Economic and Social Stress and Material Culture Patterning

Abstract

This article suggests that accepted interpretations of variability in nonlithic material culture are insufficient. Recent ethnographic fieldwork in Kenya and Zambia and anthropological studies of societies in Sudan and Nigeria demonstrate that culture may be used by groups to communicate within-group corporateness in reference to outsiders. The greater the competition between groups for resources, the greater the likelihood that material culture will play a part in the maintenance of internal cohesion. Distinctive types of distributions and associations of artifacts occur as strains develop between spatially or hierarchically defined groups. The relevance of this view to archaeology is shown by two examples. Finally, it is suggested that this type of approach will allow a better understanding of the underlying causes of social and cultural change.