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MONUMENTS AND SOCIAL COMPLEXITY: A NEW LINE OF ENQUIRY?
Author(s) -
OLIVEIRA D.L.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
oxford journal of archaeology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.382
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1468-0092
pISSN - 0262-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0092.1986.tb00133.x
Subject(s) - chiefdom , prehistory , earthworks , archaeological record , archaeology , history , social complexity , period (music) , ethnography , archaeological evidence , geography , ancient history , anthropology , sociology , art , law , political science , aesthetics , cartography , politics
Summary. Studies of prehistoric monuments have suggested that there may be a relationship between the amount of labour needed to build them and the complexity of contemporary society. To some extent such work has been influenced by the rich ethno‐historical record of the Polynesian chiefdoms. This article compares the role of large monuments in Polynesia with ethnographic evidence describing monument building in an Indian tribe. It concludes that an important contrast between the two examples is that in simpler societies monument building may be essentially an ‘event’, whilst in more complex societies monuments can be maintained for a substantial period after their erection. Similar contrasts can be found in the archaeological record in Britain and suggest that whilst Neolithic earthworks may have made greater demands on human labour, it was only in the Iron Age that society possessed the capacity to undertake regular maintenance of large monuments.