Beyond hierarchy: archaeology, common rights and social identity

Abstract

It is an archaeological commonplace that grazing across extensive pastures in many periods was shared, often over extended lengths of time, by kin-based communities who met there seasonally in large groups. Such explanations are richly implicit with models of social relations-there were large communities, they were made up of one or more kin groups, they shared pasture, and they had regular assemblies. How did that general framework of social structure and social relations work in practice, particularly at the level of the individual landholding? This paper explores the practical implications of a property rights approach to those questions, briefly illustrated in indicative examples drawn from the English fenlands across the longue durée. Its central contention is that the mutualities implied in the equitable, 'horizontal' governance of shared resources complemented and enriched 'vertical' hierarchies of power and status in complex societies of which they were both part.

Retranslating Resilience Theory in Archaeology

“…Petraglia et al (2020) show how Mesopotamian societies with developed oasis water management systems survived through the 4.2-4.0 ka bp drought, not because of any well-designed system, but because a niche that afforded buffers in the encounter with otherwise catastrophic events was maintained over the long term and hence allowed people to adapt. Other studies stress that the distributed capacity of resilience also involves forms of organization based on sustained principles of collective access or governance (Ostrom 1990, Oosthuizen 2016, Hütten 2018, Lagerås & Magnell 2020. For example, Thompson et al (2020) studied Native American oyster harvesting along the US Atlantic coast over a 5-ka span and showed that even though significant population fluctuations were associated with the size of the oysters and the species composition of the reefs, the niche appeared highly resilient in the sense that, in spite of fishery disruptions, changes in harvesting practices, competition, and estuarine and marine habitats, it remained persistent across the long term.…”

Societies against the Chief? Re-Examining the Value of “Heterarchy” as a Concept for Studying European Iron Age Societies

“…These need not have been in opposition to existing power frameworks but borne from them. It is likely that Middle Iron Age communities already had places in the landscape where communities could negotiate power, be they at hillforts (Lock, 2011: 360) or less archaeologically visible places, such as common land (Oosthuizen, 2016). The emergence of oppida in seemingly peripheral locations might be explained as the monomialization of some of those locations, as well as the creation of new ones (Moore, 2017).…”

What is a village? Agroscapes, collective action and medieval villages in northern Iberia

“…Yet, paradoxically, these developments have fragmented the notion of the village into a heterogeneous universe of concept and realities, challenging rather than resolving the dialogue between the disciplines. Hence, while historians emphasise the political, morphological and institutional dimension of villages (Zadora-Rio 1995;Carvajal Castro 2021), archaeologists increasingly address themes of collective creation and regulation and transformation of agro-silvo-pastoral resources in shaping shared identities and community-based social life (Peytremann 2015;Oosthuizen 2016).…”