Too Many Types: An Overview of Sedentary Prestate Societies in the Americas

Hawaiian Adze Production and Distribution: Implications for the Development of Chiefdoms. Barbara Lass 1994. Monograph No. 37. Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, v + 89 pp., figures, tables, appendixes, bibliography. $15.00 (paper)

“…Instead, it was the deliberate mobilization, use, and investment of resources by an emerging elite that contributed to the development of Hawaiian chiefdoms. The interpretation of Hawaiian redistribution as mobilization has influenced others to conclude that redistribution in chiefdoms and other complex societies also does not consist of the simple collection and dispersal of necessities and does not contribute to the growth of cultural complexity in the manner originally suggested by Service (Feinman and Neitzel 1984;Muller 1987;Peebles and Kus 1977). However, neither Service's scenario nor the rejection of it has been well tested with archaeological data and in particular with archaeological data from Hawai'i.…”

Ideas sobre transformaciones en las dinámicas de utilización de cementerios neolíticos y calcolíticos del sur de Portugal. Las dataciones radiocarbónicas de la cueva de Lugar do Canto (Santarém)

“…In the theoretical framework of "segmentary societies" (e.g., Renfrew [1974]; but see, among others, Feinman and Neitzel [1984], Hayden [1995] and Arnold [1996] for criticisms), aspects such as economic intensification and development of mechanisms of social differentiation -for example, through the rise of individuals within kinship groups or of lineages within larger communities-in conjunction with increasing pressure over resources and territories may have lead each segment or lineage to take explicit possession over the landscape and to negotiate with neighbouring groups the frontiers of their economic and social territories. Demographic growth throughout most of the Neolithic-Chalcolithic time span (visible, among other aspects, in the increasing size and number of cemeteries and buried individuals and in the appearance of large aggregation sites) may have also played a decisive role in this scenario.…”

Um estudo de Arqueologia Regional no médio curso do rio Tocantins, TO, Planalto Central brasileiro

“…Conquanto poucos se arrisquem a definir precisamente o conceito de complexidade social e que seja este um tema de grandes debates teóricos, dentro da arqueologia e da antropologia é consenso que algumas características são condizentes com as sociedades complexas: estratificação social, desenvolvimento de uma organização política centralizada, existência de relações institucionalizadas de desigualdade social e/ou grau de divisão do trabalho (Carneiro 1970;Steponaitis 1978;Feinman & Neitzell 1984;Price & Brown 1985;Creamer & Hass 1985;Earle 1989). Alguns trabalhos de análise espacial intra-sítio realizados no Brasil têm conseguido perceber algumas dessas características na distribuição da cultura material no sítio e entre os sítios (Wüst 1990;Wüst & Carvalho 1996;Viana 1996).…”