The object of this discussion is to present the fruits of archaeological research at a small-scale lithic source area located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, a region that was as thinly populated in prehistory as it is today. Mount Jasper is an example of a lithic resource that was consumed at a slow rate over a long period. The stone that was quarried there for flaked tools was not transported very far from the site. As we shall argue, the most economical explanation for the distribution of Mount Jasper stone is that users satisfied only personal needs. Since there is no evidence of exchange networks at any period in the region, there was no surplus production.

Introduction

In the south of the South Island of New Zealand (fig. 10.1), East Polynesian migrants established themselves about 1,000 years ago during a period of comparatively rapid exploration of their new home. Most of their settlements were concentrated along the coast at the mouths of streams and rivers where they could pull up large double canoes, exploit the resources of the sea (ranging in size from sea elephants to cockles), and use the waterways to gain access to forests and a rich avifauna. Among the stone tools which are found on their sites are adzes of typical East Polynesian types, quadrangular, triangular, and trapezoidal in cross-section. These are commonly interpreted as woodworking tools (Best 1977).

Introduction

Until recently, very few Mesoamerican obsidian quarries have been surveyed or excavated by archaeologists. Most of this chapter will be devoted to describing our fieldwork at the Pico de Orizaba, Veracruz, obsidian mines including the excavations done there by Stocker in 1973 which are still unpublished (Stocker, Cobean & Swibel 1974). To our knowledge the only excavation of a Mesoamerican obsidian quarry previous to the work reported here was done by W. H. Holmes (1900) in his pioneering research at the Sierra de Pachuca in Hidalgo during the late nineteenth century.

Introduction

Obsidian commonly occurs in parts of northwestern North America and this material was widely used by regional aboriginal groups. Archaeologists have been investigating the significance of outstanding quarries such as Obsidian Cliff since 1879 (Holmes 1919, 214). Obsidian artifacts are abundant in archaeological sites in southwestern Idaho but the raw material for these items has long been assumed to have been imported from the well-known sources in Yellowstone National Park and/or central Oregon (Gruhn 1961, 50). The local obsidian resources were either ignored or dismissed as occurring ‘only in small pieces unacceptable for tool making’ (Davis 1972, 42). Ethnographic reports reinforced the case against procurement at the southwestern Idaho sources. The Shoshoni in west central Idaho ‘must’ have obtained their obsidian ‘from no other place’ than Glass Buttes in central Oregon (Liljeblad 1957, 88).

Introduction

The study of prehistoric obsidian exchange in the Aegean basin has been greatly facilitated by the application of a wide range of physicochemical techniques to a very substantial series of samples. These analyses have demonstrated that for all practical purposes the outcrops on the Cycladic island of Melos were the sole sources of the obsidian found in varying quantities on sites, dating from about 12,000 to 3,000 years B.P., which are distributed over the whole of the Greek peninsula and throughout the Aegean islands (Cann & Renfrew 1964; Renfrew, Cann & Dixon 1965; Dixon, Cann & Renfrew 1968; Dixon 1976; Shelford et al. 1982; Aspinall, Feather & Renfrew 1972; Durrani et al. 1971; McDougall 1978; Perlès 1979).

Introduction

Although reports on ‘quarry analysis’ are appearing with increased frequency in the archaeological literature, only a small fraction of these reports involve economic analyses. An even fewer number of studies have sought to analyze the total lithic procurement strategy of prehistoric societies. With a small number of exceptions (cf. Ericson 1977; Bettinger n.d.), most quarry analysts have focused their attention on quarrying procedures and subsequent manufacturing activities at single quarry sites (cf. Singer & Ericson 1977). Economic analyses of lithic procurement strategies involving multiple raw materials have generally remained outside the scope of quarry analysis.

Of particular interest in this analysis is a subject which is often overlooked, namely, to understand the ways in which prehistoric groups scheduled their quarry activities when multiple raw materials with different quarry locales were needed.

Introduction

For many prehistoric cultures, the production of stone tools was a basic economic activity which provided the necessary means for obtaining food, making clothing, and constructing shelter. In Western economic terms, a demand for lithic raw material existed and was satisfied by recourse to quarries and other sources of stone. The scale of this demand would have determined the intensity and extent of quarry activity at any given quarry, and would also have determined the amount of time and energy expended in this way as opposed to other economic and noneconomic activities. Differences between demand and locally available supply would also have affected the need to obtain stone through trade or long journeys.

Despite the significance of the demand factor as a bridge between quarrying and other activities in the cultural system, there has been little attempt in either the archaeological or ethnographic literature to quantify demand.

Introduction

Teotihuacán, one of the two largest urban centers in the pre-Hispanic New World, lies a short distance northeast of Mexico City. At its height, about a.d. 200–600, it had a population of 150,000 and controlled much of the central Mexico region (Bernal 1966; Millon 1973). At that time it must have been importing enormous quantities of raw materials, both to supply its own huge population and to fuel the widespread trade network that it dominated. This raises a number of questions about the mechanisms involved in the exploitation and transportation of these resources. It is important to determine the role played by the Teotihuacán state in procurement, the scope and stability of the networks that were established, and the effects of these networks on the political and economic structures of both Teotihuacán and the source regions.

Certain problematic aspects of the notion of ideology as commonly constructed, and as applied to material culture and historical processes are discussed. The notions of discourse and prestige are introduced as means towards the resolution of these problems. It is argued that certain aspects of the archaeology of Wessex c. 2200–1400 be are best interpreted by means of a notion of competing and dynamic prestige systems. Many aspects of the radical alterations in the content and patterning of the archaeological record noted by prehistorians may be understood by positing a decisive and radical alteration in the systems of prestige and ritual practiced in Wessex. Although some criticisms are made of other interpretations of the Wessex material, the intention of this chapter is rather to supplement these by highlighting aspects of the record neglected in other accounts but of crucial importance in understanding much of the archaeological record.

Theoretical introduction

As archaeologists we are necessarily concerned with the symbolic dimension of social practices. The significance of ceramic design, burial practices, or refuse deposition, for example, lies in their symbolic and semantic character within a particular social and historical formation. Symbols and systems of symbols, as major elements in social action, may be seen as functioning in various ways. Bourdieu (1979), for instance, argues that a symbolic system can be seen as having three functions: as a means of communication, as an instrument for the knowledge and construction of the objective world, and as instrument of domination by establishing and legitimating, through its ideological effect, the dominant culture and concealing that culture's methods of division.

Ideology, power and long-term social change

The introduction attempted to provide a background to the ideas and approaches that have been used in this volume. In this conclusion we wish to point out some of the ways in which the application of these approaches appears to present promising possibilities for the future, and also to deal more explicitly with the relationship between them and the study of prehistoric materials. The focus of this volume has been on diachronic analysis. Only the paper by Welbourn is synchronically conceived. Of the other papers in Part two, the periods under study, roughly half a century for Leone, and a century for Miller, may seem relatively short but these are periods of rapid and considerable change. The case studies of Part three are based on periods of around one millennium. This is a particular feature of archaeological synthesis and indeed one millennium is not an unduly long period by the standards of the discipline. Such a scope necessitates consideration of factors not generally encountered in other areas of the social sciences.

For many archaeologists it has been precisely this long time-span that has been used to legitimate analyses founded on relatively mechanical and deterministic perspectives. The case studies presented here indicate that this need not be an inevitable result of archaeological analyses. Throughout the volume there is an emphasis on change as being predicated on a consideration of social factors inextricably linked with the form and nature of social totalities postulated for the segment of the past under consideration.

This chapter illustrates how the critique of ideology can be used for the study of material objects by reference to the familiar contemporary built environment. An outline is given of the Frankfurt School's model of the relationship between science and technology, and ideological control. It is then shown how modernist architecture fulfils the expectations derived from the model. Modernism cannot, however, be understood in isolation, but only in relation to other major traditions to which it is opposed. In Britain an important alternative tradition is the suburban semi-detached house. By examining the contrary values and ideals represented in these two traditions, the complex ideological underpinnings of the apparent meanings of the constructed world are revealed. One class of people are shown not only to objectify their interests in their own housing but to construct that which objectifies the values to which they are opposed, in such a manner, that they are able to make the consumers of these images appear as though they were the producers. Finally a parallel is drawn between the nature of authority revealed in this analysis and that of the four archaeological examples developed in the following chapters.

Introduction

This chapter is intended as a bridge between Chapter 1 in which an attempt is made to build a working model of ideology, and the archaeological uses made of that concept in the third section of this volume. It is devised on the lines of an old archaeological adage: when in doubt start from the best known and then work towards the least known.