The Cultural Evolution of Material Wealth-Based Inequality at Bridge River, British Columbia

Abstract

S ocial inequality evolved in the Middle Fraser (Mid-Fraser) Canyon of British Columbia prior to European contact (Teit 1906). Long before the coming of Europeans, the ancient people of the Mid-Fraser Canyon constructed large villages (or towns) and their chiefs presided over massive households of sometimes 50 or more per-sons. Archaeological research in the Mid-Fraser villages offers the opportunity to develop and test theoretical models of emergent inequality (Prentiss and Kuijt 2012; Prentiss et al. 2007).Our research is concerned with the emergence of material wealth-based inequality. By emergence we mean development of a new or previ-A fundamental problem for anthropological archaeology lies in defining and explaining the evolutionary origins of social inequality. Researchers have offered a range of models emphasizing variability in the roles of managers, aggrandizers, ecological variability, and historical contexts. Recent studies suggest that the form of emergent inequality may have varied significantly between groups, implying that pathways to inequality may have varied as well. Unfortunately it has been difficult to test many of these models using archaeological data given their requirements for fine-grained assessments of spatiotemporal variability in many data classes. Recent research at the Bridge River site in British Columbia provides the opportunity to explore the utility of a range of explanatory models associated with early social inequality. Results of the study suggest that inequality, measured as significant variability in accumulation of a range of material wealth items, came late to the Bridge River site (ca. 1200-1300 cal. B.P.) and was associated with a period of demographic packing and apparent declining access to some critical subsistence resources. Assessment of interhousehold variability in demography, wealth accumulation, and occupational longevity suggests that markers of significant affluence manifested only in newly established houses. An important implication is that material wealth-based inequality may not have been hereditary in nature at Bridge River during the period prior to 1100 cal. B.P.La definición y explicación de los orígenes evolutivos de la desigualdad social son problemas fundamentales para la arqueología antropológica. Diferentes investigadores han proporcionado una gama de modelos que enfatizan la variabilidad en los roles de administradores y aggrandizers, versatilidad ecológica, y de los contextos históricos. Estudios recientes sugieren que la forma de desigualdad emergente pudo haber variado notablemente entre los grupos, lo cual implica que los caminos hacia la desigualdad pudieron haber variado también. Desafortunadamente ha sido difícil probar estos modelos usando datos arqueológicos, debido a que estos requieren detalladas evaluaciones sobre variabilidad espacio-temporal en diferentes clases de datos. Investigaciones recientes en el sitio Bridge River (Columbia Británica) ofrecen la oportunidad de explorar la utilidad de un rango de modelos explicativos aso...

The evolution of inequality

“…Prentiss and colleagues' 67,68 research in the Middle Fraser Canyon, British Columbia, discussed in the section on population pressure, is one example where the necessary data types, chronological control, and theoretical framework are brought to bear on the origins of PII. Village sites occupied by complex huntergatherers contain variably sized pit-house dwellings that can be precisely dated, with assemblages that are plausibly the results of household-level (that is, kin-based) behavior.…”

Anthropological Archaeology in 2012: Mobility, Economy, and Transformation

“…The emergence of material wealth–based inequality has been approached from a wide range of theoretical viewpoints, but most recent studies have focused on the household or community scale. Anna Marie Prentiss and colleagues () posit that the ability to accumulate wealth may have been a necessary condition for the development of ascribed inequality. In their historical and evolutionary analysis of the emergence of material wealth–based inequality at Bridge River Village, they argue that new households in the Bridge River Three period successfully accumulated prestige goods and utilized feasting and large communal food‐processing features.…”

A New History of Community Formation and Change at Kolomoki (9er1)

“…It should come as no surprise that large and complex archaeological sites often have complicated histories (e.g., Cook 2007; Davis, Walker, and Blitz 2015; Prentiss et al 2012), yet this has not been the guiding assumption through much of archaeology's history. Trigger (1989:286, 383) notes that while culture historians were ostensibly amenable to models of relatively rapid cultural change explained by diffusion and migration, in practice the reliance on relative chronologies and the tendency to see Native American societies as relatively static resulted in abbreviated chronologies wherein major changes were seen to occur only infrequently.…”