the absence of such evidence does
not preclude the presence of ranking (Ucko 1969).
BURIALS: THE ANALYSIS OF
MORTUARY PATTERNS
Archaeologists have long used burials and mortuary
practices as evidence for social organization, as well as
ethnicity and religious and spiritual practices among
others (Binford 1971; Brown 1971; Goldstein 1981;
Rothschild 1979; Sax 1970; Tainter 1975, 1982). The
idea underlying this approach is that an individual’s
treatment at death will directly or indirectly reflect
his or her status in life or that of the group, and so a
burial population should reflect the status organization of the living, ancient society. One key measure of
high status was the energy invested in the mortuary
ritual (Peebles and Kus 1977; Tainter 1975). There
Table 28.4. Evidence for Stratification at Tikal
Housing. Contemporary differences in house size and house
construction within a cultural tradition are widely used as a
measure of ranking and stratification. Generally, differences
in house size within a society reflect either differences in
household size (number of people) or differences in status
(high status: big houses), or both. Large, stable households
have an economic advantage over smaller ones in many
nonindustrial economies.
Larger houses in area and\or volume (see Netting 1982),
more living space
Quality of construction, finishing (e.g. wattle & daub vs.
stone facades)
Greater privacy: internal spaces more difficult to access
(doors, hallways, etc) in contrast to one-room houses
Location:At Tikal, palaces concentrated at or near center
of city
Burials. Mortuary ritual is one of the most important lines
of evidence used by archaeologists to establish status
differences (see text).
Elite graves in tombs usually in or near temples
Elite graves much larger than needed simply to contain
body
Elite graves keep dirt out of face of deceased: “lower
class people . . . almost always buried with dirt in their
faces”
Elite tombs required planning, time, and labor to build
Elite tombs costly to furnish. Grave furnishings include
heirlooms, items requiring high level of skill to make or
costly raw materials (exotic) or both
Belongings. “Belongings” are artifacts recovered from
residential trash and middens. High-status goods are not
always or even often thrown away: they do not end up in
the trash.
Eliteresidences have greater diversity of everyday objects
(more kinds of artifacts)
Elite residences have more rare objects (one-of-a-kind)
objects
Nonelite residences at Tikal appear to have more
workshop debris (manufacturing debris): messy, dirty
activities happen away from elite
Elite residences at Tikal have more bone objects (labor
cost?)
Osteology. Studies of skeletons may be able to establish
relative health, longevity, diet, life stress, etc., that may
point to differential access to resources and to differences
in lifestyles reflecting economic and power differences.
Osteological studies can also establish levels of warfare
(Cybulski 1993).
Elite apparently had better nutrition (tendency to be
taller)
Elite may have lived longer (based on skeletal remains
and inscriptions)
Differencesin skeletal morphology suggesting differences
in kinds of activities
Source: Haviland and Moholy-Nagy 1992.
The Archaeology of Rank
49 7
Table 28.5a. Frequency of Markers of High Status in a
Sample of Middle-Range Societies
Trait
Frequency
Special houses
Multiple wives
Special dress
Special burials
Obeisance
Services
Servants/slaves
Special food
Special language
23
20
23
16
17
14
7
6
5
Percentage
45
39
45
31
33
27
14
12
10
Source: Feinman and Neitzel 1984.
Table 28.5b. Number of High-Status Markers per
Society
Frequency of Traits
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Number of Societies
18
15
6
4
3
2
2
1
Percentage
35
29
12
8
6
4
4
2
Source: Feinman and Neitzel 1984.
have been numerous criticisms of the general and
specific approach (Ucko 1969; Cannon 1995, 2002;
Hodder 1982; 1986; Lull 2000; McHugh 1990; Pader
1982; Shanks and Tilley 1982; Chapman et al. 1981),
but it continues, in one form or another, to be one of
the most important techniques archaeologists use to
determine ranking (Ames 2005b; Brown 1995; Carr
1995; McGuire 1992a,b; O’Shea 1984; Park 1992;
Schulting 1995, Wason 1994; Allard 2002, Beck 1995).
Archaeologists need to consider the cultural context
of mortuary ritual, since what we regard as high-value
status goods may not have played that role.
Archaeologists examine mortuary rituals along
many dimensions (Box 28.2), and the degree to which
these crosscut age and sex categories. Costly burials
associated exclusively with the elderly may reflect high
status/prestige based on age or at least the possibility
of acquiring wealth. Similarly, expensive burials of
just infants or children may tell us about the value of
children in the society but not about inequality. Generally, to establish that an elite is present, there must
be a small subset of the burial population with costly
burials, and that subset must include children as well
as adult males and females, indicating that a group of
people has regular differential access to special mortuary treatment. The sample must be large enough to
support these inferences.
4 98
kennet h m . am es
A good example is the archaeology of the Silla kingdom, which unified Korea in a.d. 668. Silla began as
part of a confederacy of small kingdoms in the second
century and started conquering the other members in
the fifth century. Pearson et al. (1989) analyzed a large
sample of fourth- to sixth-century burials to establish
the “nature of social ranking” (how many ranks there
were and how strongly differentiated) in the Silla kingdom before the rules of ranking became highly formalized. Focusing on high-status burials, the investigators
were only interested in ranking within the elite, with
their evidence being modes of tomb construction and
the distribution of grave goods within the single most
numerous class of tomb. The key problem is establishing the value of grave goods. High-ranking individuals are expected to have more and/or more expensive
grave goods, as well as graves. Ancient value systems
can be difficult to penetrate (Ucko 1969). Using ninthto twelfth-century historical accounts of Silla society
and social organization, Pearson et al. (1989) were
able to make conservative statements about the relative value of different classes of grave goods (table
28.6), including eleven broad categories (e.g., rings)
and 132 specific classes (e.g., gold finger rings). These
general categories of Old Silla grave goods include
items of high-status regalia (crowns, caps), clothing
and adornment (girdles, pendants, bracelets, rings,
earrings, necklaces, bells), weapons, and serving vessels. They also contain horse fittings, which often accompany high-status burials in Bronze and Iron Age
Eurasia. The raw material was important, with the
highest-status goods being made of gold, silver, gilt
bronze, and jade. Pearson et al. (1989) then performed
a cluster analysis (Shennan 1997) on the presence
or absence of these grave goods, which grouped the
sixty-two graves into five groups of differing relative
proportions of some classes of grave goods (table
28.6). The chronology of the evidence being crucial,
Pearson et al. (1989) ensured that the tombs were contemporary before concluding that there were indeed
ranks among the Old Silla elite, rather than just social
change through time. Finally they examined the distribution of the five groups of tombs in the modern city
of Kuongju, where sixty-one of the tombs are located.
The highest-ranking cluster, based on grave goods and
tomb construction, are found almost exclusively in
only one area, while the other four clusters are more
dispersed in space.
The Old Silla aristocracy was clearly ranked with
one rank, their cluster 5, obviously holding much
higher status than others do. Their study, however,
Box 28.2. Analytical Dimensions for Mortuary Programs
1. Preparation and treatment of the body
a. Degree of skeletal articulation (i.e., primary vs.
secondary burials)
b. Disposition of the burial (placed in grave, exposed on a platform, flexed, extended, etc.)
c. Number of individuals per burial
d. Orientation of long axis of the skeleton(s)
e. Postmortem modifications
2. Mortuary facility
a. Type of burial (inhumation, cremation, platform, etc.)
b. Form of the facility (simple excavated grave,
tomb, chamber, tumulus, box, canoe, etc.)
c. Shape and dimensions
d. Depth
e. Construction and raw materials used
f. Orientation of the facility and the body within
the facility (orientation toward cardinal directions, landscape feature, etc.)
g. Location relative to the community (burial
within community, burials away from community)
h. Location within disposal area itself (is burial
part of cemetery, where is it in the cemetery, is
it part of a clear subsection of cemetery?)
i. Form of disposal area (are there cemeteries, are
cemeteries spatially organized?)
3. Burial context within grave
a. Arrangement of bones within the grave and
relation to furniture, and facility (furniture can
include grave goods as well as other features
of interment, e.g., coffin, ledges, ramps, etc.)
b. Form of the grave (what holds the body itself?)
c. Quantity and nature of inclusions (can include
objects as well as people, animals, vehicles,
etc.)
i. Type
ii. Quantity
iii. Source, raw materials used
4. Biological dimensions
a. Age
b. Sewx
c. Evidence for disease, pathologies (e.g., dental
caries), injuries, stress (patterns of arthritis),
and circumstances of death
d. Nutritional evidence
e. Cultural\behavioral modification of the skeleton
f. Genetic relationships
Source: Adapted from Wason 1994; Schulting 1995.
contains a typical ambiguity (as noted by Pearson et
al. 1999), in that the distinctions between the middle
ranks are not clear-cut. For example, cluster 3, with
more frequent gold items, was ranked above cluster 2,
but cluster 2 graves have more diversity of grave goods.
Without their independent evidence of the relative
value of rare metals (gold, silver, etc.), it would have
been much more difficult to resolve the relationship
among these middle ranks.
There are methods available, include constructing
Lorenz curves and Gini indexes, that can measure the
degree of inequality present in an ancient society but
without the necessity of establishing the presence of
actual ranks. These methods may be particularly useful
where ranking is emerging or not strongly developed,
as is the situation in the next case study.
Schulting (1995) conducted an extensive analysis
of mortuary practices on the intermontane plateau
of western North America, among over five hundred
burials spanning the past 2,000 years. Interested in the
emergence of inequality and ranking among huntergatherers—whose ranking may not be archaeologically visible—Schulting aimed to determine the degree
of inequality, rather than the presence and number of
ranks. Schulting (1995) used several quantitative techniques: grave lot value, Lorenz curves, and Gini indexes,
which can provide consistent measures of inequality
across a sample, giving the analyst consistent way to
measure inequality (Brown 1995). Schulting’s study
depends primarily on grave goods, but his methods
allow him to develop different lines of evidence from
them. Following McGuire (1983, 1992a,b), Schulting
(1995) assigned numerical values to particular types
of artifacts, based again on archaeological, historical,
and ethnographic evidence. Turquoise, for example,
was assigned a value (or weighting) of 5, a harpoon, 1.
These weightings were then used to calculate a grave
lot value (one piece of turquoise = 5 harpoons). The
grave lot value of a particular grave is the sum of the
weighting for all the grave goods present. The relative
wealth of graves could then be compared using this
value.
A Lorenz curve is essentially a cumulative percentage graph, common in economics. Schulting (1995)
based his curves on the taxonomic richness, or number of artifact classes in each of the graves he analyzed
(figure 28.1), finding thirteen graves with two or fewer
classes of grave goods, and at the other extreme, one
The Archaeology of Rank
49 9
Table 28.6. Distribution of Grave Goods among Old Silla Graves
Grave Goods
Grave good cluster in order of inferred rank (five highest). Figures are
percentage of graves with grave type.
Five
Gold crown
Gilt bronze crown
Silver crown ornament
Gold girdle
Silver girdle
Gold bracelet
Silver bracelet
Jade bracelet
Gold finger ring
Gilt bronze finger ring
Silver ring
Gold earrings
Gilt bronze earrings
Gold, gilt bronze decorated sword
Silver decorated sword
Gilt bronze decorated saddle bow
Silver decorated saddle bow
Bronze decorated saddle bow
Mean
40
60
20
50
80
50
40
40
60
30
40
100
0
80
40
70
30
20
47.2
Three
10
0
0
10
20
20
30
30
30
0
20
10
20
10
0
0
0
0
11.7
Two
Four
One
0
6
6
0
50
0
17
11
6
0
17
72
11
11
6
10
6
0
12.7
0
0
0
0
19
0
0
0
0
0
0
12
31
0
0
0
0
6
3.8
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
13
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.7
50
50
17.1
21
13
87
6.6
21.4
37.5
62.5
8.3
10
Other Measures
Percentage with coffins
Percentage without coffins
Mean number of grave good types
Average mound diameter (meters)
80
10
45.8
38.6
80
20
8.3
24
Source: Pearson et al. 1989.
grave with twenty-four types of grave goods. The
grave-good data are plotted as percentages (figure
28.2), forming a curve that can be compared to the
straight equality line that would be produced if grave
goods were equally distributed all the graves. Departures from the equality line suggest increased inequality. The graphs can be used to compare the relative
degrees of inequality within a sample (figure 28.3).
Although the Lorenz curve is based on the number of
artifact types while the grave lot value (GVL) is based
on summing the weighted values assigned to the types,
the two measures closely track each other for this
sample (figure 28.3).
The Gini index converts these curves to a single number between 0.0 and 1.0. (Schulting 1995;
McGuire 1983), which makes it possible to compare
Lorenz curves. The closer the index is to 1.0, the greater
the degree of inequality. For comparisons of indexes to
be meaningful, the index must be based on the same
kinds of data. For example, inequality of income in
dollars could not be compared with measures inequality using grave goods. Schulting (1995) used the Gini
index to examine whether the degree of inequality (as
measured by grave lot values and by grave lot diversity) increased during the past 4,000 or so years on
5 00
kennet h m . am es
the plateau (figure 28.4). Although the sample is small
(only two Middle Prehistoric sites), there is an interesting contrast between the Late Prehistoric and the
Protohistoric. There is greater variation of grave good
wealth in the Late Prehistoric. Protohistoric graves are
more uniformly wealthy. This may be the result of the
influx of trade goods making it easier to acquire wealth
(Schulting 1995). Schulting (1995) suggests that while
rich graves are found throughout the plateau, poor
graves are least common in northeastern Washington
State and most common in central Washington, in
the area of the confluence of the Snake and Columbia
Rivers. The differences are not strong but do suggest
further lines of research.
DISCUSSION
The GLV, Lorenz curves, and Gini index measure
inequality; they do not tell us whether ranking or
stratification are present. To establish ranking with
Schulting’s data, for example, further analyses such as
those used by Pearson et al. (1989) would be necessary.
Conversely, it would be possible to convert the Old
Silla data to Gini indexes and use them to measure
inequality between and within ranks. The index also
facilitates comparisons through time and space; how-
central zone of Copan (10L-22).
Using clustering techniques similar
to those employed by Pearson et al.
(1989), Abrams identified six clusters among forty-five Copan dwellings based on their energy costs.
The four lowest ranking clusters accounted for 85 percent of the structures in his sample, a reasonable
proportion. Of the remaining 15
percent, 10 percent were lower- to
medium-ranking members of the
elite, while only 5 percent belonged
Figure 28.1 Relative frequencies of grave good types (from Schulting 1995).
to the highest ranks, including the
king. Abrams’s figures are readily
converted to Lorenz curves (figure
28.5) and Gini indexes.
Elite residences tended to closely
cluster near the center of Copan,
most lying within 5 kilometers of
the center, and many within 800
meters. Artifacts associated with
elite residences were generally the
same as those from lower-ranking
households, although higher-ranking households usually had more of
some classes of tools. Evidence also
suggests (interestingly) little differFigure 28.2. Lorenz curves based on frequencies in figure 27.1 (from Schulting
1995).
ence in foods consumed across the
social spectrum at Copan (Webster
ever, the analyst must be cautious to ensure that the
et al. 1999), although presumably the king’s cornmeal
index is truly comparable.
was prepared differently from the peasants’. Abrams’s
analysis of construction costs at Copan is one of the
HOUSES
most explicit attempts to measure the energy costs
House Size
(and thereby how much energy was controlled by the
Variation in house sizes within a society can reflect
elite) of elite dwellings. His analysis is supported and
differences in household size, wealth, and status
fleshed out by the extensive survey and excavation
(Netting 1982, Feinman and Neitzel 1984; Blanton
work of others.
1994). Feinman and Neitzel (1984) found that special
houses were markers of status in 45 percent of their
House Size in Northwestern North America
sample, one of two of the most common markers of
Abrams developed his estimates of the labor costs of
high status (the other being special dress; table 28.5).
Maya structures by replicating the construction proVariation among houses in the Classic Maya site of
cesses used by the ancient Copaneños. Most archaeCopan, where the royal dynasty was founded around
ologists do not have such data and rely on differences
a.d. 435 and ended before a.d. 820 (Webster et al.
in house size as evidence for social inequality and
1999), a survey by Abrams (1994) used a typology of
ranking. Hayden (1997), for example, argues for rather
residential sites (table 28.7) and estimated the labor
strong degrees of inequality on the Fraser-Thompson
costs for the construction of residential buildings
plateau of interior British Columbia around a.d. 1200.
at Copan in person days (table 28.8), which shows
He relies on Lorenz curves and Gini indexes based on
clear differences in labor costs among the five types
house diameter to support his argument (although
of structures, the most costly being a palace in the
in at least one instance his curves conflate two ocThe Archaeology of Rank
50 1
Figure 28.3. Multiple Lorenz curves allowing comparisons among sites.
cupation periods and two distinct house forms). The
people of this region were hunter-gatherer-fisher folk,
and have long been regarded as examples of egalitarian
hunter-gatherers. Hayden uses other kinds of evidence
(e.g., the presence of status markers within structures),
but his hypothesis is based on house size.
Archaeologists on the Northwest Coast have also
used uniformity of house size to argue for the absence
5 02
kennet h m . am es
of permanent social inequality during
certain periods. Gary Coupland (1985),
for example, argues for an egalitarian social organization at the Paul Mason site,
the earliest excavated village site on the
Northwest Coast, because the areas of its
ten rectangular houses are statistically
identical. Houses with large floor areas
appear in northern British Columbia and
southeast Alaska after a.d. 500, suggesting
to several archaeologists (Acheson 1991;
Archer 2001; Coupland 1996a,b; Maschner 1991; Maschner and Bentley 2003)
that this marks the development of social
ranking in the region. This conclusion is
at variance with burial data from northern
British Columbia that indicates the developing of permanent inequality and ranking of individuals and households at least
1,000 years earlier (Ames 2001, 2005b).
This discordance between two major
lines of evidence (mortuary practices and
house size) suggests that the evolution
of inequality on the northern Northwest
Coast was not a straightforward, lineal development (Ames 2001, 2005a), and highlights the importance of multiple lines of
evidence. Absence of evidence of ranking
is not necessarily evidence for the absence of ranking. Of the eighteen societies
in Feinman and Neitzel’s (1984) study
with one status marker for leaders (table
28.5b), six (33 percent) had markers that
were archaeologically invisible. Of those
with two markers, 27 percent (4) had two
visible markers and 33 percent (5) had
one visible marker. The rest (6) had invisible markers. As the number of markers
increases beyond two, the likelihood of
having one or more with archaeological
visibility increases. Of course, of the nine
markers they list, only three are likely to
visible archaeologically (table 28.5).
House Contents
In addition to house size and construction costs, archaeologists have compared the contents of houses
in the same way they compare grave goods among
burials, with two basic measures: taxonomic richness of household contents (the number of artifact
classes) and the presence (or absence) of recognized
status markers. Hayden and Cannon
(1984) found that while upper-status
houses might have status markers, the
houses did not all have the same marker
(variation from house to house), and the
markers were usually not numerous in
any one house. In other words, there was
a great deal of interhouse variation in
what status markers were present, and
they seldom had any in great numbers.
A relatively large sample of houses was
required to confidently identify elite Figure 28.4. Changes in Gini indices through time on the Intermontane Plateau (from Schulting 1995).
households. This assumes that one can
determine which items are status markers. Grier (2001), in his analysis of a very large house
harpooners (Huelsbeck 1989). At Dionisio Point,
dating to about a.d. 500 at the Dionisio Point site in
Grier (2001) found evidence suggesting that ground
southern British Columbia, concluded that the central
stone tool production was associated with high status.
portion of the structure was occupied by elite individThese particulars cannot be applied to other cultures,
uals because that area of the dwelling contained most
but they do suggest the kinds of contextual data that
of the high-status items recovered in the excavations.
can be developed.
High-status items were identified as such based on the
regional archaeology and ethnography.
THE TRULY MUNDANE
Other lines of evidence may also indicate relaStatus differentials can permeate all aspects of life.
tively high status. At the Ozette site in northwestern
For example, Sapolsky (2004) demonstrates a comWashington, high- and low-status houses appear to be
plex relationship between status and health among a
distinguished by the floors of the higher status house
range of social animals including humans, with stress
having been more regularly swept and thoroughly
among low-status individuals being a key factor. In
cleaned of large debris, while the lower-status house
modern societies, stress seems to be induced by the
has more faunal remains incorporated into the floor
perception of being low status as much as its material
middens (Samuels 2001). Samuels (2001) was able to
consequences. Human skeletal remains can reveal stadetermine this because he had other measures of status-related differences in health and nutrition, which
tus (house size, presence/absence of high-status markis clearest in state societies, whereas lack of differential
ers of known value). Other markers of high status may
access is clear in small, egalitarian societies but often
include occupational specialization by elites. Some
ambiguous in midlevel societies (Danforth 1999). In
high-status individuals at Ozette may also have been
general status and diet are related, with high-status
specialists in certain activities, particularly as whale
individuals and households likely having access to
better quality, more varied, and more
prestigious foods (Emery 2003). Turkon
(2004) found some Mesoamerican
households were more heavily involved
than others in food preparation, and she
hypothesized that high-status households would be less involved in food
preparation and more involved in food
presentation through feasting. High-status households did have more diverse
diets than did lower-status households.
In general, she found that “food related
behavior varies more predictably in the
highest status households and is less distinguishable in lower and intermediate
Figure 28.5. Lorenz curve based on Abrams house data for Copan
The Archaeology of Rank
50 3
Table 28.7. Copan Site Classification
Type 5
Type 4 sites
Type 3 sites
Type 2 sites
Type 1 sites
Aggregate mound
Single mound
Nonmound sites
Main group complex (central urban architectural complex).
8–100 mounds, with multiple courtyards, some mounds more than 5 m. high. Construction
includes heavy use of high-quality dressed stone and vaulted ceilings. Sculpture is associated
with some structures.
6–10 mounds, with 1–3 courtyards, mounds less than 5 m. high. Dressed stone is abundantly
used for construction. Some vaulted structures.
6–8 mounds with 1–2 courtyards, mounds less than 3 m. high. Usually built of rubble and
undressed stone blocks. There may be some cut stone used.
3–5 mounds with 1 structure less than 1 meter high. Buildings on surface may appears as low
mounds no more than 1.25 m. high, constructed of earthen fill and rough stone retaining
walls. Dressed stone does appear.
2–3 mounds with no formal courtyard. Structures less than 1 m. in height, earth or cobble
construction.
Isolated mound.
Scatters of artifacts with no evidence of structures.
Source: Abrams 1994; Webster et al. 1999:31, 68–69.
status households” (Turkon 2004:244). This result is
reminiscent of Pearson et al. (1989) in their middlelevel ranks. Lepofsky et al. (1996) found a higher
diversity and density of food remains in the larger
house pits at Keatley Creek, suggesting larger houses
were occupied by higher-status households (although
the increased diversity could have resulted from longer
accumulate times). They viewed other lines of evidence, including the structured use of space for animal
butchery, as supporting the house-size hypothesis.
SPATIAL PATTERNS
Inequality and ranking can be indicated by the control, use, and display of space at a number of scales.
Houses set on extensive, well-groomed lawns (costly
signaling) are but one example. Other examples include visible and sharp distinctions between public
and private space, with access to the latter controlled
and guided through gates, wall ways, multiple doors,
inner courtyards, special gardens, vast and imposing
rooms, and so on. At the level of communities and regions, settlement hierarchies may indicate the degree
of ranking and form of power.
The existence of settlement hierarchies has long
been used as an indicator of chiefdoms and states; to
distinguish between the two, chiefdoms have at least
two tiers and states three. These hierarchies are administrative hierarchies, indicating the number of political
levels in the society, not necessarily the number of
social ranks or strata. Settlement hierarchies can be
constructed using evidence from cemeteries and burials, labor costs of construction, presence/absence or
degree of elaboration of elite or public architecture, or
some appropriate combination of evidence. However,
most such analyses begin with the size of the settlement (area) or community (number of people).
5 04
kennet h m . am es
Marcus and Flannery’s (1996) analysis of the evolution of political power in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico,
is an epitome of this approach. The state, which existed in the valley by 100 b.c., was centered on the massive site of Monte Alban, strategically placed on a high
ridge overlooking the center of the Y-shaped valley. In
this case, the presence of a well-developed settlement
hierarchy is best evidenced by a hierarchy of site size,
of four tiers. Tier 1 includes only Monte Alban, the architectural center, which had an estimated population
of 14,500. Tier 2 includes six sites within a day’s trip of
Monte Alban of an estimated 970 to 1950 people. Tier
3 includes thirty smaller sites of about 200 to 700 people, and tier 4 consists of small villages of fewer than
200 people. Marcus and Flannery (1996) infer that the
cellular structure of the regional hierarchy—tier 2 sites
at the center of local site hierarchies (cells) of tier 3
and tier 4 sites—reflects regional integration centered
on Monte Alban. This does not inform us about the
number of social ranks or strata in the valley, but it
does provide one line of evidence about political and
administrative organization.
THE ROOTS OF INEQUALITY:
THE INEVITABLE AMBIGUOUS CASES
In certain cases, particularly regarding complex
hunter-gatherers (King 1974; Ames 1981; Price 1981),
the markers of dominance and prestige are not archaeologically visible (Table 28.7). As originally defined (Price 1981; Hayden 1995; Kelly 1995; Koyama
and Thomas 1981; Price and Brown 1985), huntergatherer complexity was thought to include high (for
hunter-gatherers) population densities, food storage,
intensive food production, logistical mobility, some
degree of sedentism, elaborate technology that might
include art, and permanent inequality. As we have
seen, permanent inequality has been decoupled from
these other traits, which are now seen as its proximate
causes or necessary preconditions (Arnold 1996).
Natufian
As the culture that initiated the processes of plant
domestication in southwestern Asia, the Natufian
culture of the Levant, around 12,500 b.c. to 9500
b.c. (Bar-Yosef 2001, 2002), was markedly different
from the preceding Late Pleistocene (40,000 to 10,000
b.p.) hunter-gatherer cultures of the region, which
were mobile foragers with low population densities
(Belfer-Cohen 1991; Bar-Yosef and Valla 1991; Fellner 1995; Gilead 1995; Goring-Morris 1995). Late
Pleistocene sites are very small; structures and burials
rare (Fellner 1995). In contrast, the Early Natufian
(12,500 b.c. to 11,000 b.c.) appears to represent a significant increase in population, some level of sedentism, food storage, an intensive subsistence economy,
elaboration of material culture, trade, decorated objects—all the hallmarks of complex hunter-gatherers
(Bar-Yosef 1998, 2001, 2002; cf. Valla 1995). These
traits developed swiftly, by archaeological standards.
Late Natufian society seems less complex then Early
Natufian. For example, there is no visible conspicuous
consumption (Kuijt and Goring-Morris 2002). Increasing mobility and marked social changes appear
to be a response to the cold and dry Younger Dryas
climatic episode—an abrupt return to Pleistocene
conditions (Bar-Yosef 2002).
It is controversial whether Natufian societies had
permanent inequality. Burials before the Natufian are
rare and occur singly (Fellner 1995; Gilead 1995),
whereas Natufian cemeteries are common and large.
Early Natufian practices often involved group burials
in or associated with residential sites, usually interpreted as representing kin groups (Byrd and Monohan
1995), whereas Late Natufian burials are generally
of single individuals and are often secondary burials
(i.e., the corpse relocated, usually after being defleshed
and/or disarticulated), and lacking grave goods (Byrd
and Monahan 1995; Kuijt and Goring-Morris 2002).
A debate was sparked by Wright’s (1978) argument
that ranking was present among a sample of fortyeight burials from a major Early Natufian cemetery
(El Wad), which Henry (1989) invoked as support for
the Natufian being an incipient chiefdom. Subsequent
studies (Belfer-Cohen 1995; Byrd and Monahan 1995;
cf. Valla 1995) concluded that the variability of Natufian burials, while important, did not hold evidence for
permanent inequality. Byrd and Monahan (1995) rig-
orously analyzed a larger sample of burials (186) from
three sites, including Wright’s sample, employing four
dimensions: interment type (single or group); grave
construction (e.g., simple pit), body orientation, and
grave goods. Byrd and Monahan (1995) found that the
estimated labor (energy) costs of grave construction
were not associated with that of grave goods. Grave
goods were associated with 11 percent of the individuals, including children, youths, and young adults but
not older individuals, even in the same group burial.
Sometimes only one individual in a group burial had
grave goods. The most common of the grave goods
were beads of dentalium (horn from the Mediterranean coast), ranging from 1 to 368 per burial, with
other grave goods including bone pendants, singly and
in multiples, and bone and tooth beads.
Despite the thoroughness of this study, Bar-Yosef
(2001, 2002) argues that some form of inequality
existed in the Early Natufian since there was some
differential access to wealth or prestige markers, such
as the shell beads, the size and overall richness of
Natufian sites, and their geographic distribution (BarYosef 2002:113). However, multiple lines of evidence
are necessary to firmly demonstrate the presence or
absence of ranking. At present, these have not been
explored. For example, there is variation among Early
Natufian houses in construction material, size, and
internal arrangements (Fellner 1995; Valla 1995; BarYosef 2002). At least some Natufian houses required
planning and effort (Valla 1995). A consistent pattern
of differences in house size or construction cost might
point to some degree of inequality. Trash and midden
debris appear to be directly associated with Natufian
houses (Hardy-Smith and Edwards 2004). Differences
in the taxonomic diversity of domestic artifacts and
dietary debris could also be such evidence, as could
evidence for serving special foods, as in the foods
themselves (Emery 2003; Turkon 2004).
Jomon
The Jomon tradition of the Japanese archipelago, dating from 16,500 b.p. to 2300 b.p. (Habu 2004), associated with an enormous body of data and famous for
the oldest pottery in the world, is another complex
hunter-gather society of interest (Price 1981; Aikens
and Dumond 1986). Concerning the origins and persistence of permanent inequality, Jomon is not only
complex but also complicated. The Japanese archipelago spans about the same latitudes as the East Coast
of the United States, stretching from nearly tropical
to northern temperate zone climates but is perhaps
The Archaeology of Rank
50 5
Figure 28.6. Map of Japan with regions discussed in the text.
environmentally more diverse. Jomon cultures and
economies reflected this diversity both geographically
and temporally at several spatial and temporal scales
(Habu 2004). It is reminiscent of the variability seen
in Natufian mortuary practices as well as other aspects
of Natufian life but at larger scales. For the purposes
of this discussion, geographic variability is discussed
at two scales: eastern and western Japan (figure 28.6)
and, at a slightly finer scale, the Kanto-Chubu (KC) region and Tohoku region. These are the regions where
inequality most likely evolved.
Jomon populations were always larger in eastern
than western Japan; they grew slowly and peaked during
the Middle Jomon, especially in the KC region but in the
Tohoku as well (Habu 2004; Imamura 1996; Koyama
1978). Peak population densities, particularly in the
KC region, were quite high, relative to earlier and later
populations. The patterns of growth and decline vary
by region (figure 28.7); populations continue to grow
slowly in western Japan. The decline in Tohoku was
much smaller. The regional and temporal differences in
population trends are typical of Jomon more generally.
Subsistence appears to intensify at least during through the Early Jomon, and storage facilities,
present from the Early Jomon (Habu 2004), were
sometimes remarkable for their number and size in
subsequent periods. Subsistence was geared to local
habitats (Akazawa 1986). The differences in population history reflect broad differences in subsistence
and underlying environmental productivity (Aikens
and Higuchi 1982).
The basic Jomon dwelling was a small, semisubterranean pit house. Long ovoid or rectangular structures
are present in the Tohoku through the Middle Jomon
5 06
kennet h m . am es
and then disappear (Imamura
1996; Habu 2004). These are
usually interpreted as communal structures. Settlement
sizes increase in time through
the Middle Jomon, when some
very large settlements are present in eastern Japan. Settlement sizes generally remain
small in western Japan. These
large settlements sometimes
contain several score to hundreds of houses. Habu (2002)
argues that logistical residential
patterns evolved by the Middle
Jomon, when they were at their
most complex, and simplified in the Late Jomon in
eastern Japan with the decline in population.
Jomon is famous for its material culture, including
pottery, but also clay figurines, ground stone, woodcarving, lacquer ware, and personal adornment. Possible
prestige goods, ritual and other kinds of nonutilitarian objects become increasingly elaborate and diverse
through time, particularly in the Middle Jomon and
especially in the Late Jomon in Tohoku. There is evidence for specialized production in the Early Jomon in
lacquer ware and other forms, but evidence for specialized production is strongest in the Late Jomon (Habu
2004). A range of raw materials and perhaps products
were exchanged, including obsidian, jade, asphalt, and
salt (Habu 2004). Pottery may also have circulated between several pottery style zones, and as these crosscut
environments and subsistence zones, raw or processed
foods may have been exchanged as well.
Jomon mortuary practices diversified through time
(Habu 2004). If this diversity even indirectly reflects
social differentiation of Jomon society, then it reached
maximum differentiation in the Late Jomon in the Tohoku. Similarly the strongest evidence for permanent
inequality appears in Late and Final Jomon burials in
the Tohoku region. A minority of graves, including
those of children and adults of both sexes, contain
diverse arrays of grave goods.
Many of the proposed preconditions of permanent
inequality are present during the Early Jomon, including collector mobility, a productive subsistence base,
storage, exploitation of a diverse range of habitats, regional exchange, and even some degree of specialized
production of prestige goods. Populations were growing relatively rapidly in the KC region and somewhat
more slowly in the Tohoku. Early Jomon societies, at
Figure 28.7. Population trends during the Jomon. Dashed lines represent eastern Japan, solid
lines western Japan.
least in eastern Japan, were clearly transegalitarian in
the broadest sense of the term. The presence of both
small and large houses in eastern Japan might be evidence for inequality, but the latter are universally interpreted as communal structures. Population size and
the complexity of Jomon residential patterns appear
to peak in the KC region during the Middle Jomon
(Habu 2004) with conditions conducive for inequality to evolve: high populations and large communities
(population stress, scalar stress); productive resource
base and storage (the activities of aggrandizers fueled by surpluses) and elaborating material culture,
specialists, and regional exchange (elites coordinating
redistribution, controlling the flow of prestige goods);
collector strategies; and some degree of sedentism.
Permanent inequality does not appear to have evolved
in the period, however, but it does seem to have evolved
in northern Japan by the same conditions which led to
a decline in population (Habu 2004). This fits with
ideas about elites as managers as well as elites evolving
in response to stress. However, inequality develops in
the region with the smallest population decline, not
the largest. This, in conjunction with the Natufian
case, suggests that the stress cannot be too severe (e.g.,
the Younger Dryas) or too mild (there were surely
many stresses during the long Jomon).
There is never any definitive evidence during the
Jomon for strong degrees of inequality or for political hierarchies (e.g., settlement hierarchies). The evidence remains tantalizing (Kobayashi 1992). Jomon
cultures were transegalitarian for almost 5,000 years.
In contrast, wet rice agriculture spread to the main
island of Honshu by 300 b.c. or so. It seems likely that
chiefdoms developed rapidly within two hundred to
three hundred years and a state within seven hundred
years. While the speed of political change in Japan
after 300 b.c. reflects many things, it does show the difference between the resources available from hunting
and gathering and from rice farming to sustain social
and political complexity. However, the productivity
of hunter-gatherer economies alone does not explain
why permanent inequality took so long to develop in
Jomon Japan and developed so weakly. The Middle Jomon economy was probably robust enough to support
an elite and maybe even small chiefdoms.
Comments on Natufian and Jamon
Demonstrating inequality can be difficult, especially
in investigations of its fundamental causes, but at the
same time the failure to demonstrate ranking with only
one line of evidence does not demonstrate egalitarianism. Many scholars of the Natufian have concluded that
because the burial analyses do not indicate inequality,
Natufian societies were egalitarian (Byrd and Monahan
1995). Archaeologically, egalitarianism is generally
demonstrated by negative evidence (i.e., no evidence of
rank), rather than positive evidence for egalitarianism,
because of the deep assumption of default egalitarianism. This is particularly problematic as we learn that
the variety and diversity of ancient human cultures
exceeds the known ethnographic sample.
CONCLUSION
Studies of permanent inequality, ranking, stratification,
and vertical differentiation illustrate several elements I
think are critical to any such analysis:
The Archaeology of Rank
50 7
T
he use of multiple lines of evidence, as independent as possible of each other, is always essential.
House size, grave contents, tomb sizes, and differences in diet, for example, are all independent lines
of evidence. The number of lines of independent
evidence that can be developed is probably a measure of how pervasive and well developed ranking
and stratification were in a particular society. This
can be difficult when inequality or rank are either
not well developed or archaeologically invisible, but
careful use of lines of evidence that are not completely independent, as in Schulting’s use of mortuary evidence (e.g., grave lot value and Gini index),
can make a strong case for ranking. It is nonetheless
plausible to consistently underestimate how pervasive inequality and ranking were in the past, as the
absence of any evidence does not necessarily mean
the absence of ranking or inequality.
R
elative cost is a powerful proxy measure for economic control and power. Measures of cost can be
based on how much labor, planning, and time were
required to acquire, make, or build something. A
large stone house or a large tomb took more resources, time, labor, and planning to build than a
small wattle and daub house or simple grave in a
house floor. Estimates of relative costs must control
for time invested, which has profound implications
concerning the ability of an elite to field and control
labor.
M
ortuary ritual, including both burial practices and
the burials themselves, remains the principal broad
category of evidence available to archaeologists on
inequality and status. While there is rarely a oneto-one correlation between mortuary practice and
social organization, burials can provide significant
evidence about the status of individuals and groups,
as well as the degree of inequality or differentiation.
H
uman osteology (the skeletons recovered from
burials) can provide evidence of diet, longevity,
differential stresses, and overall health and body
mechanics, which are useful indirect indicators for
differential control of basic resources.
R
elevant evidence from domestic architecture includes house size, details of construction, and materials used. As with burials, temporal control is
essential.
R
elative wealth and economic control can be measured by the diversity of artifact assemblages and
the presence of raw or unique items, even among
very utilitarian artifacts. Elite residences may differ
5 08
kennet h m . am es
little from nonelites in the sorts of artifacts present:
they may have more artifacts or a greater diversity
of mundane ones. Where rank or inequality is not
strongly developed, it may difficult to document
rank or inequality using artifact assemblages from a
small sample of houses (Hayden and Cannon 1984).
Evidence for food preparation and diet can be important (Turkon 2004).
C
ontrol of space, both public and private, can indicate high status (Samson 1990), including difficulty
of access (privacy). High-status people get more
space, but what constitutes a lot of space varies from
culture to culture.
C
ontrol of space can be measured at a larger scale
than house or community layout. High-status residences at Tikal and Copan tended to be concentrated near the center of the urban area. Settlement
hierarchies can be evidence of administrative hierarchies.
Q
uantitative analyses are essential, such as those
that measure inequality as a continuous variable
(Gini index, Lorenz curves) and those that create
groups in order to discover social ranks (cluster
analysis).
W
hile it may be relatively easy to demonstrate the
presence of an elite and a nonelite, distinguishing middle ranks may be more difficult because of
ambiguities inherent in the evidence for the middle
position.
Explaining the origins and evolution of permanent
social inequality remains a great challenge to archaeologists. Only archaeologists can accomplish this, although we must draw on theory and evidence from
a variety of places, including sister disciplines such as
sociocultural anthropology. Demonstrating the presence or absence of inequality and ranking can be an
even greater challenge, especially in ancient societies
with evolving inequality and ranking. Pearson et al.
(1989) knew that Old Silla society was ranked, perhaps
even stratified, and they were fortunate to have a rich
mortuary record. In many instances such as the Natufian and Jomon the issue facing the archaeologist is
whether permanent inequality and incipient ranking
existed at all. Multiple lines of evidence are likely to
yield contradictory evidence, and different analytical
techniques applied to the same data can even yield
different results.
Finally, the absence of data for ranking is not evidence for the absence of ranking. The problem becomes one of demonstrating positively that the society
in question was egalitarian. In short, archaeologists
should be working not only with multiple lines of evidence, but with multiple working hypotheses as well.
Conversely, some evidence for wealth or inequality is
not, by itself, evidence for permanent inequality or
ranking.
It is essential that we begin to understand both the
modes of social evolution that produce permanent
inequality, ranking, and stratification and the tempo
with which these evolve or change (Ames 2005b). If we
eliminate ambiguous cases, we are likely to be eliminating the most informative examples. On the other
hand, if we see inequality and ranking everywhere in
the archaeological record, we fall into the error of crying wolf too often.
REFERENCES
Abrams, Elliot M. 1994. How the Maya built their world:
Energetics and ancient architecture. Austin: University of
Texas Press.
Acheson, Steven R. 1991. In the wake of the ya’åats’ xaatgáay
[Iron People]: A study of changing settlement strategies among the Kunghit Haida. Ph.D. diss., University of
Oxford.
Aikens, C. Melvin, and Don E. Dumond 1986. Convergence
and common heritage: Some parallels in the archaeology
of Japan and western North America. In Richard J. Pearson, Gina L. Barnes, and Karl L. Hutterer, eds., Windows
on the Japanese past: Studies in archaeology and prehistory, page?. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan.
Aikens, C. Melvin, and Takayasu Higuchi. 1982. Prehistory
of Japan. New York: Academic.
Akazawa, Takeru. 1986. Regional variation in procurement
systems of Jomon hunter-gatherers. In Takeru Akazawa
and C. Melvin Aikens, eds., Prehistoric hunter-gatherers
of Japan,73–92. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
Allard, Francis. 2002. Mortuary ceramics and social organization in the Dawenkou and Majiayao cultures. Journal of
East Asian Archaeology 2: 1–20.
Ames, Kenneth M. 1981. The evolution of social ranking on
the Northwest Coast of North America. American Antiquity 46: 789–805.
———. 1985. Hierarchies, stress, and logistical strategies
among hunter-gatherers in northwestern North America.
In T. Douglas Price and James A. Brown, eds., Prehistoric
hunter-gatherers: The emergence of cultural complexity,
155–180. New York: Academic.
———. 2001. Slaves, chiefs, and labour on the northern
Northwest Coast. World Archaeology 33(1): 1–17.
———. 2003. The Northwest Coast. Evolutionary Anthropology 12: 19–33.
———. 2004. Supposing hunter-gatherer variability. American Antiquity 69: 364–374.
———. 2005a. Tempo and scale in the evolution of social
complexity in western North America: Four case studies.
In Timothy R. Pauketat and Diana DiPaolo Loren, eds.,
North American Archaeology, 56–78. Oxford: Blackwell.
———. 2005b. The north coast prehistory project excavations in Prince Rupert Harbour, British Columbia: The
artifacts. British Archaeological Reports: International
Series 1342. Oxford: John and Erica Hedges.
Ames, Kenneth M., and Herbert D. G. Maschner. 1999.
Peoples of the Northwest Coast: Their archaeology and
prehistory. London: Thames & Hudson.
Archer, David J. W. 2001. Village patterns and the emergence
of rank in the Prince Rupert Area. In Jerome Cybulski,
ed., Perspectives in northern Northwest Coast prehistory, 203–222. Mercury Series, Archaeological Survey of
Canada Paper 160. Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Arnold, Jeanne E. 1996. The archaeology of complex huntergatherers. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
3: 77–126.
———. 2001. The Chumash in world and regional perspective. In Jeanne E. Arnold, ed., The origins of Pacific coast
chiefdom: The Chumash of the Channel Islands, 1–20.
Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Bar-Yosef, Ofer. 1998. The Natufian culture of the Levant:
Threshold to the origins of agriculture. Evolutionary Anthropology 6: 159–177.
———. 2001. From sedentary foragers to village hierarchies: The emergence of social institutions. In Walter G.
Runciman, ed., The origin of human social institutions,
2–38. Proceedings of the British Academy 110. Oxford:
British Academy.
———. 2002. Natufian: A complex society of foragers. In Ben
Fitzhugh and Junko Habu, eds., Beyond foraging and collecting: Evolutionary change in hunter-gatherer settlement
systems, 91–152. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
Bar-Yosef, Ofer, and Francois Valla (eds.). 1991. Natufian
culture in the Levant. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
Beck, Lane A. (ed.). 1995. Regional approaches to mortuary
analysis. New York: Plenum.
Belfer-Cohen, Anna. 1991. The Natufian in the Levant. Annual Review of Anthropology 20: 167–186.
———. 1995. Rethinking social stratification in the Natufian culture: The evidence from burials. In Stuart Campbell and Anthony Green, eds., The archaeology of death
in the Ancient Near East, 9–16. Oxbow Monograph 51.
Oxford: Oxbow.
Binford, Lewis R. 1971. Mortuary practices: Their study and
potential. In James Brown, ed., Approaches to the social
dimensions of mortuary practices, 6–29. Memoir no. 25.
Society for American Archaeology.
———. 1980. Willow smoke and dogs’ tails: Hunter-gatherer settlement systems and archaeological site formation.
American Antiquity 45: 4–20.
The Archaeology of Rank
50 9
Bird, Rebecca Bilege, and Eric Alden Smith. 2005. Signaling
theory, strategic interaction, and symbolic capital. Current Anthropology 46: 221–249.
Blake, Michael, and John E. Clark. 1999. The emergence of
hereditary inequality: The case of Pacific coastal Chiapas,
Mexico. In Michael Blake, ed., Pacific Latin America in
prehistory, 55–74. Pullman: Washington State University
Press.
Blanton, Richard E. 1994. Houses and households: A comparative study. New York: Plenum.
Blanton, Robert E., Gary M. Feinman, Stephen A. Kowalewski, and Peter N. Peregrine. 1996. A dual-process
theory of the evolution of Mesoamerican civilization.
Current Anthropology 37: 1–14.
Boehm, Christopher W. 1992. Egalitarian behavior and reverse dominance hierarchy. Current Anthropology 34:
227–254.
———. 1997. Impact of the human egalitarian syndrome
on Darwinian selection mechanics. American Naturalist
150: 100–121.
———. 1999. Hierarchy in the forest: The evolution of egalitarian behavior. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Boone, James L. 2000. Status signaling, social power, and
lineage survival. In Michael W. Diehl, ed., Hierarchies in
action: Cui bono? 84–110. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press.
Brown, James (ed.). 1971. Approaches to the social dimensions
of mortuary practices. Society for American Archaeology.
Brown, James A. 1995. On mortuary analysis, with special
reference to the Saxe-Binford research program. In Lane
A. Beck, ed., Regional approaches to mortuary analysis,
3–25. New York: Plenum.
Byrd, Brian, and Christofer M. Monahan. 1995. Death, mortuary ritual, and Natufian social structure. Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology 14: 251–289.
Cannon, Aubrey. 1995. Two faces of power: Communal and
individual modes of mortuary expression. ARX 1: 3–8.
———. 2002. Spatial narratives of death, memory, and transcendence. In Helaine Silverman and Davis B. Small, eds.,
The space and place of death, 191–199. Archaeological
Papers of the American Anthropological Association 11.
Carr, Christopher. 1995. Mortuary practices: Their social,
philosophical-religious, circumstantial, and physical determinants. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 2: 105–200.
Chang, Kwang-chih. 1986. The archaeology of ancient
China. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Chapman, Robert. 2003a. Death, society, and archaeology:
The social dimensions of mortuary practices. Mortality
8: 305–312.
———. 2003b. Archaeologies of complexity. London: Routledge.
Chapman, Robert, Ian Kinnes, and Klaus Randsborg (ed.).
1981. The archaeology of death. Cambridge: Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
5 10
kennet h m . am es
Clark, John E., and Michael Blake. 1994. The power of prestige: Competitive generosity and the emergence of rank
societies in lowland Mesoamerica. In Elizabeth Brumfiel
and John W. Fox, eds., Factional competition and political
development in the New World, 17–30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coupland, Gary. 1985. Household variability and status
differentiation at Kitselas Canyon. Canadian Journal of
Archaeology 9(1): 39–56.
———. 1996a. The evolution of multi-family households
on the Northwest Coast of North America. In Gary Coupland and Edward B. Banning, eds., People Who lived in
big houses: Archaeological perspectives on large domestic
structures, 121–130. Monographs in World Prehistory 27.
Madison, WI: Prehistory.
———. 1996b. This old house: Cultural complexity and
household stability on the northern Northwest Coast of
North America. In Jeanne E. Arnold, ed., Emergent complexity: The evolution of intermediate societies, 74–90.
International Monographs in Prehistory, Archaeological
Series 9.
Crumley, Carole L. 1995. Heterarchy and the analysis of
complex societies. In Robert M. Ehrenreich, Carole L.
Crumley, and Janet E. Levy, eds., Heterarchy and the
analysis of complex societies, 1–6. Arlington: American
Anthropological Association.
Danforth, Marie Elaine. 1999. Nutrition and politics in prehistory. Annual Review of Anthropology 28: 1–25.
Diehl, Michael W. (ed.). 2000a. Hierarchies in action: Cui
bono? Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
———. 2000b. Some thoughts on the study of inequality.
In Hierarchies in action: Cui bono? 11–30. Center for
Archaeological Investigations Occasional Paper 27. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Dornan, Jennifer L. 2002. Agency and archaeology: Past,
present, and future directions. Journal of Archaeological
Method and Theory 9(4): 303–329.
Drennan, Robert J. 1996. One for all and all for one: Accounting for variability without losing sight of regularities in the development of complex society. In Jeanne
E. Arnold, ed., Emergent complexity: The evolution of
intermediate societies, 25–34. Ann Arbor: International
Monographs in Prehistory.
Earle, Timothy K. 1997. How chiefs come to power: The
political economy in prehistory. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
———. 2002. Bronze Age economics: The beginnings of
political economies. Boulder: Westview.
Ehrenreich, Robert M., Carole L. Crumley, and Janet E. Levy
(eds.). 1995. Heterarchy and the analysis of complex societies. American Anthropological Society no. 6. Arlington,
VA.
Emery, Kitty F. 2003. The noble beast: Status and differential
access to animals in the Maya world. World Archaeology
34: 498–515.
Erdal, David, and Andrew Whiten. 1996. Egalitarianism and
Machiavellian intelligence in human evolution. In Paul
Mellars and Kathleen Gibson, eds., Modeling the early
human mind, 139–152. Cambridge: MacDonald Institute
of Archaeological Research.
Feinman, Gary, and Jill Neitzel. 1984. Too many types: An
overview of prestate societies in the Americas. Advances
in Archaeological Method and Theory 7: 39–102.
Feinman, Gary M. 1995. The emergence of inequality: A
focus on strategies and processes. In T. Douglas Price and
Gary M. Feinman, eds., Foundations of social inequality,
255–280. New York: Plenum.
Feinman, Gary M., Kent G. Lightfoot, and Steadman Upham. 2000. Political hierarchies and organization in the
Puebloan Southwest. American Antiquity 65(3): 449–
470.
Fellner, Robert O. 1995. Cultural change and the Epipalaeolithic of Palestine. British Archaeological Reports S599.
Oxford: Tempus Reparatum.
Fitzhugh, Ben, and Junko Habu (eds.). 2002. Beyond foraging and collecting: Evolutionary change in hunter-gatherer settlement systems. New York: Kluwer/Plenum.
Flanagan, James G. 1989. Hierarchy in “simple egalitarian”
societies. Annual Review of Anthropology 18: 245–266.
Fried, Morton H. 1967. The evolution of political society:
An essay in political anthropology. New York: Random
House.
Gilead, Isaac. 1995. The foragers of the Upper Paleolithic period. In Thomas E. Levy, The Archaeology of the Society
in the Holy Land, 124–140. London: Leicester University
Press.
Goldstein, Lynne. 1981. One dimensional archaeology and
two dimensional people: Spatial organization and mortuary analysis. In Robert Chapman, Ian Kinnes, and Klaus
Randsborg, The Archaeology of Death, 53–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goring-Morris, Nigel. 1995. Complex hunter/gatherers at
the end of the Paleolithic (20,000–10,000 BP). In Thomas
E. Levy, The Archaeology of the Society in the Holy Land,
141–168. London: Leicester University Press.
Grafen, Alan. 1990. Biological signals as handicaps. Journal
of Theoretical Biology 144: 517–546.
Grier, Colin. 2001. The social economy of a prehistoric
Northwest Coast Plankhouse. Ph.D. diss., Arizona State
University.
Habu, Junko. 2002. Jomon collectors and foragers: Regional
interactions and long-term changes in settlement systems
among prehistoric hunter-gatherers in Japan. In Ben Fitzhugh and Junko Habu, eds., Beyond foraging and collecting, 53–71. New York: Kluwer.
———. 2004. Ancient Jomon of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Habu, Junko, and Mark E. Hall. 1999. Jomon pottery production in central Japan. Asian Perspectives 38: 90–110.
Hardy-Smith, Tania, and Phillip C. Edwards. 2004. The
garbage crises in prehistory: Artefact discard patterns
in the Early Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 and the
origins of household refuse disposal strategies. Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology 23: 253–289.
Haviland, William, and Hattula Moholy-Nagy. 1992. Distinguishing the high and mighty from the hoi polloi at
Tikal, Guatemala. In Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase,
eds., Mesoamerican elites: An archaeological assessment.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Hayden, Brian. 1981. Research and development in the
Stone Age: Technological transitions among hunter-gatherers. Current Anthropology 22(5): 519–548.
———. 1994. Competition, labor, and complex huntergatherers. In Ernest S. Burch Jr. and Linda J. Ellanna, eds.,
Key issues in hunter-gatherer research, 223–239. Oxford:
Berg. ———. 1995. Pathways to power: Principles for
creating socioeconomic inequalities. In T. Douglas Price
and Gary M. Feinman, eds., Foundations of social inequality, 15–86. New York: Plenum.
———. 1997. The pithouses of Keatley Creek. Ft. Worth,
TX: Harcourt Brace College.
———. 1998. Practical and prestige technologies: The
evolution of material culture. Journal of Archaeological
Method and Theory 5(1): 1–55.
———. 2001. Richman, poorman, beggarman, chief: The
dynamics of social inequality. In Gary Feinman and T.
Douglas Price, eds., Archaeology at the millennium: A
sourcebook, 213–268. New York: Kluwer Academic.
Hayden, Brian, and Aubrey Cannon. 1984. The structure of
material systems: Ethnoarchaeology in the Maya highlands. Washington, DC: Society for American Archaeology.
Henrich, Joseph, and Francisco J. Gil-White. 2001. The evolution of prestige: Freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission.
Evolution and Human Behavior 22: 165–196.
Henry, Donald O. 1989. From foraging to agriculture: The
Levant at the end of the Ice Age. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press.
Hill, Kim, Hillard Kaplan, and Kristen Hawkes. 1993. On
why male foragers hunt and share food. Current Anthropology 34: 701–723.
Hobbes, Thomas. 1651. Leviathan. London: Andrew Cooke
Printer.
Hodder, Ian. 1982. Symbols in action: Ethnoarchaeological studies in material culture. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
———. 1986. Reading the past. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Huelsbeck, David R. 1989. Food consumption, resource exploitation, and relationships within and between households at Ozette. In Scott MacEachern, David J.W. Archer,
and Richard D. Garvin, eds., Households and communities, 157–166. University of Calgary: Archaeology Students Association.
The Archaeology of Rank
51 1
Imamura, Keiji. 1996. Prehistoric Japan: New perspectives on
insular East Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Joyce, Arthur A., Laura Arnaud Bustamente, and Marc N.
Levine. 2001. Commoner power: A case study from the
Classic Period collapse on the Oaxaca coast. Journal of
Archaeological Method and Theory 8: 343–385.
Kelly, Robert L. 1995. The foraging spectrum: Diversity in
hunter-gatherer lifeways. Washington, DC: Smithsonian
Institution Press.
King, Thomas F. 1974. The evolution of status ascription
around San Francisco Bay. In Lowell John Bean and
Thomas F. King, eds., California Indian political and economic organization, 37–177. Anthropological Papers no.
2. Ramona: Ballena.
Klein, Richard G. 1999. Archaeology and the evolution of human behavior. Evolutionary Anthropology 9(1): 17–36.
Kobayashi, Tatsuo. 1992. Patterns and levels of social complexity in Jomon Japan. In C. Melvin Aikens and Song Nai
Rhee, eds., Pacific Northeast Asia in prehistory, 91–98.
Pullman: Washington State University Press.
Kobayashi, Tatsuo, and Simon Kaner. 2004. Jomon reflections: Forager life and culture in the prehistoric Japanese
archipelago. Oxford: Oxbow.
Kornbacher, Kimberly D., and Mark E. Madsen. 1999. Explaining the evolution of cultural elaboration. Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology 18(3): 241–243.
Koyama, Shuzo. 1978. Jomon subsistence and population.
Senri Ethnological Series 2. Osaka: National Museum of
Ethnology.
Koyama, Shuzo, and David Hurst Thomas (eds.). 1981.
Affluent foragers: Pacific coasts east and west. Osaka:
National Museum of Ethnology.
Kuijt, Ian, and Nigel Goring-Morris. 2002. Foraging, farming, and social complexity in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of
the southern Levant: A review and synthesis. Journal of
World Prehistory 16(4): 2002.
Lepofsky, Dana L., Karla D. Kusmer, Brian Hayden, and
Kenneth P. Lertzmann. 1996. Reconstructing prehistoric
socioeconomies from paleoethnobotanical and zooarchaeological data: An example from the British Columbia
plateau. Journal of Ethnobiology 16(1): 31–62.
Lull, Vicente. 2000. Death and society: A Marxist approach.
Antiquity 74: 576–589.
Marcus, Joyce, and Kent V. Flannery. 1996. Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca valley. London: Thames & Hudson.
Maschner, Herbert D. G. 1991. The emergence of cultural
complexity on the northern Northwest Coast. Antiquity
65(6): 924–934.
———. 1992. The origins of hunter-gatherer sedentism
and political complexity: A case study from the northern
Northwest Coast. Ph.D. diss., University of California.
Maschner, Herbert D. G., and R. Alexander Bentley. 2003.
The power law of rank and household on the North
Pacific. In R. Alexander Bentley and Herbert D. G. Mas-
5 12
kennet h m . am es
chner, eds., Complex systems and archaeology, 47–60. Salt
Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Mayr, Ernst. 1982. The growth of biological thought: Diversity, evolution, and inheritance. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
McGuire, Randall H. 1983. Breaking down cultural complexity: Inequality and heterogeneity. In Michael B. Schiffer,
ed., Advances in archaeological method and theory. Vol.
6. New York: Academic.
———. 1992a. Death, society, and ideology in a Hohokam
community. Boulder: Westview.
———. 1992b. A Marxist archaeology. New York: Academic.
McHenry, Henry M., and Katherine Coffing. 2000. Australopithecus to Homo: Transformations in body and mind.
Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 125–146.
McHugh, Feldore. 1990. Theoretical and quantitative approaches to the study of mortuary practices. British Archaeological Reports, International Series 785. Oxford:
Basingstoke.
Neiman, Fraser. 1997. Conspicuous consumption as wasteful advertising: A Darwinian perspective on spatial patterns in Classic Maya terminal monument dates. In C.
Michael Barton and Geoffrey A. Clark, eds., Rediscovering Darwin: Evolutionary theory and archaeological
explanation, 267–290. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association.
Netting, Robert M. 1982. Some home truths about household size and wealth. American Behavioral Scientist 25:
641–662.
Nguyen, Vinh-Kim, and Karine Peschard. 2003. Anthropology, inequality, and disease: A review. Annual Review of
Anthropology 32: 447–474.
O’Shea, John. 1984. Mortuary variability: An archaeological
investigation. Orlando, FL: Academic.
O’Shea, John, and Alex W. Barker. 1996. Measuring social
complexity and variation: A categorical imperative? In
Jeanne E. Arnold, ed., Emergent complexity: The evolution of intermediate societies, 13–24. Ann Arbor, MI:
International Monographs in Prehistory.
Pader, Ellen Jane. 1982. Symbolism, social relations, and the
interpretation of mortuary remains. BAR International
Series 130. Oxford.
Park, Thomas K. 1992. Early trends toward class stratification: Chaos, common property, and flood recession agriculture. American Anthropologist 94: 90–117.
Pauketat, Timothy R. 2004. Practice and history in archaeology. Anthropological Theory 1: 73–98.
———. 2005. The forgotten history of the Mississippians. In
Timothy R. Pauketat and Diana DiPaolo Loren, eds., North
American archaeology, 187–211. Oxford: Blackwell.
Paynter, Robert. 1989. The archaeology of equality and inequality. Annual Review of Anthropology 18: 369–399.
Pearson, Richard, Jong-Wook Lee, Wonyoung Koh, and
Anne Underhill. 1989. Social ranking in the kingdom of
Old Silla, Korea: Analysis of burials. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 8: 1–50.
Peebles, Christopher S., and Susan M. Kus. 1977. Some
archaeological correlates of ranked societies. American
Antiquity 42: 421–448.
Price, T. Douglas. 1981. Complexity in “non-complex” societies. In S. E. van der Leeuw, ed., Archaeological approaches to the study of complexity, 55–99. Amsterdam:
University of Amsterdam.
Price, T. Douglas, and James A. Brown. 1985. Prehistoric
hunter-gatherers: The emergence of cultural complexity.
Orlando, FL: Academic.
Richerson, Peter J., and Robert Boyd. 2000. Institutional
evolution in the Holocene: The rise of complex societies.
In Walter G. Runciman, ed., The Origins of Human Social
Institutions, 197–204. London: British Academy.
———. 2004. Not by genes alone: How culture transformed
human evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rothschild, Nan A. 1979. Mortuary behavior and social
organization at Indian Knoll and Dickenson Mounds.
American Antiquity 44: 658–675.
Rowley-Conwy, Peter. 2001. Time, change, and the archaeology of hunter-gatherers. In C. Panter-Brick, R. H. Layton,
and P. Rowley-Conwy, eds., Hunter-gatherers: An interdisciplinary perspective, 39–72. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Samuels, Stephan R. 2001. Ozette house floor midden artifact distributions. Paper presented at the 54th Annual
Northwest Anthropological Conference, Moscow, ID.
Sapolsky, Robert M. 2004. Social status and health in humans and other animals. Annual Review of Anthropology
33: 393–418.
Sassaman, Kenneth E. 2004. Complex hunter-gatherers in
evolution and history: A North American perspective.
Journal of Archaeological Research 12: 227–280.
Schulting, Rick J. 1995. Mortuary variability and status
differentiation on the Columbia-Fraser plateau. Simon
Fraser University. Burnaby, BC: Archaeology.
Service, Elman R. 1975. Origins of the state and civilization:
The process of cultural evolution. New York: Norton.
Shanks, Michael, and Christopher Tilley. 1982. Ideology,
symbolic power, and ritual communication: A reinterpretation of Neolithic mortuary practices. In Ian Hodder,
ed., Symbolic and structural archaeology. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Shennan, Stephen. 1997. Quantifying archaeology. 2nd ed.
Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
Smith, Eric Alden. 2004. Why do good hunters have higher
reproductive success? Human Nature 15: 343–364.
Tainter, Joseph A. 1975. Social inference and mortuary practices: An experiment in numerical classification. World
Archaeology 7(1): 1–15.
———. 1982. Energy and symbolism in mortuary practices.
In Edwin G. Stickel, ed., New uses of systems theory in
archaeology, 63–75. Ramona: Ballena.
Thomas, David Hurst. 1983. The archaeology of Monitor
valley. Pt. 1., Epistemology. Anthropological Papers of the
American Museum of Natural History 58, pt. 1.
Trigger, Bruce G. 2003. Understanding early civilizations:
A comparative study. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Turkon, Paula. 2004. Food and status in the pre-Hispanic
Malpaso valley, Zacatecas, Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23: 335–251.
Ucko, Peter. 1969. Ethnography and archaeological interpretation of funerary remains. World Archaeology 1:
262–290.
Valla, Francois R. 1995. The first settled societies–Natufian
(12,500–10,200 BP). In Thomas E. Levy, ed., The archaeology of the society in the Holy Land, 169–189. London:
Leicester University Press.
Veblen, Thorstein [1899] 1973. The theory of the leisure
class. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Wason, Philip K. 1994. The archaeology of rank. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Webster, David, Anncorinne Freter, and Nancy
Gonlin. 1999. Copan: The rise and fall of a Classic Maya
kingdom. Ft. Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace.
Wolf, Eric R. 1999. Envisioning power: Ideologies of
dominance and crises. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wright, Gary A. 1978. Social differentiation in the
Early Natufian. In Social archaeology: Beyond subsistence and dating, 201–224. New York: Academic.
Zahavi, Amtoz. 1997. The handicap principle: A
missing piece of Darwin’s puzzle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The Archaeology of Rank
51 3