Tribal segmentation and spatial variability: The social organization of a prehistoric Yangshao village community.

Abstract

Segmentation is one of the most fundamental organizational aspects of tribal societies and has been well documented in ethnology. The organizational principle of a segmentary society is egalitarianism. Decision making is based on consensus rather than powerful leadership. Although the society is arranged into a hierarchy of social groups, such as households, lineages, clans, and the tribe, units of the same level of organization are structurally and functionally equivalent; or they are autonomous to each other. Nonetheless, the expression of segmentary organization in archaeology has little been studied. This dissertation is an exercise to use the spatial data of a settlement site to monitor its segmentary organization. Spatial organization of behavior is culturally significant. Human groups often use spatial separation and ordering to operationalize their cultural conceptions. Therefore, the spatial configuration of a settlement site should actualize the organizational principles of the community. Jiangzhai (c. 6300 B.P.) is an extensively exposed Yangshao settlement site in North China. The site's settlement data are exceptionally well-documented. The layout of the site can be represented by concentric circles with a courtyard in the center, a residential area in the middle, and a cemetery in the periphery. The residential area was partitioned into five spatially separated and homogeneous sectors. Each sector was headed by a large house, and a number of medium and small houses. Other features such as hearths and storage pits were evenly distributed among the five sectors. Although these features showed some formal variations, their distribution were not related to the spatial partitioning of the residential area. The locational patterns of artifacts also indicate that there were no specialization in food procurement and craft manufacturing among spatial sectors. All these support the proposition that the residential area was occupied by five autonomous social units. Further study of the distribution of various features indicates that each residential sector can be partitioned into smaller autonomous units. Most units contained one or several houses, hearths, and storage pits. Therefore, three levels of segmentary organization has been monitored by this spatial study: the households, clans, and the village community; and units of each level of organization were autonomous relative to another.