Ethnic Groups and Boundaries
by Fredrik Barth
Introduction
This collection of essays addresses itself to the problems of ethnic
groups and their persistence. This is a theme of great, but neglected,
importance to social anthropology. Practically all anthropological
reasoning rests on the premise that cultural variation is discontinuous:
that there are aggregates of people who essentially share a common
culture, and interconnected differences that distinguish each such
discrete culture from all others. Since culture is nothing but a way to
describe human behaviour, it would follow that there are discrete
groups of people, i.e. ethnic units, to correspond to each culture. The
differences between cultures, and their historic boundaries and connections,
have been given much attention; the constitution of ethnic
groups, and the nature of the boundaries between them, have not been
correspondingly investigated. Social anthropologists have largely
avoided these problems by using a highly abstracted concept of
'society' to represent the encompassing social system within which
smaller, concrete groups and units may be analysed. But this leaves
untouched the empirical characteristics and boundaries of ethnic
groups, and the important theoretical issues which an investigation
of them raises.
Though the naïve assumption that each tribe and people has maintained
its culture through a bellicose ignorance of its neighbours is no
longer entertained, the simplistic view that geographical and social
isolation have been the critical factors in sustaining cultural diversity
persists. An empirical investigation of the character of ethnic boundaries,
as documented in the following essays, produces two discoveries
which are hardly unexpected, but which demonstrate the inadequacy
of this view. First, it is clear that boundaries persist despite a flow
of personnel across them. In other words, categorical ethnic distinctions
do not depend on an absence of mobility, contact and information,
10
but do entail social processes of exclusion and incorporation whereby discrete
categories are maintained despite changing participation and membership in the
course of individual life histories. Secondly, one finds that stable, persisting, and
often vitally important social relations are maintained across such boundaries, and
are frequently based precisely on the dichotomized ethnic statuses. In other words,
ethnic distinctions do not depend on an absence of social interaction and
acceptance, but are quite to the contrary often the very foundations on which
embracing social systems are built. Interaction in such a social system does not lead
to its liquidation through change and acculturation; cultural differences can persist
despite inter-ethnic contact and interdependence.
General approach
There is clearly an important field here in need of rethinking. What is required is a
combined theoretical and empirical attack: we need to investigate closely the
empirical facts of a variety of cases, and fit our concepts to these empirical facts so
that they elucidate them as simply and adequately as possible, and allow us to
explore their implications. In the following essays, each author takes up a case with
which he is intimately familiar from his own fieldwork, and tries to apply a
common set of concepts to its analysis. The main theoretical departure consists of
several interconnected parts. First, we give primary emphasis to the fact that ethnic
groups are categories of ascription and identification by the actors themselves, and
thus have the characteristic of organizing interaction between people. We attempt
to relate other characteristics of ethnic groups to this primary feature. Second, the
essays all apply a generative viewpoint to the analysis; rather than working through
a typology of forms of ethnic groups and relations, we attempt to explore the
different processes that seem to be involved in generating and maintaining ethnic
groups. Third, to observe these processes we shift the focus of investigation from
internal constitution and history of separate groups to ethnic boundaries and
boundary maintenance. Each of these points needs some elaboration.
Ethnic group defined
The term ethnic group is generally understood in anthropological literature (cf. e.g.
Narroll 1964) to designate a population which:
1. is largely biologically self-perpetuating
11
2. shares fundamental cultural values, realized in overt unity in
cultural forms
3. makes up a field of communication and interaction
4. has a membership which identifies itself, and is identified by others, as
constituting a category distinguishable from other categories of the same order.
This ideal type definition is not so far removed in content from the traditional
proposition that a race = a culture = a language and that a society = a unit
which rejects or discriminates against others. Yet, in its modified form it is close
enough to many empirical ethnographic situations, at least as they appear and have
been reported, so that this meaning continues to serve the purposes of most
anthropologists. My quarrel is not so much with the substance of these
characteristics, though as I shall show we can profit from a certain change of
emphasis; my main objection is that such a formulation prevents us from
understanding the phenomenon of ethnic groups and their place in human society
and culture. This is because it begs all the critical questions: while purporting to
give an ideal type model of a recurring empirical form, it implies a preconceived
view of what are the significant factors in the genesis, structure, and function of
such groups.
Most critically, it allows us to assume that boundary maintenance is
unproblematical and follows from the isolation which the itemized characteristics
imply: racial difference, cultural difference, social separation and language barriers,
spontaneous and organized enmity. This also limits the range of factors that we use
to explain cultural diversity: we are led to imagine each group developing its
cultural and social form in relative isolation, mainly in response to local ecologic
factors, through a history of adaptation by invention and selective borrowing. This
history has produced a world of separate peoples, each with their culture and each
organized in a society which can legitimately be isolated for description as an island
to itself.
Ethnic groups as culture-bearing units
Rather than discussing the adequacy of this version of culture history for other than
pelagic islands, let us look at some of the logical flaws in the viewpoint. Among the
characteristics listed above, the sharing of a common culture is generally given
central importance. In my view, much can be gained by regarding this very
important feature as an implication or result, rather than a primary and definitional
characteristic of ethnic group organization. If one chooses to regard
12
the culture-bearing aspect of ethnic groups as their primary characteristic, this has
far-reaching implications. One is led to identify and distinguish ethnic groups by the
morphological characteristics of the cultures of which they are the bearers. This
entails a prejudged viewpoint both on (1) the nature of continuity in time of such
units, and (2) the locus of the factors which determine the form of the units.
1. Given the emphasis on the culture-bearing aspect, the classification of persons
and local groups as members of an ethnic group must depend on their exhibiting the
particular traits of the culture. This is something that can be judged objectively by
the ethnographic observer, in the culture-area tradition, regardless of the categories
and prejudices of the actors. Differences between groups become differences in
trait inventories; the attention is drawn to the analysis of cultures, not of ethnic
organization. The dynamic relationship between groups will then be depicted in
acculturation studies of the kind that have been attracting decreasing interest in
anthropology, though their theoretical inadequacies have never been seriously
discussed. Since the historical provenance of any assemblage of culture traits is
diverse, the viewpoint also gives scope for an 'ethnohistory' which chronicles
cultural accretion and change, and seeks to explain why certain items were
borrowed. However, what is the unit whose continuity in time is depicted in such
studies? Paradoxically, it must include cultures in the past which would clearly be
excluded in the present because of differences in form - differences of precisely the
kind that are diagnostic in synchronic differentiation of ethnic units. The
interconnection between 'ethnic group' and 'culture' is certainly not clarified
through this confusion.
2. The overt cultural forms which can be itemized as traits exhibit the effects of
ecology. By this I do not mean to refer to the fact that they reflect a history of
adaptation to environment; in a more immediate way they also reflect the external
circumstances to which actors must accommodate themselves. The same group of
people, with unchanged values and ideas, would surely pursue different patterns of
life and institutionalize different forms of behaviour when faced with the different
opportunities offered in different environments? Likewise, we must expect to find
that one ethnic group, spread over a territory with varying ecologic circumstances,
will exhibit regional diversities of overt institutionalized behaviour which do not
reflect differences in cultural orientation. How should they then be classified if
overt institutional forms are diagnostic? A case in point is the
13
distributions and diversity of Pathan local social systems, discussed below (pp. 117
ff.). By basic Pathan values, a Southern Pathan from the homogeneous, lineageorganized
mountain areas, can only find the behaviour of Pathans in Swat so
different from, and reprehensible in terms of, their own values that they declare
their northern brothers 'no longer Pathan'. Indeed, by 'objective' criteria, their overt
pattern of organization seems much closer to that of Panjabis. But I found it
possible, by explaining the circumstances in the north, to make Southern Pathans
agree that these were indeed Pathans too, and grudgingly to admit that under those
circumstances they might indeed themselves act in the same way. It is thus
inadequate to regard overt institutional forms as constituting the cultural features
which at any time distinguish an ethnic group - these overt forms are determined by
ecology as well as by transmitted culture. Nor can it be claimed that every such
diversification within a group represents a first step in the direction of subdivision
and multiplication of units. We have well-known documented cases of one ethnic
group, also at a relatively simple level of economic organization, occupying several
different ecologic niches and yet retaining basic cultural and ethnic unity over long
periods (cf., e.g., inland and coastal Chuckchee (Bogoras 1904-9) or reindeer, river,
and coast Lapps (Gjessing, 1954)).
In one of the following essays, Blom (pp. 74 ff.) argues cogently on this point with
reference to central Norwegian mountain farmers. He shows how their
participation and self-evaluation in terms of general Norwegian values secures them
continued membership in the larger ethnic group, despite the highly characteristic
and deviant patterns of activity which the local ecology imposes on them. To
analyse such cases, we need a viewpoint that does not confuse the effects of
ecologic circumstances on behaviour with those of cultural tradition, but which
makes it possible to separate these factors and investigate the nonecological cultural
and social components creating diversity.
Ethnic groups as an organizational type
By concentrating on what is socially effective, ethnic groups are seen as a form of
social organization. The critical feature then becomes item (4) in the list on p. 11
the characteristic of self-ascription and ascription by others. A categorical ascription
is an ethnic ascription when it classifies a person in terms of his basic, most general
identity, presumptively determined by his origin and background. To the extent
that actors use ethnic identities to categorize themselves and others for
14
purposes of interaction, they form ethnic groups in this organizational sense.
It is important to recognize that although ethnic categories take cultural differences
into account, we can assume no simple one-to-one relationship between ethnic
units and cultural similarities and differences. The features that are taken into
account are not the sum of 'objective' differences, but only those which the actors
themselves regard as significant. Not only do ecologic variations mark and
exaggerate differences; some cultural features are used by the actors as signals and
emblems of differences, others are ignored, and in some relationships radical
differences are played down and denied. The cultural contents of ethnic
dichotomies would seem analytically to be of two orders: (i) overt signals or signs the
diacritical features that people look for and exhibit to show identity, often such
features as dress, language, house-form, or general style of life, and (ii) basic value
orientations: the standards of morality and excellence by which performance is
judged. Since belonging to an ethnic category implies being a certain kind of person,
having that basic identity, it also implies a claim to be judged, and to judge oneself,
by those standards that are relevant to that identity. Neither of these kinds of
cultural 'contents' follows from a descriptive list of cultural features or cultural
differences; one cannot predict from first principles which features will be
emphasized and made organizationally relevant by the actors. In other words, ethnic
categories provide an organizational vessel that may be given varying amounts and
forms of content in different socio-cultural systems. They may be of great relevance
to behaviour, but they need not be; they may pervade all social life, or they may be
relevant only in limited sectors of activity. There is thus an obvious scope for
ethnographic and comparative descriptions of different forms of ethnic
organization.
The emphasis on ascription as the critical feature of ethnic groups also solves the
two conceptual difficulties that were discussed above.
1. When defined as an ascriptive and exclusive group, the nature of continuity of
ethnic units is clear: it depends on the maintenance of a boundary. The cultural
features that signal the boundary may change, and the cultural characteristics of the
members may likewise be transformed, indeed, even the organizational form of the
group may change - yet the fact of continuing dichotomization between members
and outsiders allows us to specify the nature of continuity, and investigate the
changing cultural form and content.
15
2. Socially relevant factors alone become diagnostic for membership, not the overt,
'objective' differences which are generated by other factors. It makes no difference
how dissimilar members may be in their overt behaviour - if they say they are A, in
contrast to another cognate category B, they are willing to be treated and let their
own behaviour be interpreted and judged as A's and not as B's; in other words, they
declare their allegiance to the shared culture of A's. The effects of this, as compared
to other factors influencing actual behaviour, can then be made the object of
investigation.
The boundaries of ethnic groups
The critical focus of investigation from this point of view becomes the ethnic
boundary that defines the group, not the cultural stuff that it encloses. The
boundaries to which we must give our attention are of course social boundaries,
though they may have territorial counterparts. If a group maintains its identity when
members interact with others, this entails criteria for determining membership and
ways of signalling membership and exclusion. Ethnic groups are not merely or
necessarily based on the occupation of exclusive territories; and the different ways
in which they are maintained, not only by a once-andfor-all recruitment but by
continual expression and validation, need to be analysed.
What is more, the ethnic boundary canalizes social life - it entails a frequently quite
complex organization of behaviour and social relations. The identification of
another person as a fellow member of an ethnic group implies a sharing of criteria
for evaluation and judgement. It thus entails the assumption that the two are
fundamentally 'playing the same game', and this means that there is between them a
potential for diversification and expansion of their social relationship to cover
eventually all different sectors and domains of activity. On the other hand, a
dichotomization of others as strangers, as members of another ethnic group, implies
a recognition of limitations on shared understandings, differences in criteria for
judgement of value and performance, and a restriction of interaction to sectors of
assumed common understanding and mutual interest.
This makes it possible to understand one final form of boundary maintenance
whereby cultural units and boundaries persist. Entailed in ethnic boundary
maintenance are also situations of social contact between persons of different
cultures: ethnic groups only persist as significant units if they imply marked
difference in behaviour, i.e.
16
persisting cultural differences. Yet where persons of different culture interact, one
would expect these differences to he reduced, since interaction both requires and
generates a congruence of codes and values - in other words, a similarity or
community of culture (cf. Barth 1966, for my argumentation on this point). Thus
the persistence of ethnic groups in contact implies not only criteria and signals for
identification, but also a structuring of interaction which allows the persistence of
cultural differences. The organizational feature which, I would argue, must be
general for all inter-ethnic relations is a systematic set of rules governing interethnic
social encounters. In all organized social life, what can be made relevant to
interaction in any particular social situation is prescribed (Goffman 1959). If people
agree about these prescriptions, their agreement on codes and values need not
extend beyond that which is relevant to the social situations in which they interact.
Stable inter-ethnic relations presuppose such a structuring of interaction: a set of
prescriptions governing situations of contact, and allowing for articulation in some
sectors or domains of activity, and a set of proscriptions on social situations
preventing inter-ethnic interaction in other sectors, and thus insulating parts of the
cultures from confrontation and modification.
Poly-ethnic social systems
This of course is what Furnivall (1944) so clearly depicted in his analysis of plural
society: a poly-ethnic society integrated in the market place, under the control of a
state system dominated by one of the groups, but leaving large areas of cultural
diversity in the religious and domestic sectors of activity.
What has not been adequately appreciated by later anthropologists is the possible
variety of sectors of articulation and separation, and the variety of poly-ethnic
systems which this entails. We know of some of the Melanesian trade systems in
objects belonging to the highprestige sphere of the economy, and even some of the
etiquette and prescriptions governing the exchange situation and insulating it from
other activities. We have information on various traditional polycentric systems
from S.E. Asia (discussed below, Izikowitz pp. 135 ff.) integrated both in the
prestige trade sphere and in quasi-feudal political structures. Some regions of S.W.
Asia show forms based on a more fully monetized market economy, while political
integration is polycentric in character. There is also the ritual and productive
cooperation and political integration of the Indian caste system to be con-
l7
sidered, where perhaps only kinship and domestic life remain as a proscribed sector
and a wellspring for cultural diversity. Nothing can be gained by lumping these
various systems under the increasingly vague label of 'plural' society, whereas an
investigation of the varieties of structure can shed a great deal of light on social and
cultural forms.
What can be referred to as articulation and separation on the macro-level
corresponds to systematic sets of role constraints on the micro-level. Common to all
these systems is the principle that ethnic identity implies a series of constraints on
the kinds of roles an individual is allowed to play, and the partners he may choose
for different kinds of transactions.' In other words, regarded as a status, ethnic
identity is superordinate to most other statuses, and defines the permissible
constellations of statuses, or social personalities, which an individual with that
identity may assume. In this respect ethnic identity is similar to sex and rank, in that
it constrains the incumbent in all his activities, not only in some defined social
situations? One might thus also say that it is imperative in that it cannot be
disregarded and temporarily set aside by other definitions of the situation. The
constraints on a person's behaviour which spring from his ethnic identity thus tend
to be absolute and, in complex poly-ethnic societies, quite comprehensive; and the
component moral and social conventions are made further resistant to change by
being joined in stereotyped clusters as characteristics of one single identity.
The associations of identities and value standards
The analysis of interactional and organizational features of interethnic relations has
suffered from a lack of attention to problems of boundary maintenance. This is
perhaps because anthropologists have reasoned from a misleading idea of the
prototype inter-ethnic situation. One has tended to think in terms of different
peoples, with different histories and cultures, coming together and accommodating
themselves to each other, generally in a colonial setting. To visualize the basic
requirements for the coexistence of ethnic diversity, I would suggest that we rather
ask ourselves what is needed to make ethnic distinctions emerge in an area. The
organizational requirements are clearly, first, a categorization of population sectors
in exclusive and imperative status categories, and second, an acceptance of the
principle that standards applied to one such category can be different from that
applied to another. Though this alone does not explain why cultural
18
differences emerge, it does allow us to see how they persist. Each category can then
be associated with a separate range of value standards. The greater the differences
between these value orientations are, the more constraints on inter-ethnic
interaction do they entail: the statuses and situations in the total social system
involving behaviour which is discrepant with a person's value orientations must be
avoided, since such behaviour on his part will be negatively sanctioned. Moreover,
because identities are signalled as well as embraced, new forms of behaviour will
tend to be dichotomized: one would expect the role constraints to operate in such a
way that persons would be reluctant to act in new ways from a fear that such
behaviour might be inappropriate for a person of their identity, and swift to classify
forms of activity as associated with one or another cluster of ethnic characteristics.
Just as dichotomizations of male versus female work seem to proliferate in some
societies, so also the existence of basic ethnic categories would seem to be a factor
encouraging the proliferation of cultural differentiae.
In such systems, the sanctions producing adherence to group-specific values are not
only exercised by those who share the identity. Again, other imperative statuses
afford a parallel: just as both sexes ridicule the male who is feminine, and all classes
punish the proletarian who puts on airs, so also can members of all ethnic groups in
a poly-ethnic society act to maintain dichotomies and differences. Where social
identities are organized and allocated by such principles, there will thus be a
tendency towards canalization and standardization of interaction and the emergence
of boundaries which maintain and generate ethnic diversity within larger,
encompassing social systems.
Interdependence of ethnic groups
The positive bond that connects several ethnic groups in an encompassing social
system depends on the complementarity of the groups with respect to some of their
characteristic cultural features. Such complementarity can give rise to
interdependence or symbiosis, and constitutes the areas of articulation referred to
above; while in the fields where there is no complementarity there can be no basis
for organization on ethnic lines - there will either be no interaction, or interaction
without reference to ethnic identity.
Social systems differ greatly in the extent to which ethnic identity, as an imperative
status, constrains the person in the variety of statuses and roles he may assume.
Where the distinguishing values connected
19
with ethnic identity are relevant only to a few kinds of activities, the social
organization based on it will be similarly limited. Complex polyethnic systems, on
the other hand, clearly entail the existence of extensively relevant value differences
and multiple constraints on status combinations and social participation. In such
systems, the boundary maintaining mechanisms must be highly effective, for the
following reasons: (i) the complexity is based on the existence of important,
complementary cultural differences; (ii) these differences must be generally
standardized within the ethnic group - i.e. the status cluster, or social person, of
every member of a group must be highly stereotyped - so that inter-ethnic
interaction can be based on ethnic identities; and (iii) the cultural characteristics of
each ethnic group must be stable, so that the complementary differences on which
the systems rest can persist in the face of close inter-ethnic contact. Where these
conditions obtain, ethnic groups can make stable and symbiotic adaptations to each
other: other ethnic groups in the region become a part of the natural environment;
the sectors of articulation provide areas that can be exploited, while the other
sectors of activity of other groups are largely irrelevant from the point of view of
members of any one group.
Ecologic perspective
Such interdependence's can partly be analysed from the point of view of cultural
ecology, and the sectors of activity where other populations with other cultures
articulate may be thought of as niches to which the group is adapted. This ecologic
interdependence may take several different forms, for which one may construct a
rough typology. Where two or more ethnic groups are in contact, their adaptations
may entail the following forms:
(1) They may occupy clearly distinct niches in the natural environment and be in
minimal competition for resources. In this case their interdependence will be limited
despite co-residence in the area, and the articulation will tend to be mainly through
trade, and perhaps in a ceremonial-ritual sector.
(2) They may monopolize separate territories, in which case they are in competition
for resources and their articulation will involve politics along the border, and
possibly other sectors.
(3) They may provide important goods and services for each other, i.e. occupy
reciprocal and therefore different niches but in close interdependence. If they do
not articulate very closely in the political
20
sector, this entails a classical symbiotic situation and a variety of possible fields of
articulation. If they also compete and accommodate through differential
monopolization of the means of production, this entails a close political and
economic articulation, with open possibilities for other forms of interdependence as
well.
These alternatives refer to stable situations. But very commonly, one will also find a
fourth main form: where two or more interspersed groups are in fact in at least
partial competition within the same niche. With time one would expect one such
group to displace the other, or an accommodation involving an increasing
complementarity and interdependence to develop.
From the anthropological literature one can doubtless think of type cases for most
of these situations. However, if one looks carefully at most empirical cases, one will
find fairly mixed situations obtaining, and only quite gross simplifications can
reduce them to simple types. I have tried elsewhere (Barth 1964) to illustrate this
for an area of Baluchistan, and expect that it is generally true that an ethnic group,
on the different boundaries of its distribution and in its different accommodations,
exhibits several of these forms in its relations to other groups.
Demographic perspective
These variables, however, only go part of the way in describing the adaptation of a
group. While showing the qualitative, (and ideally quantitative) structure of the
niches occupied by a group, one cannot ignore the problems of number and balance
in its adaptation. Whenever a population is dependent on its exploitation of a niche
in nature, this implies an upper limit on the size it may attain corresponding to the
carrying capacity of that niche; and any stable adaptation entails a control on
population size. If, on the other hand, two populations are ecologically
interdependent, as two ethnic groups in a symbiotic relationship, this means that
any variation in the size of one must have important effects on the other. In the
analysis of any poly-ethnic system for which we assert any degree of time depth, we
must therefore be able to explain the processes whereby the sizes of the
interdependent ethnic groups are balanced. The demographic balances involved are
thus quite complex, since a group's adaptation to a niche in nature is affected by its
absolute size, while a group's adaptation to a niche constituted by another ethnic
group is affected by its relative size.
21
The demographic problems in an analysis of ethnic inter-relations in a region thus
centre on the forms of recruitment to ethnic groups and the question of how, if at
all, their rates are sensitive to pressures on the different niches which each group
exploits. These factors are highly critical for the stability of any poly-ethnic system,
and it might look as if any population change would prove destructive. This does
not necessarily seem to follow, as documented e.g. in the essay by Siverts (pp. 101
ff.), but in most situations the poly-ethnic systems we observe do entail quite
complex processes of population movement and adjustment. It becomes clear that a
number of factors other than human fertility and mortality affect the balance of
numbers. From the point of view of any one territory, there are the factors of
individual and group movements: emigration that relieves pressure, immigration
that maintains one or several co-resident groups as outpost settlements of larger
population reservoirs elsewhere. Migration and conquest play an intermittent role
in redistributing populations and changing their relations. But the most interesting
and often critical role is played by another set of processes that effect changes of
the identity of individuals and groups. After all, the human material that is
organized in an ethnic group is not immutable, and though the social mechanisms
discussed so far tend to maintain dichotomies and boundaries, they do not imply
'stasis' for the human material they organize: boundaries may persist despite what
may figuratively be called the 'osmosis' of personnel through them.
This perspective leads to an important clarification of the conditions for complex
poly-ethnic systems. Though the emergence and persistence of such systems would
seem to depend on a relatively high stability in the cultural features associated with
ethnic groups - i.e. a high degree or rigidity in the interactional boundaries - they do
not imply a similar rigidity in the patterns of recruitment or ascription to ethnic
groups: on the contrary, the ethnic inter-relations that we observe frequently entail
a variety of processes which effect changes in individual and group identity and
modify the other demographic factors that obtain in the situation. Examples of
stable and persisting ethnic boundaries that are crossed by a flow of personnel are
clearly far more common than the ethnographic literature would lead us to believe.
Different processes of such crossing are exemplified in these essays, and the
conditions which cause them are shown to be various. We may look briefly at some
of them..
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Factors in identity change
The Yao described by Kandre (19676) are one of the many hill peoples on the
southern fringe of the Chinese area. The Yao are organized for productive purposes
in extended family households, aligned in clans and in villages. Household
leadership is very clear, while community and region are autochthonously
acephalous, and variously tied to poly-ethnic political domains. Identity and
distinctions are expressed in complex ritual idioms, prominently involving ancestor
worship. Yet this group shows the drastic incorporation rate of 10 % non-Yao
becoming Yao in each generation (Kandre 1967a: 594). Change of membership
takes place individually, mostly with children, where it involves purchase of the
person by a Yao houseleader, adoption to kinship status, and full ritual assimilation.
Occasionally, change of ethnic membership is also achieved by men through
uxorilocal marriage; Chinese men are the acceptable parties to such arrangements.
The conditions for this form of assimilation are clearly twofold: first, the presence
of cultural mechanisms to implement the incorporation, including ideas of
obligations to ancestors, compensation by payment, etc., and secondly, the
incentive of obvious advantages to the assimilating household and leader. These
have to do with the role of households as productive units and agro-managerial
techniques that imply an optimal size of 6-8 working persons, and the pattern of
intro-community competition between household leaders in the field of wealth and
influence.
Movements across the southern and northern boundaries of the Pathan area (cf. pp.
123 ff.) illustrate quite other forms and conditions. Southern Pathans become
Baluch and not vice versa; this transformation can take place with individuals but
more readily with whole households or small groups of households; it involves loss
of position in the rigid genealogical and territorial segmentary system of Pathans
and incorporation through clientage contract into the hierarchical, centralized
system of the Baluch. Acceptance in the receiving group is conditional on the
ambition and opportunism of Baluch political leaders. On the other hand, Pathans
in the north have, after an analogous loss of position in their native system, settled
in and often conquered new territories in Kohistan. The effect in due course has
been a reclassification of the settling communities among the congeries of locally
diverse Kohistani tribes and groups.
23
Perhaps the most striking case is that from Darfur provided by Haaland (pp. 58 ff.),
which shows members of the hoe-agricultural Fur of the Sudan changing their
identity to that of nomadic cattle Arabs. This process is conditional on a very
specific economic circumstance: the absence of investment opportunities for capital
in the village economy of the Fur in contrast to the possibilities among the nomads.
Accumulated capital, and the opportunities for its management and increase,
provide the incentive for Fur households to abandon their fields and villages and
change to the life of the neighbouring Baggara, incidentally also joining one of the
loose but nominally centralized Baggara political units if the change has been
economically completely successful.
These processes that induce a flow of personnel across ethnic boundaries will of
necessity affect the demographic balance between different ethnic groups. Whether
they are such that they contribute to stability in this balance is an entirely different
question. To do so, they would have to be sensitive to changes in the pressure on
ecologic niches in a feed-back pattern. This does not regularly seem to be the case.
The assimilation of non-Yao seems further to increase the rate of Yao growth and
expansion at the expense of other groups, and can be recognized as one, albeit
minor, factor furthering the progressive Sinization process whereby cultural and
ethnic diversity has steadily been reduced over vast areas. The rate of assimilation
of Pathans by Baluch tribes is no doubt sensitive to population pressure in Pathan
areas, but simultaneously sustains an imbalance whereby Baluch tribes spread
northward despite higher population pressures in the northern areas. Kohistani
assimilation relieves population pressure in Pathan area while maintaining a
geographically stable boundary. Nomadization of the Fur replenishes the Baggara,
who are elsewhere becoming sedentarized. The rate, however, does not correlate
with pressure on Fur lands - since nomadization is conditional on accumulated
wealth, its rate probably decreases as Fur population pressure increases. The Fur
case also demonstrates the inherent instability of some of these processes, and how
limited changes can have drastic results: with the agricultural innovation of
orchards over the last ten years, new investment opportunities are provided which
will probably greatly reduce, or perhaps for a while even reverse, the nomadization
process.
Thus, though the processes that induce change of identity are important to the
understanding of most cases of ethnic interdependence, they need not be conducive
to population stability. In general, however,
24
one can argue that whenever ethnic relations are stable over long periods, and
particularly where the interdependence is close, one can expect to find an
approximate demographic balance. The analysis of the different factors involved in
this balance is an important part of the analysis of the ethnic inter-relations in the
area.
The persistence of cultural boundaries
In the preceding discussion of ethnic boundary maintenance and interchange of
personnel there is one very important problem that I have left aside. We have seen
various examples of how individuals and small groups, because of specific economic
and political circumstances in their former position and among the assimilating
group, may change their locality, their subsistence pattern, their political allegiance
and form, or their household membership. This still does not fully explain why such
changes lead to categorical changes of ethnic identity, leaving the dichotomized
ethnic groups unaffected (other than in numbers) by the interchange of personnel.
In the case of adoption and incorporation of mostly immature and in any case
isolated single individuals into pre-established households, as among the Yao, such
complete cultural assimilation is understandable: here every new person becomes
totally immersed in a Yao pattern of relationships and expectations. In the other
examples, it is less clear why this total change of identity takes place. One cannot
argue that it follows from a universally imputable rule of cultural integration, so
that the practice of the politics of one group or the assumption of its pattern of
ecologic adaptation in subsistence and economy, entails the adoption also of its
other parts and forms. Indeed, the Pathan case (Ferdinand 1967) directly falsifies
this argument, in that the boundaries of the Pathan ethnic group crosscuts ecologic
and political units. Using self-identification as the critical criterion of ethnic
identity, it should thus be perfectly possible for a small group of Pathans to assume
the political obligations of membership in a Baluch tribe, or the agricultural and
husbandry practices of Kohistanis, and yet continue to call themselves Pathans. By
the same token one might expect nomadization among the Fur to lead to the
emergence of a nomadic section of the Fur, similar in subsistence to the Baggara but
different from them in other cultural features, and in ethnic label.
Quite clearly, this is precisely what has happened in many historical situations. In
cases where it does not happen we see the organizing and canalizing effects of
ethnic distinctions. To explore the factors
25
responsible for the difference, let us first look at the specific explanations for the
changes of identity that have been advanced in the examples discussed above.
In the case of Pathan borderlands, influence and security in the segmentary and
anarchic societies of this region derive from a man's previous actions, or rather from
the respect that he obtains from these acts as judged by accepted standards of
evaluation. The main fora for exhibiting Pathan virtues are the tribal council, and
stages for the display of hospitality. But the villager in Kohistan has a standard of
living where the hospitality he can provide can hardly compete with that of the
conquered serfs of neighbouring Pathans, while the client of a Baluch leader cannot
speak in any tribal council. To maintain Pathan identity in these situations, to
declare oneself in the running as a competitor by Pathan value standards, is to
condemn oneself in advance to utter failure in performance. By assuming Kohistani
or Baluch identity, however, a man may, by the same performance, score quite high
on the scales that then become relevant. The incentives to a change in identity are
thus inherent in the change in circumstances.
Different circumstances obviously favour different performances. Since ethnic
identity is associated with a culturally specific set of value standards, it follows that
there are circumstances where such an identity can be moderately successfully
realized, and limits beyond which such success is precluded. I will argue that ethnic
identities will not be retained beyond these limits, because allegiance to basic value
standards will not be sustained where one's own comparative performance is utterly
inadequate .3 The two components in this relative measure of success are, first, the
performance of others and, secondly, the alternatives open to oneself. I am not
making an appeal to ecologic adaptation. Ecologic feasibility, and fitness in relation
to the natural environment, matter only in so far as they set a limit in terms of sheer
physical survival, which is very rarely approached by ethnic groups. What matters is
how well the others, with whom one interacts and to whom one is compared,
manage to perform, and what alternative identities and sets of standards are
available to the individual.
Ethnic identity and tangible assets
The boundary-maintaining factors in the Fur are not immediately illuminated by
this argument. Haaland (pp. 65 f.) discusses the evaluation of the nomad's life by
Fur standards and finds the balance between advantages and disadvantages
inconclusive. To ascertain the comparability
26
of this case, we need to look more generally at all the factors that affect the
behaviour in question. The materials derive from grossly different ethnographic
contexts and so a number of factors are varied simultaneously.
The individual's relation to productive resources stands out as the significant
contrast between the two regions. In the Middle East, the means of production are
conventionally held as private or corporate, defined and transferable property. A
man can obtain them through a specific and restricted transaction, such as purchase
or lease; even in conquest the rights that are obtained are standard, delimited rights.
In Darfur, on the other hand, as in much of the Sudanic belt, the prevailing
conventions are different. Land for cultivation is allocated, as needed, to members
of a local community. The distinction between owner and cultivator, so important
in the social structure of most Middle Eastern communities, cannot be made
because ownership does not involve separable, absolute, and transferable rights.
Access to the means of production in a Fur village is therefore conditional only on
inclusion in the village community - i.e. on Fur ethnic identity. Similarly, grazing
rights are not allocated and monopolized, even as between Baggara tribes. Though
groups and tribes tend to use the same routes and areas every year, and may at times
try in an ad hoc way to keep out others from an area they wish to use, they
normally intermix and have no defined and absolute prerogatives. Access to grazing
is thus an automatic aspect of practising husbandry, and entails being a Baggara.
The gross mechanisms of boundary maintenance in Darfur are thus quite simple: a
man has access to the critical means of production by virtue of practising a certain
subsistence; this entails a whole style of life, and all these characteristics are
subsumed under the ethnic labels Fur and Baggara. In the Middle East, on the other
hand, men can obtain control over means of production through a transaction that
does not involve their other activities; ethnic identity is then not necessarily
affected and this opens the way for diversification. Thus nomad, peasant, and city
dweller can belong to the same ethnic group in the Middle East; where ethnic
boundaries persist they depend on more subtle and specific mechanisms, mainly
connected with the unfeasibility of certain status and role combinations.
27
Ethnic groups and stratification
Where one ethnic group has control of the means of production utilized by another
group, a relationship of inequality and stratification obtains. Thus Fur and Baggara
do not make up a stratified system, since they utilize different niches and have
access to them independently of each other, whereas in some parts of the Pathan
area one finds stratification based on the control of land, Pathans being
landowners, and other groups cultivating as serfs. In more general terms, one may
say that stratified poly-ethnic systems exist where groups are characterized by
differential control of assets that are valued by all groups in the system. The
cultures of the component ethnic groups in such systems are thus integrated in a
special way: they share certain general value orientations and scales, on the basis of
which they can arrive at judgements of hierarchy.
Obversely, a system of stratification does not entail the existence of ethnic groups.
Leach (1967) argues convincingly that social classes are distinguished by different
sub-cultures, indeed, that this is a more basic characteristic than their hierarchical
ordering. However, in many systems of stratification we are not dealing with
bounded strata at all: the stratification is based simply on the notion of scales and
the recognition of an ego-centered level of 'people who are just like us' versus those
more select and those more vulgar. In such systems, cultural differences, whatever
they are, grade into each other, and nothing like a social organization of ethnic
groups emerges: Secondly, most systems of stratification allow, or indeed entail,
mobility based on evaluation by the scales that define the hierarchy. Thus a
moderate failure in the `B' sector of the hierarchy makes you a 'C', etc. Ethnic
groups are not open to this kind of penetration: the ascription of ethnic identity is
based on other and more restrictive criteria. This is most clearly illustrated by
Knutsson's analysis of the Galla in the context of Ethiopian society (pp. 86 ff.) - a
social system where whole ethnic groups are stratified with respect to their
positions of privilege and disability within the state. Yet the attainment of a
governorship does not make an Amhara of a Galla, nor does estrangement as an
outlaw entail loss of Galla identity.
From this perspective, the Indian caste system would appear to be a special case of
a stratified poly-ethnic system. The boundaries of castes are defined by ethnic
criteria: thus individual failures in performance lead to out-casting and not to downcasting.
The process
28
whereby the hierarchical system incorporates new ethnic groups is demonstrated in
the sanscritization of tribals: their acceptance of the critical value scales defining
their position in the hierarchy of ritual purity and pollution is the only change of
values that is necessary for a people to become an Indian caste. An analysis of the
different processes of boundary maintenance involved in different inter-caste
relations and in different regional variants of the caste system would, I believe,
illuminate many features of this system.
The preceding discussion has brought out a somewhat anomalous general feature of
ethnic identity as a status: ascription is not conditional on the control of any
specific assets, but rests on criteria of origin and commitment; whereas
performance in the status, the adequate acting out of the roles required to realize
the identity, in many systems does require such assets. By contrast, in a bureaucratic
office the incumbent is provided with those assets that are required for the
performance of the role; while kinship positions, which are ascribed without
reference to a person's assets, likewise are not conditional on performance - you
remain a father even if you fail to feed your child.
Thus where ethnic groups are interrelated in a stratified system, this requires the
presence of special processes that maintain differential control of assets. To
schematize: a basic premise of ethnic group organization is that every A can act
roles, 1, 2 and 3. If actors agree on this, the premise is self-fulfilling, unless acting in
these roles requires assets that are distributed in a discrepant pattern. If these assets
are obtained or lost in ways independent of being an A, and sought and avoided
without reference to one's identity as an A, the premise will be falsified: some A's
become unable to act in the expected roles. Most systems of stratification are
maintained by the solution that in such cases, the person is no longer an A. In the
case of ethnic identity, the solution on the contrary is the recognition that every A
no longer can or will act in roles 1 and 2. The persistence of stratified poly-ethnic
systems thus entails the presence of factors that generate and maintain a
categorically different distribution of assets: state controls, as in some modern plural
and racist systems; marked differences in evaluation that canalize the efforts of
actors in different directions, as in systems with polluting occupations; or
differences in culture that generate marked differences in political organization,
economic organization, or individual skills.
29
The problem of variation
Despite such processes, however, the ethnic label subsumes a number of
simultaneous characteristics which no doubt cluster statistically, but which are not
absolutely interdependent and connected. Thus there will he variations between
members, some showing many and some? showing few characteristics. Particularly
where people change their, identity, this creates ambiguity since ethnic membership
is at once a question of source of origin as well as of current identity. Indeed;
Haaland was taken out to see 'Fur who live in nomad camps', and I have heard
members of Baluch tribal sections explain that they are 'really Pathan'. What is then
left of the boundary maintenance and the categorical dichotomy, when the actual
distinctions are blurred in this way? Rather than despair at the failure of typological
schematism, one can legitimately note that people do employ ethnic labels and that
there are in many parts of the world most spectacular differences whereby forms of
behaviour cluster so that whole actors tend to fall into such categories in terms of
their objective behaviour. What is surprising is not the existence of some actors that
fall between these categories, and of some regions in the world where whole
persons do not tend to sort themselves out in this way, but the fact that variations
tend to cluster at all. We can then be concerned not to perfect a typology, but to
discover the processes that bring about such clustering.
An alternative mode of approach in anthropology has been to dichotomize the
ethnographic material in terms of ideal versus actual or conceptual versus empirical,
and then concentrate on the consistencies (the 'structure') of the ideal, conceptual
part of the data, employing some vague notion of norms and individual deviance to
account for the actual, statistical patterns. It is of course perfectly feasible to
distinguish between a people's model of their social system and their aggregate
pattern of pragmatic behaviour, and indeed quite necessary not to confuse the two.
But the fertile problems in social anthropology are concerned with how the two are
interconnected, and it does not follow that this is best elucidated by dichotomizing
and confronting them as total systems. In these essays we have tried to build the
analysis on a lower level of interconnection between status and behaviour. I would
argue that people's categories are for acting, and are significantly affected by
interaction rather than contemplation. In showing the connection between ethnic
labels and the maintenance
30
of cultural diversity, I am therefore concerned primarily to show how, under varying
circumstances, certain constellations of categorization and value orientation have a selffulfilling
character, how others will tend to be falsified by experience, while others
again are incapable of consummation in interaction. Ethnic boundaries can emerge and
persist only in the former situation, whereas they should dissolve or be absent in the
latter situations. With such a feedback from people's experiences to the categories they
employ, simple ethnic dichotomies can be retained, and their stereotyped behavioural
differential reinforced, despite a considerable objective variation. This is so because
actors struggle to maintain conventional definitions of the situation in social encounters
through selective perception, tact, and sanctions, and because of difficulties in finding
other, more adequate codifications of experience. Revision only takes place where the
categorization is grossly inadequate - not merely because it is untrue in any objective
sense, but because it is consistently unrewarding to act upon, within the domain where
the actor makes it relevant. So the dichotomy of Fur villagers and Baggara nomads is
maintained despite the patent presence of a nomadic camp of Fur in the
neighbourhood; the fact that those nomads speak Fur and have kinship connections
with villagers somewhere does not change the social situation in which the villager
interacts with them - it simply makes the standard transactions of buying milk,
allocating camp sites, or obtaining manure, which one would have with other Baggara,
flow a bit more smoothly. But a dichotomy between Pathan landowners and nonPathan
labourers can no longer be maintained where non-Pathans obtain land and
embarrass Pathans by refusing to respond with the respect which their imputed
position as menials would have sanctioned.
Minorities, pariahs, and organizational characteristics of the periphery
In some social systems, ethnic groups co-reside though no major aspect of structure is
based on ethnic inter-relations. These are generally referred to as societies with
minorities, and the analysis of the minority situation involves a special variant of interethnic
relations. I think in most cases, such situations have come about as a result of
external historical events; the cultural differentiae have not sprung from the local
organizational context - rather, a pre-established cultural contrast is brought into
conjunction with a pre-established social system, and is made relevant to life there in a
diversity of ways.
An extreme form of minority position, illustrating some but not all
31
features of minorities, is that of pariah groups. These are groups actively rejected by the
host population because of behaviour or characteristics positively condemned, though
often useful in some specific, practical way. European pariah groups of recent centuries
(executioners, dealers in horseflesh and -leather, collectors of nightsoil, gypsies, etc.)
exemplify most features; as breakers of basic taboos they were rejected by the larger
society. Their identity imposed a definition on social situations which gave very little
scope for interaction with persons in the majority population, and simultaneously as an
imperative status represented an inescapable disability that prevented them from
assuming the normal statuses involved in other definitions of the situation of
interaction. Despite these formidable barriers, such groups do not seem to have
developed the internal complexity that would lead us to regard them as full-fledged
ethnic groups; only the culturally foreign gypsies clearly constitute such a group.
The boundaries of pariah groups are most strongly maintained by the excluding host
population, and they are often forced to make use of easily noticeable diacritica to
advertise their identity (though since this identity is often the basis for a highly insecure
livelihood, such over-communication may sometimes also serve the pariah individual's
competitive interests). Where pariahs attempt to pass into the larger society, the culture
of the host population is generally well known; thus the problem is reduced to a
question of escaping the stigmata of disability by dissociating with the pariah
community and faking another origin.
Many minority situations have a trace of this active rejection by the host population.
But the general feature of all minority situations lies in the organization of activities
and interaction: In the total social system, all sectors of activity are organized by
statuses open to members of the majority group, while the status system of the minority
has only relevance to relations within the minority and only to some sectors of activity,
and does not provide a basis for action in other sectors, equally valued in the minority
culture. There is thus a disparity between values and organizational facilities: prized
goals are outside the field organized by the minority's culture and categories. Though
such systems contain several ethnic groups, interaction between members of the
different groups of this kind does not spring from the complementarity of ethnic
identities; it takes place entirely within the framework of the dominant, majority
group's statuses and institutions, where identity as a minority member gives no basis
for action,
32
though it may in varying degrees represent a disability in assuming the operative
statuses. Eidheim's paper gives a very clear analysis of this situation, as it obtains
among Coast Lapps.
But in a different way, one may say that in such a poly-ethnic system, the
contrastive cultural characteristics of the component groups are located in the nonarticulating
sectors of life. For the minority, these sectors constitute a 'backstage'
where the characteristics that are stigmatic in terms of the dominant majority
culture can covertly be made the objects of transaction.
The present-day minority situation of Lapps has been brought about by recent
external circumstances. Formerly, the important context of interaction was the
local situation, where two ethnic groups with sufficient knowledge of each other's
culture maintained a relatively limited, partly symbiotic relationship based in their
respective identities. With the fuller integration of Norwegian society, bringing the
northern periphery into the nation-wide system, the rate of cultural change
increased drastically. The population of Northern Norway became increasingly
dependent on the institutional system of the larger society, and social life among
Norwegians in Northern Norway was increasingly organized to pursue activities and
obtain benefits within the wider system. This system has not, until very recently,
taken ethnic identity into account in its structure, and until a decade ago there was
practically no place in it where one could participate as a Lapp. Lapps as Norwegian
citizens, on the other hand, are perfectly free to participate, though under the dual
disability of peripheral location and inadequate command of Norwegian language
and culture. This situation has elsewhere, in the inland regions of Finnmark, given
scope for Lappish innovators with a political program based on the ideal of ethnic
pluralism (cf. Eidheim 1967), but they have gained no following in the Coast Lapp
area here discussed by Eidheim. For these Lapps, rather, the relevance of Lappish
statuses and conventions decreases in sector after sector (cf. Eidheim 1966), while
the relative inadequacy of performance in the widest system brings about
frustrations and a crisis of identity.
Culture contact and change
This is a very widespread process under present conditions as dependence on the
products and institutions of industrial societies spreads in all parts of the world. The
important thing to recognize is that a drastic reduction of cultural differences
between ethnic groups does
33
not correlate in any simple way with a reduction in the organizational relevance of
ethnic identities, or a breakdown in boundary-maintaining processes. This is
demonstrated in much of the case material.
We can best analyse the interconnection by looking at the agents of change: what
strategies are open and attractive to them, and what are the organizational
implications of different choices on their part? The agents in this case are the
persons normally referred to somewhat ethno-centrically as the new elites: the
persons in the less industrialized groups with greater contact and more dependence
on the goods and organizations of industrialized societies. In their pursuit of
participation in wider social systems to obtain new forms of value they can choose
between the following basic strategies: (i) they may attempt to pass and become
incorporated in the pre-established industrial society and cultural group; (ü) they
may accept a `minority' status, accommodate to and seek to reduce their minority
disabilities by encapsulating all cultural differentiae in sectors of non-articulation,
while participating in the larger system of the industrialized group in the other
sectors of activity; (iii) they may choose to emphasize ethnic identity, using it to
develop new positions and patterns to organize activities in those sectors formerly
not found in their society, or inadequately developed for the new purposes. If the
cultural innovators are successful in the first strategy, their ethnic group will be
denuded of its source of internal diversification and will probably remain as a
culturally conservative, low-articulating ethnic group with low rank in the larger
social sytem. A general acceptance of the second strategy will prevent the
emergence of a clearly dichotomizing polyethnic organization, and - in view of the
diversity of industrial society and consequent variation and multiplicity of fields of
articulation probably lead to an eventual assimilation of the minority. The
third strategy generates many of the interesting movements that can be observed
today, from nativism to new states.
I am unable to review the variables that affect which basic strategy will be adopted,
which concrete form it may take, and what its degree of success and cumulative
implications may be. Such factors range from the number of ethnic groups in the
system to features of the ecologic regime and details of the constituent cultures, and
are illustrated in most of the concrete analyses of the following essays. It may be of
interest to note some of the forms in which it is made organizationally relevant
to new sectors in the current situation.
Firstly, the innovators may choose to emphasize one level of identity
34
among the several provided by the traditional social organization. Tribe, caste,
language group, region or state all have features that make them a potentially
adequate primary ethnic identity for group reference, and the outcome will depend
on the readiness with which others can be led to embrace these identities, and the
cold tactical facts. Thus, though tribalism may rally the broadest support in many
African areas, the resultant groups seem unable to stand up against the sanctioning
apparatus even of a relatively rudimentary state organization.
Secondly, the mode of organization of the ethnic group varies, as does the interethnic
articulation that is sought. The fact that contemporary forms are prominently
political does not make them any less ethnic in character. Such political movements
constitute new ways of making cultural differences organizationally relevant
(Kleivan 1967), and new ways of articulating the dichotomized ethnic groups. The
proliferation of ethnically based pressure groups, political parties, and visions of
independent statehood, as well as the multitude of subpolitical advancement
associations (Sommerfelt 1967) show the importance of these new forms. In other
areas, cult-movements or mission-introduced sects are used to dichotomize and
articulate groups in new ways. It is striking that these new patterns are so rarely
concerned with the economic sector of activities, which is so major a factor in the
culture contact situation, apart from the forms of state socialism adopted by some
of the new nations. By contrast, the traditional complex poly-ethnic systems have
been prominently based on articulation in this sector, through occupational
differentiation and articulation at the market place in many regions of Asia and
Middle America, or most elaborately, through agrarian production in South Asia.
Today, contending ethnic groups not infrequently become differentiated with
respect to educational level and attempt to control or monopolize educational
facilities for this purpose (Sommerfelt l967), but this is not so much with a view to
occupational differentiation as because of the obvious connection between
bureaucratic competence and opportunities for political advancement. One may
speculate that an articulation entailing complex differentiation of skills, and
sanctioned by the constant dependence on livelihood, will have far greater strength
and stability than one based on revocable political affiliation and sanctioned by the
exercise of force and political fiat, and that these new forms of poly-ethnic
systems are probably inherently more turbulent and unstable than the alder forms.
35
When political groups articulate their opposition in terms of ethnic criteria, the
direction of cultural change is also affected. A political confrontation can only be
implemented by making the groups similar and thereby comparable, and this will
have effect on every new sector of activity which is made politically relevant.
Opposed parties thus tend to become structurally similar, and differentiated only by
a few clear diacritics. Where ethnic groups are organized in political confrontation
in this way, the process of opposition will therefore lead to a reduction of the
cultural differences between them.
For this reason, much of the activity of political innovators is concerned with the
codification of idioms: the selection of signals for identity and the assertion of value
for these cultural diacritics, and the suppression or denial of relevance for other
differentiae. The issue as to which new cultural forms are compatible with the
native ethnic identity is often hotly contended, but is generally settled in favour of
syncretism for the reasons noted above. But a great amount of attention may be
paid to the revival of select traditional culture traits, and to the establishment of
historical traditions to justify and glorify the idioms and the identity.
The interconnection between the diacritics that arc chosen for emphasis, the
boundaries that are defined, and the differentiating values that are espoused,
constitute a fascinating field for study .6 Clearly, a number of factors are relevant.
Idioms vary in their appropriateness for different kinds of units. They are unequally
adequate for the innovator's purposes, both as means to mobilize support and as
supports in the strategy of confrontation with other groups. Their stratificational
implications both within and between groups are important: they entail different
sources and distributions of influence within the group, and different claims to
recognition from other groups through suppression or glorification of different
forms of social stigmata. Clearly, there is no simple connection between the
ideological basis of a movement and the idioms chosen; yet both have implications
for subsequent boundary maintenance, and the course of further change.
Variations in the selling for ethnic relations
These modern variants for poly-ethnic organization emerge in a world of
bureaucratic administration, developed communications, and progressive
urbanization. Clearly, under radically different circumstances, the critical factors in
the definition and maintenance of ethnic boundaries
36
would be different. In basing ourselves on limited and contemporary data,
we are faced with difficulties in generalizing about ethnic processes, since major
variables may be ignored because they are not exhibited in the cases at our
disposal. There can be little doubt that social anthropologists have tended to regard
the rather special situation of colonial peace and external administration, which has
formed the backdrop of most of the influential monographs, as if this were
representative of conditions at most times and places. This may have biased the
interpretation both of pre-colonial systems and of contemporary, emergent forms.
The attempt in these essays to cover regionally very diverse cases is not alone an
adequate defence against such bias, and the issue needs to be faced directly.
Colonial regimes are quite extreme in the extent to which the administration and its
rules are divorced from locally based social life. Under such a regime, individuals
hold certain rights to protection uniformly through large population aggregates and
regions, far beyond the reach of their own social relationships and institutions. This
allows physical proximity and opportunities for contact between persons of
different ethnic groups regardless of the absence of shared understandings between
them, and thus clearly removes one of the constraints that normally operate on interethnic
relations. In such situations, interaction can develop and proliferate - indeed,
only those forms of interaction that are directly inhibited by other factors will be
absent and remain as sectors of non-articulation. Thus ethnic boundaries in such
situations represent a positive organization of social relations around differentiated
and complementary values, and cultural differences will tend to be reduced with
time and approach the required minimum.
In most political regimes, however, where there is less security and people live
under a greater threat of arbitrariness and violence outside their primary
community, the insecurity itself acts as a constraint on inter-ethnic contacts. In this
situation, many forms of interaction between members of different ethnic groups
may fail to develop, even though a potential complementarity of interests obtains.
Forms of interaction may be blocked because of a lack of trust or a lack of
opportunities to consummate transactions. What is more, there are also internal
sanctions in such communities which tend to enhance overt conformity within and
cultural differences between communities. If a person is dependent for his security
on the voluntary and spontaneous support of his own community, selfidentification
as a member
37
of this community needs to be explicitly expressed and confirmed; and any
behaviour which is deviant from the standard may be interpreted as a weakening of
the identity, and thereby of the bases of security. In such situations, fortuitous
historical differences in culture between different communities will tend to
perpetuate themselves without any positive organizational basis; many of the
observable cultural differentiae may thus be of very limited relevance to the ethnic
organization.
The processes whereby ethnic units maintain themselves are thus clearly affected,
but not fundamentally changed, by the variable of regional security. This can also be
shown by an inspection of the cases analysed in these essays, which represent a fair
range from the colonial to the poly-centric, up to relatively anarchic situations. It is
important, however, to recognize that this background variable may change very
rapidly with time, and in the projection of long-range processes this is a serious
difficulty. Thus in the Fur case, we observe a situation of externally maintained
peace and very small-scale local political activity, and can form a picture of interethnic
processes and even rates in this setting. But we know that over the last few
generations, the situation has varied from one of Baggara-Fur confrontation under
an expansive Fur sultanate to a nearly total anarchy in Turkish and Mahdi times;
and it is very difficult to estimate the effects of these variations on the processes of
nomadization and assimilation, and arrive at any long-range projection of rates and
trends.
Ethnic groups and cultural evolution
The perspective and analysis presented here have relevance to the theme of cultural
evolution. No doubt human history is a story of the development of emergent
forms, both of cultures and societies. The issue in anthropology has been how this
history can best be depicted, and what kinds of analyses are adequate to discover
general principles in the courses of change. Evolutionary analysis in the rigorous
sense of the biological fields has based its method on the construction of phyletic
lines. This method presumes the existence of units where the boundaries and the
boundary-maintaining processes can be described, and thus where the continuity
can be specified. Concretely, phyletic lines are meaningful because specific
boundaries prevent the interchange of genetic material; and so one can insist that
the reproductive isolate is the unit, and that it has maintained an identity
undisturbed by the changes in the morphological characteristics of the species.
Journal of Archaeological Research, VoL 5, No. 4, 1997
Ethnicity in
Perspectives
Geoff Emberling 1
Complex Societies: Archaeological
It is often difficult to identify ethnic groups in the archaeological record, yet
archaeology has much to contribute to understanding the long-term social and
political dynamics of ethnicity. This review considers recent anthropological
perspectives on ethnic groups and their boundaries, emphasizing the rote of
state formation in their creation and maintenance. It then reviews recent
archaeological studies of ethnicity in complex societies and discusses current
questions facing archaeological research on these topics.
KEY WORDS: archaeology; ethnicity; ethnogenesis; states.
"Ethnicity" can mean different things to different people, and
is of questionable utility as a theoretical construct when viewed
from the perspective of prehistory... [W]hile "ethnic" attributions,
like "culture areas," may have some descriptive utility,
their explanatory potential remains to be established.
Kramer (t997, p. 95)
INTRODUCTION
The study of ethnicity over the last three decades marks a paradigm
shift in anthropology: from viewing culture as a whole to focusing on subgroups
of people (Wolf, 1994). Work on the subject has even been dated
B.B. (before Barth) and A.B. (after Barth), according to its relationship to
the founding work of the new paradigm (Barth, 1969b; Despres, 1975, p.
189). Ethnicity has been a topic of renewed interest since then, and recently
elements of consensus over definitions and delineations of ethnic processes
1Metropolitan Museum, 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10028.
295
1059-0161/97/I211tN)295512.50/0© 1997PlenumPublishingCorporation
296 Emberling
have begun to emerge. With some exceptions, anthropological treatments
of ethnicity increasingly have the appearance of "normal science" (Kuhn,
1970), articulating the theory and exploring its ramifications.
In spite of great archaeological interest in ethnicity earlier this century,
archaeologists have only recently begun to consider ethnicity within
Barth's paradigm (Auger et al., 1987; Shennan, 1989b). Such delayed reactions
are not uncommon in communication between the subfields, as
continued archaeological interest in cultural evolution shows, but there
are other reasons for the delay. Studies by Kramer (1977) and others suggested,
quite rightly, that inferring ethnic difference from archaeological
evidence was difficult. In addition, archaeologists have been wary of studying
ethnicity because of the ends to which such studies have been put.
Kossinna's work in identifying "Germans" in prehistory is only one wellknown
example (Arnold, 1990, 1995; Kohl and Fawcett, 1995; Trigger,
1989, pp. 163ff.; Veit, 1989). As Rowlands (1994, p. 132) points out, however,
archaeological studies of ethnicity also can assist in providing identities
for local groups, and so politically empower them; identifying ethnic
groups in archaeological remains can have positive consequences. The
work of social anthropologists on ethnicity gives archaeologists an opportunity
to understand more clearly and accurately the dynamics of past so-
cieties.
Yet ethnicity is not important only as the prehistory of modern groups;
it was an important structuring principle in many societies in the past
(Brumfiel, 199@ Understanding ethnicity, then, is a necessary precondition
to adequate understanding of the past, in spite of Kramer's doubts. Moreover,
archaeologists have much to contribute to our understanding of ethnicity.
In particular, processes of ethnogenesis--that is, the creation of
ethnicity--and the long-term persistence and disappearance of ethnic
groups often are accessible using archaeological data.
This review emphasizes the potential for archaeological study of ethnicity
to contribute to questions of ethnic dynamics. I begin by discussing
the background of anthropological approaches to group identities leading
up to the work of Barth, summarizing common usage of "ethnicity" and
related terms, and outlining their semantic range while comparing ethnicity
to other important group identities. I then describe dynamics associated
with ethnicity in early states and the importance of ethnic identity in these
societies. Finally, I consider steps involved in identifying ethnic groups in
the archaeological record. There is limited discussion of ethnicity in modern
nation-states, where processes of ethnic differentiation are dissimilar not
only in scale (migration and colonialism), but also in kind (the ubiquitous
importance of racial distinctions).
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 297
ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO SOCIAL
IDENTITIES
One early anthropological approach to group identity was to identify
"culture areas": complexes of cultural traits common to inhabitants of a
particular environmental zone (Kroeber, 1939). These cultural complexes
were considered to be coherent, yet boundaries between them could be
difficult to identify as they graded from one to another. The culture area
was a classification of a culture from the outside, rather than an analysis
of the symbols and meanings that divide one culture or group from another.
It has not proven useful in analyzing ethnicity.
A second approach to group identity focused on defining boundaries
of "tribes". The boundaries of these groups proved difficult to establish
with certainty. Efforts to define and
entangled with the needs of colonial
boundaries were imposed by colonial
pp. 3-4), for example, studied groups
name them often were inextricably
administrators, and many so-called
bureaucracy. Evans-Pritchard (1940,
he named the Nuer and the Dinka,
citing use of these names for over a century as his basis for establishing
such social units. Southall (1976; cf. Kelly, 1985, pp. 86ff.), however, later
suggested that these groups were not clearly separable based on language
or other distinctive cultural features and that even the names EvansPritchard
chose were not their own.
The essential problem was that the trait distributions anthropologists
used for defining boundaries and distinguishing groups did not coincide.
The distribution of different languages, for example, often had boundaries
where there were none in political systems, and political boundaries rarely
corresponded to significant differences in material culture (e.g., Leach,
1954, p. 55; also Moore and Romney, 1994; Roberts et aL, 1995; Welsch
and Terretl, 1994; Welsch et al., 1992). In addition, the "boundaries" between
them were often ambiguous (Moerman, 1965, 1968). It was therefore
difficult to draw firm boundaries using such objective characteristics, as
Naroll's (1964, 1968) unsuccessful efforts showed.
Even tribal names did not clearly mark group boundaries; "[F]ar from
being a reliable 'natural' guide to the existence and composition of tribal
groups, names point the way to confusion or worse" (Fried, 1975, p. 38).
Colonial bureaucracies both divided culturally similar groups into different
tribes, and gathered unlike groups into single tribes. Tribal names given by
outsiders, then, do not often reflect shared self-identification by those so
labeled. In fact, the widespread use of local words meaning "people" or
"human beings" as group names (e.g., Inuit) seems not to suggest that
group members considered outsiders to be subhuman, but rather reflects
an absence of strong tribal boundaries. Having no overarching group iden-
298 Emberling
Table I. Selected Archaeological Studies of Ethnicity in Different Areas
Valley of Mexico: Brumfiel, 1994; Brumfiel et al., 1994; Pollard, 1994; Santley et al., 1987;
Spence, 1992; van Zantwijk, 1973
Maya: Adams, I973; Ashmore et al., I987; Creamer, 1987;Fox and Joyce, 1991;Gerstle, 1987;
Graham, 1973; Kepecs et al., 1994; Leventhal et al., 1987;Miller, 1986;Robles Castellanos
and Andrews, 1986; Sabloff, 1973;Sanders and Michels, 1977;Schortman and Nakamura,
1991; Stuart, 1993;Wonderley, 1991;Wren and Schmidt, 1991
Oaxaca: Feinman et aL, 1989;Flannery and Marcus, 1983; Marcus, 1983; Marcus and Flannery,
I983; Paddock, 1983a, b; Spence, 1992
Peru: Aldenderfer and Stanish, 1993; Athens, 1992; Bawden, 1993; Conrad, 1993; Goldstein,
1993; Grosboll, 1987;Lyons, 1987;Murra, 1972, 1982;Osborn, 1989;Patterson, 1987, 1991;
Pease, 1982; Powers, 1995; Rodman, 1992; Stanish et aL, I993; Topic, 1993; Van Buren,
1993, 1996;Van Buren et al., 1993;Wise, 1993
China: Gao and Lee, 1993;Lattimore, 1940;Ningsheng, t989
Indus Valley: Kenoyer, 199I; Shaffer and Lichtenstein, 1996
Near East: Bernbeck, 1995; Dever, 1993; Emberling, 1995a,b; Esse, 1992;Henrickson, 1984;
Hesse, 1990, 1995; Hrouda, 1989; Kamp and Yoffee, 1980; Kramer, 1977; Nissen, 1986;
Ozguq, 1963; Parayre, 1986;Stein, t993; Stein et al., 1996;Yoffee, 1993a, b
Egypt: Baines, 1992; Engelbach, 1943; Fischer, 1963; Leahy, 1995; Snowden, 1993
Europe: Arnold, 1995;B~tint, 1989; Bartet, I989; Binford, 1973; Binford and Binford, 1966;
Bordes, 1961, 1973; Fisher, 1995; Geary, 1983;Kobylinski, 1989; Larsson, 1989; Martens,
1989; O'Shea, 1995; P~it6czi-Horv~ith,1989;Voss, 1987
Africa: DeCorse, 1989; Eluyemi, 1989; H~land, 1977; Mack, 1982;Phillipson, 1979
tity, when asked to which group they belonged, tribal people around the
world seem to have responded, "We are people" (Southall, 1976, p. 487).
Physical variation or race, one of the criteria often used to define tribal
boundaries, also proved to be an unreliable guide to social boundaries. Anthropologists
have questioned the utility of the race concept, using arguments
similar to those employed against the reality of tribal divisions (e.g.,
Boas, 1931; Brace, 1964, 1982; Brace and Hunt, 1990; Livingstone, 1962;
cf. Van den Berghe, 1981, pp. 2ft.). As cultural traits have continuous distributions
that did not usually coincide, so do physical traits formerly used
to distinguish races.
Barth solved these methodological problems largely by showing that
not all features were equally important in defining the boundaries of a
group. He began by summarizing previous understandings of ethnicity:
The term ethnic group is generally understood in anthropological literature...to
designate a population which:
1. is largely biologically self-perpetuating
2. shares fundamental cultural values, realized in overt unity in cultural forms
3. makes up a field of communication and interaction
4. has a membership which identifies itself, and is identified by others, as
constituting a category distinguishable from other categories of the same order
(Barth, 1969, pp. 10-11).
Barth rejected the equation of race, culture, and language entailed in
these designations, thereby following the position of Leach and Moerman
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 299
and, ultimately, of Boas. The previous view had assumed that the boundaries
of the first three criteria would coincide. The first point defines a biological
population, also sometimes called a race; the second defines a
culture; and the third a linguistic group. It had become clear, however,
that these traits were not necessarily isomorphic.
Instead, Barth focused on the fourth point: "Ethnic groups are categories
of ascription and identification by the actors themselves" (1969, p.
10). This reduced definition (1) severed the necessary links among race,
culture, language, and ethnicity; (2) implied that ethnic identity was part
of a dynamic social process; and (3) introduced the possibility of change
in actors' group membership. More specifically, Barth shifted the emphasis
of study of ethnic groups to "the ethnic boundary that defines the group,
not the cultural stuff that it encloses" (1969, p. 15); he considered the formation
and maintenance processes of ethnic boundaries, instead of focusing
solely on the cultural traits enclosed by those boundaries.
This focus on subjective meanings rather than on objective traits was
extremely useful in identifying group membership. Anthropologists could
no longer simply read "ethnic group" from the distribution of languages
or other cultural traits across a landscape. Rather, it became critical to
identify those specific features that were subjectively significant: "We can
assume no simple one-to-one relationship between ethnic units and cultural
similarities and differences. The features that are taken into account are
not the sum of 'objective' differences but only those which the actors themselves
regard as significant" (Barth, 1969, p. 14). Thus anthropologists could
no longer assume that a given feature, such as language, would be a meaningful
distinction between groups. Rather, they would have to identify the
specific features or symbols that differentiated ethnic groups in each in-
stance.
Barth's use of the term "boundary" was in some ways unfortunate; a
more appropriate term might have been "difference." A boundary suggests
a sharp separation between members of one group and those of another.
In a sense this is exactly what ethnicity does: provides a clear separation
between people, even though the characteristics that define this boundary
are unclear. In other ways, however, the term is misieading. First, it may
suggest that people in a single ethnic group are completely separate from
members of other ethnic groups. Ethnic identity, however, is one of many
social identities a single person may have; membership in status or occupational
groups, for example, may connect members of different ethnic
groups. Second, a boundary has a physical sense that is sometimes inappropriate.
The metaphor leads us to use other physical terms: ethnic groups
construct and maintain boundaries, boundaries are permeable (or not), and
boundaries enclose cultural traits. These associations tend to make us view
300 Emberling
ethnicity as absolute, rather than based on perception of difference. For
these reasons, "difference" may be a more appropriate term than boundary
(Bateson, 1972; Lotman, 1990).
Ethnicity
Barth's work had established the importance of subjectively recognized
boundaries to social group identification, but the processes of ascription
by outsiders and identification by group members apply to most kinds of
social groups. So we must consider what features are distinctive of ethnic
groups.
There is a variety of possible ways to approach a term as ambiguous
and susceptible to such varied uses as "ethnicity." One is to avoid discussing
the term. After all, everyone uses the term, so we must all know generally
what we mean by it. This strategy has been surprisingly common; Isajiw
(1974) found two decades ago that only 13 of the 65 anthropological and
sociological studies he examined included an explicit definition of ethnicity.
Recent archaeological treatments have not fared much better. This does
not solve so much as it avoids the issue; it leaves the term entirely implicit.
A related strategy is to create a new term, attempting in so doing to
avoid the associations of familiar terms. A. Smith (1986), for example, suggests
that we use the French term "ethnie" instead of ethnic group. But
such neologisms quickly take on the associations of the words they are designed
to replace. If we are going to use the term "ethnicity" to refer to
social groups in the past, we must be prepared to accept its meanings in
the present.
Another approach is to attempt a comprehensive definition of what
the phenomenon really is, or what the term really means. If the meaning
of the term were so obvious, however, there would not be such divergent
views about it: reasonable people may still differ on the appropriate definition.
It is difficult, therefore, to propose such a definition, given the variation
in ethnicity in different societies, and the range of perspectives
different observers bring to bear on the topic. No definition can encompass
both the variation in its subject and variations in approaches.
One could also choose to define ethnicity in a particular way according
to the theoretical or methodological needs of a particular study, in order
to draw conclusions based on the phenomenon so defined. This approach
has its advantages, to be sure. It acknowledges the relativity of the observer's
position and defines the term in a way useful to the analysis. However,
choosing to define our terms in a particular way lends itself to the
suspicion that we constructed the definition post hoc simply to make a par-
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 301
ticular argument true. Such a definition has an arbitrary, nonnatural character
to it. This approach shares with the previous one the general problems
with definition (see Wittgenstein, 1958). To define a term is to limit it, to
draw a sharp boundary where the set of such phenomena is fuzzy. A definition
is more rigid and absolute than the membership of terms in it. This
rigidity makes definitions open to contradiction by counterexample. Finally,
although proposing an arbitrary definition in this way makes our use of
the term explicit, it leaves our reasons for choosing this particular definition
implicit.
A successful description of ethnicity must include the following points.
First, we must describe the term specifically enough to be able to use it,
and to distinguish it from closely related terms. Second, given the ambiguity
of the term, we should avoid defining it rigidly. Third, we ought to use the
term in a nonartificial way. When we use a word, regardless of how we
define it, the word evokes associations and connotations we heard in learning
to use it. To the degree that we use it naturally, it seems plausible and
appropriate. Finally, we should make our description and use of the term,
and our motivations for so describing it, as explicit as possible. So before
discussing the characteristics of ethnic groups, and their importance to political
and economic processes in ancient states, I clarify how I use the
term.
My solution to this problem attempts to avoid these difficulties by making
explicit what is implicit in other approaches. I survey my sense of ordinary
use of the term "ethnicity," the associations this usage evokes, and
the shared characteristics of the phenomenon in these associations and examples.
The resulting description does not have the rigidity of a definition,
and attempts to avoid specialized usage and jargon. The process of arriving
at this description, however, makes my preconceptions about the term as
clear as possible and specifies my reasons for using this description.
Terminology
The term "ethnic" has had a relatively consistent range of meanings
since its origins. "Ethnic" derives from Greek ethnos, a nation or a race,
which relates in turn to ethos, "character and spirit of a people" (Partridge,
1983), and ethos, custom [OxfordEnglish Dictionary (OED), 1989; R. Williams,
I983]. Ethnos also referred to tribe, occupational group, gender, and
religious group. Its basic sense is "a number of people or animals living
together and acting together," especially referring to their cultural similarity
(A. Smith, 1986, p. 21). Early English usage (beginning in the 14th century)
referred to non-Christian, non-Jewish nations or people as "ethnic." There
302 Emberling
is a possible connection or confusion from this sense of the term, through
"hethnic" and "heathenic" to heathen (OED, 1989). The term has more
recently come to mean a racial or cultural (minority) group existing within
a larger social system.
The term "ethnicity" comes from Greek ethnikos, the adjectival form
of ethnos. Before the mid-20th century, it meant "heathendom" and was
rarely used. Its meaning of ethnic character is modern, first appearing in
print in 1941 [in a book by W Lloyd Warner (Soltors, 1989, p. xiii)]. This
does not suggest, contra Glazer and Moynihan (1975, p. 2) and Sollors
(1989, p. xiv), that ethnicity itself is a recent phenomenon; indeed ancient
ethnic groups are common. Rather, the new use of the term marks the
revival of a social phenomenon that had, until recently, been reduced in
importance by the strong development of nation and class identities in the
West since the Renaissance, and by trends in sociological work to diminish
the importance of ethnic groups in modern nation-states (Brass, 1985; R.
Cohen, 1978; A. Smith, 1986).
If "ethnic" refers to group-level phenomena, then "ethnic identity"
means an individual's ethnic group membership, and "ethnic identification"
is the process of identifying oneself or another with such a group. We use
"ethnicity" so widely because it refers both to ethnic groups and to their
individual members. It has become the most general term for ethnic phe-
nomena.
I begin a fuller description of these terms with the observation that
members of an ethnic group usually see themselves as having a common
ancestry, as sharing common descent (Keyes, 1976). Such genealogies are
culturally constructed, some more recently and arbitrarily than others. For
example, the relatively recent emergence of Native American identity--as
distinct from previous individual tribal identities--has involved emphasizing
such common ancestry (Roosens, 1989). Jewish identity similarly includes
a common genealogy, which developed somewhat less recently but is no
less a cultural construction. This self-ascription is perhaps the most fundamental
characteristic of ethnicity.
It should be emphasized that a constructed common ancestry is quite
different from genetic relatedness. The claim that Native Americans form
a single ethnic group does not suggest that Native Americans as a group
are a closed biological population. Although they may to a greater or lesser
extent be based on notions of physical relatedness, ethnicity and kinship
are social facts, not simply biological facts.
The notion of common ancestry implies, on the one hand, that members
of an ethnic group see themselves as related by kinship or tend to
construct such relations. Ethnicity extends the kinship idiom to include
groups larger than the family, clan, or lineage. Members of these smaller
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 303
kin groups would rarely belong to separate ethnic groups. In extending the
idiom, some specificity is lost: ethnic groups do not trace descent from a
single ancestor as lineages and clans do. To the extent that ethnicity is reckoned
according to biological relationship, members of an ethnic group will
be physically similar. In any case, states or surrounding groups may culturally
stereotype the physical appearance of ethnic group members. This is
not to say, however, that such common physical traits necessarily differentiate
a particular ethnic group from another.
The notion of common ancestry suggests, on the other hand, a collective
memory of a former unity, of a time when an ethnic group was geographically
unified (Weber, 1922, pp. 389-390). Often in this past time, the
group was autonomous or held political control. Ethnic groups without such
histories frequently construct them. Afro-American ethnicity, for example,
has at times depended on a sense of common origin in Africa, in spite of
the historical diversity of societies and ethnicities there.
A frequent, but not universal, concomitant of this memory of past togetherness
is the hope of a political reunification in the future. Two examples
are Jewish and Palestinian movements for statehood.
Remembrance of the past in many cases leads to sorrow or bitterness
over the present, with good reason. Ethnic groups often exist in hierarchical
relationships--whether dominant or subordinate--to other groups or to a
state (Comaroff, 1987; Shibutani and Kwan, 1965), although stratification
is not an essential feature of relations between ethnic groups (Horowitz,
1985, pp. 21ff.; van Zantwijk, 1973). Examples of this phenomenon are numerous,
but mention of Native American, African-American, and Jewish
experience should suffice.
Because ethnicity is a kin-based identity larger than the family or lineage,
ethnic groups must include members of more than one extended family,
clan, or lineage. This is a structural necessity--these smaller units would
otherwise provide the focus of identification. It is also a minimum limitation
on size, although less directly. As the most inclusive of kinship identities,
ethnicity encompasses all smaller such identities, including lineage or family
membership.
Members of an ethnic group usually--but not always--speak a mutually
intelligible language. Some large and tong-lasting ethnic groups, such
as Arabs and Jews, have diverged in their vernacular language, particularly
in the modern era. Biblical Hebrew and classical Arabic--their languages
of scripture--have maintained a sense of unity and the potential for communication
within the group. It is difficult, on the other hand, to imagine
elther of these groups persisting in the same form without these languages.
The formation of a Native American identity encompassing formerly distinct
tribal identities also has depended upon use of English as a common
304 Emberling
language. The common language of an ethnic group may differ from the
languages of surrounding groups. Yet even in multilingual societies, language
may not differentiate ethnic groups (Karpat, 1985).
Finally, ethnic groups exist in relation to some larger sociopolitical entity,
usually a state. Relationships between ethnic groups and states vary
widely. Many ethnic groups exist entirely within a state: '~ffro-American,"
"Hispanic," and '~,sian" exist as categories only within the context of the
United States: there is no ethnic category 'Asian" in East Asia. Such states
are "plural societies" (Furnivall, 1939; M. Smith, 1969). Other ethnic
groups, such as the Arabs, form the elite of many states. Some, like the
Kurds, live within many states but are rulers of none. Finally, ethnic groups
may exist only in contact with states, but not within them. This last situation
pertains less to the modern world, when states have partitioned most of
the world's territory among themselves, but was common in the ancient
world. As these examples suggest, ethnic groups are generally longer-lived
than states themselves (Marcus, 1992; Spicer, 1971; Yoffee, 1993b).
While ethnicity is fundamentally an extension of kinship, the state is
essentially a political institution. Ethnicity frequently does have political
effects, and states may inspire notions of relatedness among their inhabitants,
but the basis for these forms of organization differs. Membership in
states is not defined by kinship, but by control from the state itself. Such
control may be based on other symbols that override kinship. To the extent
that an ethnic group is coterminous with a state, members of the state may
tend to identify with the state rather than the ethnic group. In this case
we refer to a "nation" or "nation-state." Ethnic groups and states are rarely
isomorphic, however.
To summarize, then, an ethnic group is most essentially a group whose
members view themselves as having common ancestry, therefore as being
kin. As kin units larger than any others, they must include members of
more than one lineage or extended family. Members of an ethnic group
usually possess some common language. Ethnic groups often are unified
by constructions of their past, by perception of injustice in the past or in
the present, and often by hopes of a future reunification. Finally, ethnic
groups are not states but exist in some relationship to them.
Other Social Identities
Like many social identities, a person's ethnic identity comes both from
ascription by outsiders and self-identification by group members (Barth,
1969). Nobody can meaningfully claim ethnic group membership without
some agreement from those outside the group and those inside. Because
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 305
of the potential for disagreement, ethnic identity can be a source of negotiation
or struggle between an individual, the ethnic group, and the state.
Ethnicity differs from other types of group identity in states. As an
identity based on kinship it differs from political, national, regional, status,
class, and professional identities. Although kinship may be important within
each of these categories, or within individual regions, statuses, classes, or
professions, it is not the organizing principle of the category as a whole.
These categories tend to be based on common interest, rather than kinship
(A. Cohen, 1969).
There is little evidence for any notion of state identity in premodern
societies. While rulers and bureaucrats may have used terms of citizenship
to label their subjects, the subjects did not use such designations them-
selves.
More recently, nation-states have attempted to use the principles of
ethnicity to inculcate such notions of loyalty to the state in their citizens.
Although usage of the term "nation" varies widely, it is useful to reserve
it for societies in which the boundaries of an ethnic group closely match
the political boundaries of a state. As such, nationality is in many ways
similar to ethnicity, being based on a common history and notions of relatedness.
It differs in being closely linked to a specific polity.
Regional identity may approximate ethnicity in situations of little
population movement, although its basis in kinship is less certain. In such
situations, regional identity may become significant in structuring interaction
between regions (Bourdieu, 1991; Graves, 1994; Kraus, 1970). In the
more common situation of significant population movement within and between
regions, regional identity seems likely to be weak. The importance
of regional identity in early civilizations is not clear, however.
Status and class, in contrast to ethnicity, are fundamentally hierarchical.
Status, in the Weberian sense, is a principle based on prestige that
ranks members of a society according to culturally specific principles, which
may include wealth, education, or distinctive beliefs or practices (Weber,
1922, pp. 302ff.). A class, in the Marxian sense, is a group with a single
relationship to the means of production that is economically connected to
"higher" and "lower" groups. Status and class may crosscut ethnicity in
many societies: members of a particular ethnic group may be high and low
status, upper and lower class, and members of a given status or class may
belong to more than one ethnic group. Although ethnic groups within a
society may be ranked, this is not a defining characteristic of ethnicity.
A specialized occupation may form the basis for ethnic identity, although
for the most part such groups are not based on common ancestry
and do not create or maintain any memory of past unity. Castes in South
Asia are perhaps the most significant exception; they have occupational
306 Emberling
specialties, and kinship determines their membership. A further exception
is pastoral nomadism, a specialized herding occupation whose development
relates to the rise of the state as much as that of ethnicity (Barth, 1961;
Chang and Koster, 1986; Lees and Bates, 1974; Zarins, 1990). Groups of
itinerant craft specialists also have assumed ethnic identity, both in the past
and in the present (Postgate, 1987, pp. 268-269).
Finally, we must address the "problem of tribe" (Caton, 1990; Fried,
1975; Helm, 1968; Tapper, 1990; Whitehead, 1992; Zagarell, 1995). While
the terms "ethnic group" and "tribe" overlap, they are not the same. One
use of the term "tribe" refers to a nonhierarchical political system between
"bands" and "chiefdoms" on a trajectory of political evolution. A different
usage applies to socially bounded cultural groups existing within states or
on their peripheries. The disparity between these two uses--one being a
group defined by political characteristics, the other by cultural differences--
makes "tribe" a highly ambiguous term. Ethnicity does not specify a particular
form of political organization, so we could not use it to describe a
group of prestate societies (Kamp and Yoffee, 1980, pp. 88-89). On the
other hand, the second usage of "tribe"--bounded cultural groups--
matches quite closely the general use of "ethnic group." Because of this
overlap, it would perhaps be best to reserve "tribe" for the prestate form
of political organization and to use "ethnic group" for cultural groups that
form part of complex societies.
Ethnic Dynamics: Strategies of Identity
Ethnicity is best seen as a process of identification and differentiation,
rather than as an inherent attribute of individuals or groups. Much has
been made in this literature about differing reasons for the persistence of
this process (Bentley, 1987). The "primordialists" (primarily Geertz, 1963)
think that ethnic groups maintain their identities because of emotional attachment
to the symbols of the group. The "instrumentalists," on the other
hand, suggest that ethnic groups maintain their ethnicity for political or
economic gain. These positions are overdrawn, and there have been a number
of attempts to reconcile them (Bentley, 1987; Nagata, 1974). As Nagata
points out, "primordial" cultural traditions can change in response to altered
social and political conditions.
Barth's approach had implied that the ethnic identity of individuals is
not fixed but can be altered by manipulation of the appropriate symbols.
"Situational ethnicity," as this process has come to be called, was investigated
further by Nagata (1974), among others (Okamura, 1981). In her
study of Malaysia, a society in which there is no single dominant ethnic
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 307
group, Nagata found that individual ethnic identity may vacillate for expediency
and status mobility. The situational nature of ethnicity provides a
further reason for anthropologists' difficulties in using trait lists to locate
ethnic groups: people may display ethnic identity differentially according
to political and social context.
Ethnicity varies in a hierarchical way according to the situation. Iraqis
in the United States may identify themselves as Arab, while in Iraq they
may be bedu,since '~rab" is not a distinguishing category. Among bedu--or
other tribal, lineage, or clan identities--they may belong to one subgroup
or another. Each of these identities is ethnic and, within the appropriate
situation, is accurate and likely to form a basis of social action. In a sense,
then, ethnicity fundamentally depends on context.
In most societies, there are limitations on this situational manipulation
of ethnic identity. Status and power differences between ethnic groups can
limit individuals' efforts to claim membership in a more prestigious or more
powerful group (Okamura, 1981). Lockwood (1981) suggests further that
the fluidity of ethnic identity depends in part on the nature of the symbols
used to differentiate groups. When language differences create social
groupings, group membership is relatively fluid; it is simple in multitingual
societies for individuals to switch languages. Lockwood suggests that groups
marked by religious differences may be less permeable; in multilingual areas,
people are likely to speak more than one language, but a religious
affiliation is likely to be exclusive of all others. Finally, ethnic groups
marked by (culturally defined) physical characteristics would be the least
flexible of all. In addition, we may tend to overestimate the potential for
manipulation in past societies, which would not have been as anonymous
and bureaucratic as our own. As Van den Berghe (1981, p. 27, original
italics) puts it, "Ethnicity can be manipulatedbut not manufactured."
It is worth noting here that definition of ethnic groups by physical,
racial characteristics is relatively rare throughout history; its prevalence in
the West today depends on recent large-scale migrations and forced displacements
of groups of people, which were then juxtaposed to groups with
markedly different physical characteristics (e.g., Van den Berghe, 1981, p.
32).
Ethnogenesis
Explanations for the development of ethnicity and identifications of
the first ethnic groups diverge widely. Van den Berghe (1981) puts its origin
among independent hunter-gatherer bands. Lockwood (1981), Brass (1985),
A. Smith (1986), and many others suggest that ethnic groups arose with
308 Emberling
the state. Finally, Gellner (1983) and Nash (1987) have argued that ethnicity
is a product of capitalism. The association between the earliest ethnicity
and state formation seems correct. There remain doubts about the
boundedness and identities of prestate societies, and few studies have
shown social identities very similar to ethnicity to exist without states. On
the other hand, there are numerous examples of ethnic groups matching
the description given above that have developed in relationship with early
states (Shennan, 1989, p. 15; e.g., Michalowski, 1995). To some extent, however,
this is an empirical question: the nature of prestate social boundaries
is not well understood.
There are several types of ethnogenetic processes associated with state
formation and state control. Early states frequently develop within a network
of culturally similar polities, a grouping that may be called a "civilization"
(Renfrew, 1986; Yoffee, 1993a). Civilizations themselves are not
self-identifying groups; their development operates under different princi-
ples.
A new ethnic identity often develops when a state conquers or otherwise
encompasses previously independent groups. These may be relatively
bounded, well-defined groups such as other states, or they may be lessbounded,
relatively undifferentiated agricultural communities or huntergatherers.
The newly formed ethnic groups in these situations thus arise
on the margins of expanding states. States very often attempt to dramatically
increase the rigidity of cultural differences between these groups, as
a strategy of control (Feinman et al., 1996, pp. 68-71). This is the case for
ancient empires like the Inca or Aztec (Brumfiel, 1994; Patterson, 1991),
for more recent states and empires in Africa (M. Smith, 1969, p. 130), and
for modern colonial administrations throughout the Third World. The process
of incorporation may provide the foundation for a notion of former
unity, along with some sense of current injustice and hope of future independence.
States and newly incorporated groups may struggle over control
of production. Understanding ethnicity as a form of resistance also makes
some sense of the variety of relationships between ethnic groups and states.
A similar situation arises when people migrate, or are forced to move,
from one state to another or from one area within a large state or empire
to another. Whereas they may not have formed a particularly distinctive
group before moving, in their new context they become more distinctive.
Many of the ancient empires, such as the Assyrian and Inca, practiced
large-scale forced resettlement that produced ethnic enclaves of this type
(Oded, 1979; Patterson, 1991; Postgate, 1989). The process of urbanization,
in which people from a variety of areas move into a single city, might be
expected to encourage ethnic distinctiveness (Bernbeck, 1995). Mobile
populations are even more common in the modern world, producing, for
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 309
example, the '~ffro-American," 'Nsian-American," and "Hispanic" ethnic
groups within the United States. The shared experience of movement and
isolation in such cases enhances the sense of unity for these groups.
In any of these ethnogenetic processes, naming and bounding a group
can be a source of struggle affected by power relations between the state
and a newly forming ethnic group (McGuire, 1982; B. Williams, 1992).
Names imposed by more powerful groups often do not match local cultural
groupings.
Maintenance and Disappearanceof Ethnic Identity
After the development of an ethnic group, political strategies of ethnic
group members and of the state itself may preserve, enhance, or suppress
the distinctiveness of the group. States may attempt to divide and conquer
by forcing such groups to maintain their traditional cultural practices, as
the Inca empire did. The practice of deportation forms a part of a similar
strategy. On the other hand, states may attempt to suppress local identities
to encourage a unified identity of the state itself (Gailey, 1985). The "melting
pot" ideology in the United States is one such example, but some ancient
empires pursued this strategy as well (Patterson, 1987, p. 122).
Ethnic groups, particularly their elite (Barth, 1969, p. 33; Brass, 1985),
may react in different ways to incorporation within a state. They may resist
state attempts to maintain their distinctiveness or resist attempts to suppress
their identity (A. Cohen, 1969). This resistance can take the form of
ideological or military opposition (Gailey, 1985; McGuire, 1982; Scott,
1990). These strategies also may vary, as an ethnic group may initially assimilate
and subsequently resist incorporation within the state (e.g., Nugent,
1994).
The potential opposition of ethnic and state strategies and the frequent
resistance posed by ethnic groups to the state suggest a general principle:
state control and the political influence of nongoverning ethnic groups are
inversely related. As the state loses control of ideology and the production
and maintenance of symbols, other groups within the state--including ethnic
groups--may appropriate them (Greenwood, 1985).
The description of ethnicity given above implies how ethnic groups
may disappear. An ethnic group will persist to the extent that it has, and
maintains, the characteristics of ethnicity listed above. If an ethnic group
forms a state, for example, the importance of that ethnic identity will decrease
within the new state. If the group does not maintain kinship ties or
a common language, it will likely fragment into smaller groups. In addition,
310 Emberling
if members of an ethnic group pursue a strategy of assimilation, they may
succeed and the group may disappear.
This discussion has focused on the group-level dynamics of ethnogenesis,
but these are products of the daily practices and decisions of ethnic
group members and of states. The strategies that individuals pursue after
initial incorporation into a state vary: they may choose to minimize or emphasize
their ethnicity. Their choices depend in part upon their perception
of the social, economic, and political advantages of each (e.g., Despres,
1975; cf. A. Cohen, 1969, 1981; Hodder, 1979). Emphasizing ethnic identity
promotes cooperation among group members (see Axelrod, 1984). Socially,
this leads to a greater sense of belonging to the group. Economically this
might lead to a decreased likelihood of cheating or stealing between members
of a group. Politically, this would give a larger basis of support for
members of the group. Instead of being simply individual members of a
state, a member of an ethnic group has the potential to represent the entire
group, thus dramatically increasing the political influence he or she might
have.
In the long run, if a number of people in similar situations choose to
emphasize a particular ethnic identity, whether as outsiders or insiders, the
significance of that ethnic identity in structuring political and economic
processes will increase: 'ms long as ethnic affiliations and identities provide
the terms of communal action, such action--whatever its immediate goals,
and regardless of the successes or failures of any given grouping--reinforces
the experiential salience of ethnicity as a social principle" (Comaroff,
1987, p. 316). In such situations, maintenance of the identity itself may
become a cultural value in its own right apart from any calculation of gain
involved (Epstein, 1978; Geertz, 1963; cf. Bentley, 1987).
ARCHAEOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO SOCIAL
IDENTITIES
Having described ethnicity and outlined some of its interactions in
politics and economics of early states, I now consider some methodological
problems in the archaeological study of ethnicity: how to recognize the material
remains of an ethnic group and how to distinguish ethnicity from
other kinds of social groups (Table I).
Recent anthropological work on ethnicity suggests that differences in
almost any cultural feature can distinguish one ethnic group from others
(Table II). Typically such cultural features include language, religion, culturally
defined physical characteristics, body ornamentation, cuisine, and
such material culture as architecture, clothing, and household objects like
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 311
Table H. Selected Archaeological Studies of Ethnicity Using Different Materials
Ceramics: Creamer, 1987;Emberling,1995a;Engelbrecht,1974;Esse, 1992;Feinmanet al.,
1989;Flanneryand Marcus,1983;Gerstle,1987;Graves,1994;Hegmon,1994;Hill, 1987;
Kramer,1977;Miroschedji,1986;Parayre,1986;Sabloff,1973;Washburn,1989;Wonderley,
1991
Architecture: Aldenderferand Stanish,1993; Baldwin,1987; Bawden,1993; Conrad, 1993;
Flanneryand Marcus,1983b;Goldstein,1993;Hegmon,1989,t994;Stanish,1989;Stanish
et al., 1993;Wise,1993
Lithics: Binford,1973;Binfordand Binford,1966;Bordes,1961,1973;H~land,1977;Magne
and Matson,1987
Basketryand textiles: Bernick,1987;Ribeiro,1987;Rodman,1992(cf. Wobst, 1977)
Food: Crabtree,1990;DeBoer,1987;Hesse,1990,1995;Langenwalter,1980;Stein, 1993
Bodyornaments:Brumfielet aL, 1994;Graham,1973;Kenoyer,1991
Burial: Beck,1995;Carter and Parker, 1995;Larsson,1989;Piperno,1986
Multiple categories: Athens, 1992;Emberling,1995b;Flanneryand Marcus, 1983;Grosboll,
1987;Leventhalet al., 1987;Paddock,1983;Santleyet aL, 1987;Spence, 1992;Steinet al.,
1996
pottery. These aspects of culture may vary throughout economic or political
systems without having significant associations with one social group or another.
The distribution of a pottery style, for example, may not indicate
the existence of an ethnic group, but may instead mark political boundaries
or simply the spatial limits of a particular system of distribution (Feinman
et al., 1989; Kramer, 1977). While it is undoubtedly true that pottery does
not always constitute a significant difference between social groups, this is
not the same as saying that it may never do so. Rather, archaeologists must
identify the social significance of pottery, and other cultural features, for
each social situation independently. The problem for archaeologists is to
identify which characteristics would have been socially meaningful in a particular
social situation, and which were unimportant. A further problem
for archaeologists is to consider which nonmaterial characteristics might
have been important to ethnic identity, and how they would be visible in
archaeological remains.
Identifying material markers of ethnicity has several steps. The initial
step is to identify a potentially distinctive group, whether through a constellation
of types or styles, through names in historical documents, or
through modern informants. We may then attempt to establish the social
and geographical boundaries of the group by comparing distinctive practices
or artifacts with those of neighboring groups. By careful study of contexts
of production and use, we can then attempt to identify the kind of
group that such a practice might mark. Finally, comparison of these results
with analyses of other categories of evidence may support an identification
of ethnic difference.
312 Emberling
Defining the Group
The most detailed study of ethnic groups and their material culture
has been ethnoarchaeological. Hodder's (1982) study focused on pastoralists
and agriculturalists in Kenya, but also briefly discussed identity within
the Lozi state of Zambia and among agricultural groups in the Nuba Mountains
of the Sudan. Hodder clearly showed the complexity of relations between
material culture and social organization, although he scarcely
discussed the involvement of the state in the formation of these local group
identities. Beginning with the locations of named groups, he plotted the
distributions of styles, showing that some corresponded to the locations of
these groups, while others did not. In the Baringo district of Kenya, for
example, ceramics and wooden stools differed between the Njemps, Tugen,
and Pokot, while the distribution of spears and calabashes had more to do
with age sets and gender, respectively, than with ethnic boundaries (also
Larick, 1991). In covering groups with a variety of political and ecological
relationships, Hodder showed that group distinctiveness differed according
to political and ecological conditions.
Wiessner's (1983, 1984) work on San arrows and beaded headbands
attempted to correlate stylistic differences with various levels of social organization
from band to language group, and found that the styles differentiated
distinct language groups most clearly from each other. These
studies show that material culture differences may match language distributions
in cases where language differences act as a form of political organization:
where speakers of a single language interact preferentially with
speakers of that language.
The Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project in the highlands of the northern
Philippines has produced a number of studies relevant to questions of
group identity and its relationship to material culture (Longacre and Skibo,
1994). In particular, the work of Stark (1994, 1995) and Graves (1994) suggests
that ethnicity is not a particularly salient social identity among these
agricultural villages. Instead, smaller kin units provide a focus of local social
action, and larger groupings of people are regionally based, rather than
ethnic (cf. Feinman et al., 1989; Rogers, 1995). This social organization
would be archaeologically visible: ceramic exchange networks operate primarily
within regions and lead to internal stylistic homogeneity within regions
and heterogeneity between regions (Graves, 1994).
Finally, the Mandara Archaeological Project conducted ethnoarchaeological
work among nonhierarchical agriculturalists in Cameroon (David
et al., 1991; MacEachern, 1992, 1995; Robertson, 1992; Sterners, 1989). As
among the Kalinga, ethnicity in this area is not a salient or stable social
identity; larger and smaller group identities are more visible and more im-
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 313
portant. Even so, the scholars could suggest that "ethnicity in this area is
situational, that material culture helps to constitute its several levels, and
that the patterns of that constitution are determined in part by relations
of production..." (David et al., 1991, p. 175).
These studies are of fundamental importance for archaeological study
of ethnicity. They show that ethnicity is not always an important social identity
and that material culture does mark salient social identities (at least
when we know what to look for). But ethnoarchaeology has its limits too:
it does not provide a universally applicable middle-range theory regarding
the importance of ethnicity. We should not be tempted to argue, for example,
that because ethnicity has been shown to be relatively unimportant
in Cameroon and the northern Philippines, that it should be unimportant
in all small-scale agricultural societies. It would be useful for the study of
ethnicity to know more about the impact of states on local social identities
in these situations. In addition, ethnoarchaeology will contribute little to
understanding ethnogenesis or social, political, and economic change.
A different approach has been to locate groups named in historical
texts. As recent examples we might cite Conrad's (1993) attempt to match
differences in architectural form in south central Peru to groups known
from Colonial documents and Pollard's (1994) use of Tarascan ethnohistory
to generate expectations of where archaeological boundaries should occur.
This method, while obviously tempting because of the abundant and
rich source material, can be difficult to project very far into the past (Marcus
and Flannery, 1983); in spite of the abundance of ethnic names in such
records, it can be very difficult to match them to distributions of material
culture. For one thing, names recorded in texts are usually those preserved
by rulers and bureaucrats, rather than self-identifications by the people involved.
Thus, in situations in which the bounding of groups is a source of
struggle, the names may not match ethnic identification as preserved in
the archaeological record. Brumfiel's (1994, p. 96) distinction between ethnic
identification, which is defined by group members and visible in material
culture, and ethnic attribution, which is defined by outsiders and may
be visible in stereotyped representations in art, suggests one way this struggle
may define itself. In addition, moving from names attested in texts to
earlier group identities ignores the flexibility of ethnic identity: group identity
does not persist indefinitely (Stahl, 1991).
Archaeologists also often use languages like "Sumerian" or "Zapotec"
as group names. But in the absence of convincing evidence of ethnic distinctions
based on language, we should not expect the speakers of a single
language to be grouped into a single ethnic group. Neither should we expect
distributions of material culture to coincide with linguistic distributions
(Renfrew, 1987; Yoffee, 1990).
314 Emberling
As an example, consider the old debate over the identity of the first
settlers of the Mesopotamian Plain. The timing of the migration and its
origin have come to be known as the "Sumerian Problem" (Becker, 1985;
Jones, 1969). Given the view prevailing in the early part of this century
that the Mesopotamian Plain was a recent geological formation, and given
the current assumptions about the correspondence of language, other cultural
features, and "race," scholars began to think that "the Sumerians"
must have migrated from elsewhere. This supposition led to a variety of
wild speculations about long-distance, large-scale movements of people
from as far away as the Indus Valley and from locations as unlikely as the
sparsely inhabited Arabian Desert.
To complicate the situation, however, some scholars began to point
out that some terms in the earliest texts seemed to be non-Sumerian. These
terms included many names of the earliest cities and terms for professions.
Again basing themselves on the notion of a primeval purity of race, language,
and culture, many suggested that these terms indicated that a preSumerian
population existed in the area, the so-called "substrate."
Landsberger's (1943-1945) early investigation of the "Proto-Euphratian" or
"Proto-Transtigridian" substrate language suggested that the substrate
speakers had terms for a number of specialized crafts, including herald,
overseer, smith, carpenter, leather-worker, clothes-washer, and potter.
There are, however, many objections to both the notion of a large-scale
migration of a unified group, "the Sumerians," and that of a substrate language.
More recent geological study of the area has shown that the
Mesopotamian Plain has existed longer than previously thought (C. Larsen,
1975; Sanlaville, 1989), thus pushing back the time scale involved. It still
seems to be the case that agriculture and settled communities on the alluvial
plain would have been limited by the absence of irrigation before
the sixth millennium B.C. Nevertheless, the area may well have been used
by hunter-gatherers before then. In addition, the surveys of Adams and
others (Adams, 1965, 1972, 1981; Adams and Nissen, 1972; Gibson, 1972;
Wright, 1981) show that there were no migrations massive enough to alter
all the cultural practices in the region. As for the substrate language, it is
perhaps premature to claim that we understand Sumerian well enough to
identify all the "foreign" and "native" words in it. As a general rule, we
cannot expect all words in Sumerian or any other language to have meaningful
etymologies in that language. Most importantly, the notion of original
linguistic purity suggested by this perspective is manifestly false; languages
continually borrow terms, often manipulating them to fit their own grammatical
or etymological rules.
If the Sumerians migrated from elsewhere, then the appearance of Akkadian
names and texts written in Akkadian in the midthird millennium
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 315
suggest to others that Akkadian speakers must have migrated as well
(Steinkeller, 1993; Zarins, 1990). There are, however, other explanations
for these phenomena: the later introduction of writing in central Mesopotamia,
rather than the later arrival of '~d~kadian" immigrants, could account
for these language differences. Such differences may as easily have political
explanations as cultural ones.
Quite apart from the question of supposed Sumerian and Akkadian
migrations, many have debated whether the terms "Sumerian" and '~kkkadian"
could refer to ethnic groups at all. Early in the debate, Jacobsen
(1939) suggested that the basis for conflict in third millennium Mesopotamia
was political, rather than ethnic. He presented a contrasting case, that
of Mesopotamian references to the "barbaric" Guti, that does demonstrate
consciousness of and enmity for a foreign group.
Kraus' (1970) detailed review of the use of the various terms should
have resolved the problem. He showed that Sumer and Akkad were used
in native terminology as regions and as spoken and written languages. Nevertheless,
there were no terms corresponding to ethnic groups. The conclusions
that Kraus himself drew from this analysis, however, seem to
contradict his own evidence. He suggests that we cannot doubt that Sumerians
and Akkadians were ancient groups, but that the evidence is just too
poor for us to reconstruct their boundaries. Nevertheless, these areas had
entered into a symbiosis very early in Mesopotamian history (Kraus, 1970,
p. 99). The presumption that a language group is necessarily a social group
is deeply ingrained!
To summarize, there is no evidence for separate Sumerian and Akkadian
ethnic groups in third millennium Mesopotamia. There are different
languages, and terms for different regions. It must be repeated, however,
that part of the basis for ethnic identity is self-identification and ascription
by others. Kraus' exhaustive search of the contemporary literature failed
to find any native term for these different groups. While it is not likely
that ethnic groups in these contexts would have encompassed speakers of
more than one language, it is unlikely that language groups as a whole
formed the basis of self-identification.
As a further methodological point, the Sumerian Problem illustrates
for archaeologists that textual sources are not infallible guides to ethnicity.
Texts very often do not address these concerns directly. In addition, texts
represent the perspective of the elite and the center, and may not accurately
represent the diversity of social identities on the periphery. It is the
case, however, that judicious use of texts and possible inferences from them
about the distribution of languages can be extremely helpful to archaeological
research.
316 Emberling
Locating the Boundary
In the absence of historical documents, archaeologists must rely on
differences in material culture as indices of social difference. Such differences
are most strongly marked in the case of ethnic enclaves, a highly
visible form of ethnic group distinctiveness brought about by the movement
of members of one group. The boundaries established in such enclaves are
revealing of a number of ethnic processes, including strategies of assimilation
or maintenance of differences, and the importance of stylistic redundancy
in maintaining group differences (Emberling, 1995b).
Expanding states of Uruk-period Mesopotamia established enclaves of
various types in areas to the north and east (Algaze, 1993; Johnson, 1988-
1989; Schwartz, 1988; Stein, 1993; Stein et al., 1996). These enclaves are
highly visible, using Mesopotamian styles of public architecture, seals, and
mass-produced pottery. It is not yet clear whether these differences represent
implantation of a Mesopotamian government in the periphery or
whether this is more widespread cultural marking: to date, the Mesopotamian
styles archaeologists have studied are primarily those related to central
governing institutions. A later well-known enclave in Northern
Mesopotamia is that of Assyrian merchants in the Anatolian town of
Kanesh. These merchants clearly pursued a strategy of cultural assimilation;
were it not for their account tablets and letters, it is claimed, we would
not recognize them as foreigners (Emberling and Yoffee, 1997; M. Larsen,
1976, 1987; Ozgu~, 1963).
A number of enclaves have been excavated in Mesoamerica. Most convincing
is a Zapotec enclave at Teotihuacan (Paddock, 1983; Spence, 1992;
cf. Flannery and Marcus, 1983), marked by Zapotec ceramics produced
within the enclave, by burial practices common in the Valley of Oaxaca,
and by a carved jamb with Zapotec writing. Oaxacan practices were not
uniformly maintained in the community, but those that were retained were
expressed in both public and private contexts (Spence, 1992, p. 77).
There also have been detailed studies of Teotihuacanos living at Kaminaljuyti
(Sanders and Michels, 1977) and at Matacapan (Santley et al.,
1987). At Kaminaljuyfi, the evidence for their presence includes public architecture,
burial practices, and ceramic vessels. Two enclaves at Matacapan
display similarities in public architecture and burial practices to Teotihuac~in.
In addition, the ceramic inventory is similar, although locally produced,
and suggests commonalities in food preparation and domestic ritual.
Teotihuacan identity is thus expressed in both public and domestic contexts.
These enclaves seem to have been established for purposes of trade,
whether for the state or on behalf of merchants.
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 317
Perhaps least convincing of the Mesoamerican studies of ethnic enclaves
and migrations have been those focused on the Maya. There have
been persistent suggestions of an invasion of the "Chontal" or "Putun"
at the end of the Late Classic, based on representations of foreigners in
art, as well as styles of ceramics and architectural differences (Graham,
1973; Miller, 1986, pp. 202ff; Sabloff, 1973). The foreignness of the individuals
represented on stelae at Seibal could be questioned, however, and
to understand the relevance of changes in ceramic styles, we would have
to know more about their production, distribution, and contexts of use.
A similar debate exists over the possible presence of the Toltec at Chich6n
Itzfi in the Terminal Classic and later, based primarily on similarities in
public architectural style (Kepecs et al., 1994; Lincoln, 1986; Robles Castellanos
and Andrews, 1986; Wren and Schmidt, 1991). The processes involved
here are complicated: Is this migration, or emulation of Toltec
culture by the Maya, or is it merely new Maya styles in art and architec-
ture?
Similar problems with ethnicity are found within the Inca empire.
Murra's (1972) vertical archipelago model suggested that members of an
ethnic group would pursue different economic activities in different ecological
zones to promote ethnic group self-sufficiency. The archaeological
remains Of these ethnic enclaves have been analyzed in several cases
(Aldenderfer, 1993; Van Buren, 1996), with emphasis on domestic architecture
and household structure. The expansion of the Inca empire also
produced a number of ethnic enclaves, as the Inca pursued a strategy of
incorporating groups and forcing them to maintain their distinctiveness
(Murra, 1982; Pease, 1982).
While it is often simple to recognize a complex of foreign artifacts or
practices, a number of these studies have too quickly assumed that the
complex maintains its ethnic identity. In several cases, for example, the cultural
distinctiveness may relate to elite status and attempts by rulers to
justify their position by emulating the symbols of more powerful neighboring
states. Nevertheless, studies of ethnic enclaves offer the potential to
understand in detail the material, symbolic negotiation over ethnic identity
that may occur with migration. Spence's (1992) study remains among the
best examples of this potential.
In spite of the abundance of enclaves among archaeological studies of
ethnicity, however, there are other types of ethnogenetic processes. Ethnic
groups may form at the boundaries of polities, in connection with secondary
state formation. Archaeological study of frontiers and boundaries has
tended to focus on center-periphery relations rather than on the construction
of social differences (DeAtley and Findlow, 1984; Green and Perlman,
1985; Lightfoot and Martinez, 1995; Trinkhaus, 1987). It is clear neverthe-
318 Emberling
less that ethnic groups in such situations could share a greater proportion
of cultural practices with their neighbors. Their remaining differences might
thus assume a proportionally greater value.
In these cases, identifying social group differences depends on analyzing
artifact style (Carr and Neitzel, 1995; Conkey and Hastorf, 1990; Hegmon,
1992; Wobst, 1977) or typology (Dunnetl, 1986). Archaeologists
earlier this century approached this question through the notion of an "archaeological
culture," defined by Childe as a set of recurring artifact types
(summaries by Hodder, 1982, pp. 2ff.; Trigger, 1989, pp. 167ff.). Archaeologists
quickly realized that the relationship between an archaeological
culture and an anthropological culture is not straightforward. It is not the
case, however, that archaeological cultures so defined have no relevance
to understanding the past. We must now exercise more care in identifying
them with ethnic groups, however.
A variety of methods for identifying boundaries has been proposed.
Hodder (1974; Hodder and Orton, 1976; Kimes et al., 1982) plotted the
frequency of various artifacts with increasing distance to find changes
in the slope of the falloff curve. Others (e.g., Voss, 1987) have approached
the problem through similarity measures. Rapid decreases in
similarity could also be interpreted as boundaries between style zones.
In both of these cases, inflection points could be interpreted as boundaries,
but the nature of the social or political group enclosed is not speci-
fied.
Graves (1994) developed a method for analyzing ceramic design variation
analogous to statistical analysis of variance. He considered not only
stylistic differences between two regions, but also the homogeneity of designs
within each region. Measures of difference and homogeneity together
comprise a measure of distinctiveness: not only did the designs differ between
the two regions, but the design within each was homogeneous relative
to the other.
I have recently emphasized the importance of redundancy to identification
of social boundaries (Emberling, 1995b): important social boundaries
or those being negotiated are likely to be marked redundantly. Comparing
stylistic distributions of multiple categories of material culture gives a
greater likelihood of locating important social boundaries. This approach
has its difficulties in archaeological application. A single archaeologically
preserved artifact type may have been redundant with cultural features not
preserved in the archaeological record. In this situation, an important social
difference would not appear redundantly marked in the archaeological record.
Nevertheless, a redundantly marked difference will be more likely to
have been important in the past.
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 319
Identifying the Group
In identifying which kind of social unit a boundary constitutes, the critical
problem becomes interpreting the meanings of stylistic variation (Hodder,
1986). Meanings in artifacts were not fixed in the past, however;
understanding some of their meanings requires careful contextual analysis
of their production and use (Emberling, 1995a; Hodder, 1987).
The first step in analyzing a stylistic distribution should be to consider
whether it constituted a meaningful social difference, or whether it has no
greater significance than identifying the limits of a system of production
and exchange (Findlow and Bolognese, 1984; Hodder, 1974, 1978; Renfrew,
1977). A necessary precondition for such study is knowledge of the scale
of production and exchange. A stylistic distribution larger than the scale
of production and distribution suggests that some larger social meaning
maintained the unity of the style. I have suggested that objects produced
at a small scale within the territory of an ethnic group are more likely to
be distinctive to that group than are objects produced at large scales and
widely distributed (Emberling, 1995c). In any case, examination of surrounding
styles may provide further proof of the meaningfulness of the
style: sharp geographical or social boundaries are more likely to have been
intentionally produced and maintained than clinal distributions.
Meaningful stylistic boundaries may encompass different kinds of social
and political groups, however. Some have suggested that political
boundaries may be so marked, although the mechanism for such correspondence
is rarely explicit (Engelbrecht, 1974; Fisher, 1995; Henrickson,
1984; Kimes et aL, 1982; cf. Zimansky, 1995). One assumption is that states
would discourage trade outside their territory, particularly if they were
highly centralized (Kowalewski et al., 1983). It seems unlikely from a
Mesopotamian perspective that early states maintained borders that limited
such movement. It is not until the development of highly centralized territorial
empires that such control becomes practical. The nature of early
state boundaries is not well understood.
Such boundaries also may mark a particular class in society, which is
not to say that different classes may not be marked by ethnicity as well. If
a style is an elite good, its possible ethnic meaning must be demonstrated
independently. Athens (1992) presents a case in the highlands of Ecuador
in which he argues that a type of ramped mound distinctive to a series of
highland basins are in fact elite residences. Athens takes these mounds,
and large painted jars found in association with them, to be ethnic markers.
Yet these are clearly elite goods, and we would need a more convincing
demonstration of their meaning within these highland basins--as opposed
320 Emberling
to their differences with architecture and ceramics of surrounding areas--to
interpret them as ethnic markers.
Several studies of ethnicity on the Southeast Maya periphery have suggested
ethnic differentiation in areas east of Cop~n (Ashmore et at., 1987;
Creamer, 1987; Gerstle, 1987; Leventhal et al., 1987). In this area, it is
primarily artifacts of the elite that are Maya, while the material culture of
lower classes may be non-Maya. In such situations, the possibility of elite
emulation of foreign, prestigious cultures must be considered before ethnic
interpretations can be established.
Social identities in prestate societies may differ significantly from ethnicity;
Comaroff (1987) suggests that "totemic" identity may be more common
than ethnicity in such societies. Whether or not ethnicity can be found
in prestate societies, boundaries have been suggested to mark risk-reducing
units (Hegmon, 1994; Wiessner, 1982) and, less convincingly, language
groups (Wiessner, 1983, 1984).
Early Third Millennium Mesopotamia
As an example of how an analysis of ethnicity in an archaeological
case might proceed, I present here a brief discussion of social identity and
material culture in Mesopotamia of the early third millennium B.C. (for
references and details, see Emberling, 1995a, b). Painted ceramics of this
period attracted attention from their earliest excavation at Susa at the end
of the 19th century. In spite of continuing typological and chronological
interest in these ceramics, there has been little work on their social importance.
The only painted vessel form is a carinated jar, which ranges from
10 to 50 cm in height (Fig. 1). Because of their wide range of size and the
fact that the pots are often unstable on their base, one of their functions
may have been simple decoration or display. These ceramics have variously
been termed "Jemdet Nasr," "Scarlet Ware," and "Proto-Elamite," but to
emphasize their similarities I propose to group them under the term "Hamrin
Polychrome."
Hamrin Polychrome was made and used in a series of plains and valleys
along the foothills of the Zagros Mountains, from the Diyala River in
the northwest to the Susiana Plain in the southeast, as well as on a limited
part of the Mesopotamian alluvial plain (Fig. 2). The foothills formed an
important route from southern Mesopotamia to the large site of Susa and
the mountains beyond.
Artifact styles and cultural practices along this route are only meaningful
in reference to contemporary developments in southern and northern
Mesopotamia. States first developed in the south by the Middle Uruk pe-
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 321
0 5 cm
Fig. 1. Hamrin Polychromejar (Louvre L6433).
riod (approximately 3500 B.C.). These states extended administrative control
over most of Greater Mesopotamia, including the entire Zagros foothills,
perhaps for the purpose of extracting raw materials. By the beginning
of the third millennium B.C., the states had diminished in size and lost
control of the areas to the north and east of the alluvial plain.
What kinds of boundaries are marked in ceramic design style? The
design structure of early third millennium ceramics suggests three separate,
meaningfully differentiated groups of ceramics. In the Zagros foothills, including
some areas in the northern alluvial plain, Hamrin Polychrome comprises
8% or more of the entire ceramic assemblage. These ceramics differ
in the structure of their design from the Ninevite 5 pottery of the north
and from the undecorated ceramics predominant in southern Mesopotamia.
The progressive differentiation of Ninevite 5 pottery--which was initially
painted and, later, only incised and excised--from Hamrin Polychrome suggests
the creation and maintenance of meaningful differences between the
groups using the pots.
A detailed study of motif distribution suggests a division between types
of motifs within the painted pottery. The framing motifs--those placed in
322 Emberling
~1 Early Dynastic i-!! Painted Pottery
Multiple Burials Off Sites
Individual Burials Under Houses
D Ninevite 5
(? 1O0 km
\
T
a, alk iK
.~. a.
Fig. 2. Distributionof paintedceramicsand burialpracticesin Mesopotamiaduring
the earlythird millenniumBC.
bands to divide the vessels into panels--varied simply by distance; there
was no evidence that these were viewed as meaningful or distinctive by
users of the vessels or by the potters themselves. Many of these motifs also
were used in Ninevite 5 painted pottery. The main motifs, on the other
hand, were more or less discretely distributed, each being statistically associated
with only one region. Furthermore, each region had at least one
such distinctive motif. This distribution suggests a hierarchy of meaningful
differences constituted by this pottery. At the largest level, the ceramic style
as a whole is distinguished from surrounding ceramic styles, in spite of some
common use of minor decorative motifs. At a lower level, a series of subgroups
is represented by relatively discrete distributions of the major motifs.
The distribution of Hamrin Polychrome is clearly bounded with respect
to neighboring ceramic traditions, and also is internally structured. Did it
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 323
mark a particular social or political unit? Neutron activation analysis of
ceramics from the Zagros foothills shows that this pottery was not traded
between valleys. Microstylistic variation in the ceramics from the Deh Luran
Plain suggests that as few as one and later two producers made all the
painted ceramics used there. Production was small scale and likely kinbased.
The small scale of ceramic production and distribution relative to
the spatial extent of these painted ceramics makes it likely that this pottery
had an important social meaning, rather than simply marking the limits of
an economic production and distribution system.
Hamrin Polychrome was used in a wide variety of contexts through
most of its chronological and spatial distribution. These contexts include
public, domestic, and burial contexts; higher- and lower-status contexts; and
areas used by settled urbanites as well as those used by nomads. They were
virtually ubiquitous within contexts of Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic date
within the main area of distribution. Their use is thus not consistent with
that of a high-status good.
Political units along the Zagros foothills are likely to have been relatively
small during the early third millennium; there is no textual or archaeological
evidence of supraregional control. Comparison of the spatial
scale of the Hamrin Potychrome distribution with that of contemporary political
units shows that these ceramic groups do not simply mark the limits
of states.
The most likely explanation of the production and use of Hamrin Polychrome
is that it functioned as an ethnic marker. The sharpness of its
boundaries and its large geographical distribution relative to the scale of
production suggest that it was a meaningful style. Its lack of fit with what
we would expect of a status good or of a marker of state boundaries
strengthens this suggestion. In addition, the political context in which the
ceramics were used--an area recently under state control--is a highly plausible
situation in which ethnicity may have been useful, either as a rejection
of state control or as a means of exploiting the growing trade along the
Zagros foothills routes.
Contemporary evidence from the site of Uruk supports this suggestion.
In one area of Early Dynastic occupation, Hamrin Polychrome comprised
as much as 25% of the ceramic assemblage, whereas in the other excavated
area of domestic occupation, none of this pottery was recovered. Such a
distribution would be consistent with the existence of an ethnic enclave at
Uruk.
Further support for identifying Hamrin Polychrome as an ethnic
marker comes from the examination of early third millennium burial practices.
The rituals and other practices surrounding death and treatment of
the dead are a likely source of ethnic differentiation. These events are
324 Emberling
highly meaningful in all cultures, being symbolically related to many fundamental
cultural values including, significantly, the maintenance of lineages
and other kin relations. For Mesopotamia, in particular, later literary
texts distinguish the Amorites from "civilized" people by their ignorance
of proper burial practice. Contrasts in the location of burial and the existence
of multiple burials suggest social differences that correspond remarkably
well with the ceramic distributions discussed above.
In the northern alluvium, including the Lower Diyala region, burials
tended to be individual inhumations under occupied house floors. Along
the Zagros foothills, however, burials were multiple inhumations in areas
or on mounds away from settlements. In the Zagros Mountains, cemeteries
of nomadic groups--themselves economically and politically dependent on
settled communities--also correspond to this pattern. The southern alluvium
may represent a different practice, in which individual burials were
placed on unoccupied areas of settled mounds. Burials in northern Mesopotamia
seem to have been on separate sites, but the sample is very small.
Comparing the distributions of ceramic styles and burial practices in
Early Dynastic Mesopotamia shows a similar distribution of the two (Fig.
2). With the exception of the Lower Diyala region, the areas having multiple
burials in visible locations outside settlements also produced and used
the painted wares. The lack of correspondence in the Diyala, which is a
border zone between these areas, is interesting. It does not demonstrate,
as Eickhoff (1993, p. 199) suggests, that the ceramics do not demarcate an
ethnic group. Neither does it correspond with Barth's (1969) suggestion
that ethnic markers should be most prominent at the boundaries of ethnic
groups. I would suggest that Barth's approach to ethnic boundaries is essentially
static, concerned more with maintenance of boundaries than with
possible changes and negotiations through time in these boundaries. The
Lower Diyala region, then, would be an area in which this ethnic identity
was perhaps the most flexible and open to situational manipulation. Thus,
some individuals would have emphasized their (by this time) traditional
ties to this ethnic group, while others would have increasingly conformed
to the practices of the urban alluvial plain.
DI~CTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
I have suggested that ethnic groups similar in fundamental ways to
modern ethnic groups existed in the past, and that archaeologists can identify
ethnicity in cases in which ethnicity was a salient social identity. It is
now possible to disagree with Kramer (as quoted in the epigraph): ethnicity
is in many cases a necessary construct for interpreting the past and ex-
Ethnicity in Complex Societies 325
plaining variation in material culture. In particular, attention to ethnicity
is essential to understanding political dynamics in early states and empires.
Although most discussion of these societies has focused on their vertical,
hierarchical dimension, such structures of control are frequently constructed
on an ethnic basis, Beyond being an essential component of past
societies, of course, ethnicity is a potent, often destructive principle in the
modern world. While archaeology is not the most direct way of confronting
these contemporary problems, it may contribute to understanding the
causes and consequences of ethnicity.
Considering a number of case studies, I was led to several methodological
suggestions for understanding ethnicity in the archaeological record.
It is helpful to begin with detailed studies of contexts of production, distribution,
and use in order to understand the meanings of material culture
to those who used it. Studies of redundantly marked social boundaries, as
have been conducted on enclaves, may support these interpretations (Emberling,
1995b).
The perspective of cultural anthropologists may seem to suggest that there
are no regularities in ethnic expression: since ethnicity is flexible, it can be
marked by any aspect of material culture. Yet there are reasons to think that
some aspects of material culture are more likely than others to mark ethnic
difference. In particular, we suggest that household structure (Bawden, 1993;
Stanish, 1989) might be methodologically valuable because of its close, meaningful
relationship with daily life. Similarly, aspects of ritual practice, including
mortuary ritual, may be particularly useful (Beck, 1995; DeCorse, 1989;
Ribeiro, 1987; Santley et al., 1987; Spence, 1992). Finally, the importance of
cuisine--perhaps most accessible through analysis of faunal remains--has only
recently been appreciated (Crabtree, 1990; Hesse, 1990, t995). When we have
many more archaeological studies of ethnicity, we may be in a position to
evaluate the general usefulness of different categories of evidence.
Beyond methodology, there are several outstanding questions that archaeologists
can address to advance our understanding of ethnicity. What are the
forms of prestate social identities, and how do they differ from ethnicity? Do
strong regional identities develop under conditions different from those of ethnogenesis?
Do early states foster some kind of unified state identity that would
compete with ethnogenesis? Finally, what can archaeologists contribute to understanding
changes in ethnicity over long spans of time (Stein, 1995)?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks are due to the members of my dissertation committee for patient
discussion and criticism: Henry Wright, Norman Yoffee, Joyce Marcus,
326 Emberling
Piotr Michalowski, and Carla Sinopoli; to John O'Shea for some particularly
pointed but helpful comments; and to participants in the session "Ethnicity
in Archaeology" of the 1995 American Anthropological Association
Annual Meeting for stimulating discussion--Bettina Arnold, Reinhard
Bernbeck, Miriam Stark, and Gil Stein. Thanks go also to Kate Keith for
reading and commenting. Comments by Gary Feinman and two reviewers
helped clarify a number of points.
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Archaeology, Anthropology, and the Culture Concept
Author(s): Patty Jo Watson
Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 97, No. 4 (Dec., 1995), pp. 683-694
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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Whatfollows is the text of theDistinguished Lecture
presented at the 93rd Annual Meeting of the American
Anthropological Association, held in Atlanta, Georgia,
in November 1994.
ALTHOUGHIHAVEbelonged to the American Anthropological
Association since 1953, my first year in graduate
school, Ihave been so deeply immersed in my own archaeological
comer for the past 20 years that I hadn'tnoticed,
until I began thinking about this talk, how very different
the current anthropological landscape is from the one in
which I came of age in the discipline. That fact makes the
present assignment a considerable challenge: to say something
that might hold the attention of an audience representing
the diversity of 1990s anthropology. So I decided
to structure much of my discussion around something
central to anthropology and anthropologists since the
formational period of the discipline: culture.
As a University of Chicago graduate student, I encountered
the anthropological culture concept not long
after my commitment to a particular form of Protestantism,
as a matter of personal faith and belief, had faded
away. So it is perhaps not surprising that during my preM.A.
period I concluded culture was a crucial tenet of
anthropological faith. It seemed to me absolutely necessary
to commit myself to one of the many definitions of
culture then under discussion (Kroeber and Kluckhohn
1952)before I could be confirmed as a real anthropologist
(before I could pass the comps). After that, I would earn
a Ph.D. and live my anthropological career in accord with
my own personal understanding of culture, which might
also be Kluckhohn'sor Kroeber's or Linton's.As a matter
of fact, it was Robert Redfield's version of E. B. Tylor's
classic definition that I chose to cleave to. Tylor said,
"Culture... is that complex whole which includes knowledge,
belief, art, morals, law, customs, and any other
capabilities and habits acquired ... as a member of society"(Tylor
1871:1).In Redfield's rendering, "Cultureis 'an
organized body of conventional understandings manifest
in art and artifacts which, persisting through tradition,
characterizes a human group'" (Redfield 1940;see Kroeber
and Kluckhohn 1952:61).
Redfield's definition is a little shorter and snappier
than Tylor's, and hence easier to memorize for a person
struggling-as Iwas then-not only with detailed culturehistorical
sequences in several parts of the Old and New
Worldsbut also with Murngin,Naskapi, and Nuer kinship
systems; with how to tell aphoneme fromaphon;and with
how precisely the Australopithecine pelvis differs from
ours and from a chimpanzee's. Also relevant was the fact
that Redfield was a senior member of the Chicago anthropology
faculty and someone my adviser (Robert J. Braidwood)
respected. Moreover, Redfield's definition specifically
mentions manifestations of culture ("art and
artifacts") and explicitly invokes duration through time,
two characteristics that appeal stronglyto archaeologists.
Secure in my gripon the culture concept, Ipassed my
comps, got an M.A, and went on to dissertation research
in Near Eastern prehistory. Redfield, Eggan, Tax, Braidwood,
Washburn,and McQuowntaught us thatanthropology
was a unitary enterprise made up of four equal parts:
social anthropology or ethnology, archaeology, physical
anthropology, and linguistics. A prominent Harvard archaeologist,
Philip Phillips, also formally emphasized the
close ties between archaeology and the broader field of
anthropology in an influential article published in 1955,
concluding that "Americanarchaeology is anthropology
or it is nothing."
I wholeheartedly accepted all this and identified with
anthropology as fervently as with archaeology. Sometime
during the late 1950s when I was completing my Ph.D.
dissertation, Ireceived an initial reality check concerning
PAT-YJOWATSONis Professor,DepartmentofAnthropology,Washington
University,St.Louis,MO63130.
AmericanAnthropologist97(4):683-694.Copyright? 1995,AmericanAnthropologicalAssociation.
PATTYJO WATSON / WASHINGTONUNIVERSITY,ST. LOUIS
Arckaeology,Anthropolog,and the
CUlture ConCept
684 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST* VOL.97, NO. 4 * DECEMBER1995
the relation between archaeology and anthropology. Having
attended a lecture and subsequent reception for Ruth
Landes, whose Ojibwa ethnographies I had read and admired,
Iintroduced myself to heras ananthropologist. She
asked what my specialty was and I said Near Eastern
prehistory, at which point she turned away abruptly saying,
"Thenyou're not an anthropologist, you're an archaeologist."
Her remark was my first inkling that the anthropological
world was not as well integrated as my mentors
had led me to believe.
I had ample opportunity to confirm the inkling while
carrying out research in the Old World,and then later as
I transferred my fieldwork locale to eastern North America.
By the early 1980s I knew of at least two North
American departments of archaeology completely separate
from anthropology (Calgary and Simon Fraser) with
another (Boston University) on the way. There were also
separatist themes clearly voiced in the literature by several
archaeologists.1 A few years later a full-scale anti"archaeologyas
anthropology"assault was launched from
England and northwestern Europe.2"Americanarchaeology
as anthropology" was rejected along with other tokens
of American imperialism. And, of course, duringthe
1960s and 1970s I had noticed that the subdisciplinary
balance in my alma mater department at Chicago had
become markedly asymmetric in favor of one kind of
sociocultural anthropology and against archaeology and
physical anthropology.
All this I knew, but until I heard Kent Flannery's
distinguished lecture at the annual meeting of the AmericanAnthropological
Association in December 1981(Flannery
1982), I had not noticed that the other foundation of
my basic anthropological training-the culture concept,
even culture itself-was under attack within American
sociocultural anthropology. Flannery quotes Eric Wolf's
1980 assessment:
Anearlieranthropologyhadachievedunityundertheaegisof
the cultureconcept.Itwas culture,intheviewofanthropologists,
thatdistinguishedhumankindfromall the rest of the
universe,and it was the possession of varyingculturesthat
differentiatedonesocietyfromanother.... Thepastquartercenturyhas
underminedthis intellectualsense of security.
The relativelyinchoate concept of "culture"was attacked
from severaltheoreticaldirections.As the social sciences
transformedthemselvesinto"behavioral"sciences, explanationsforbehaviorwereno
longertracedto culture:behavior
was to be understoodin termsof psychologicalencounters,
strategiesof economicchoice,strivingsforpayoffsingames
of power.Culture,once extendedto all actsand ideas employed
in social life, was now relegatedto the marginsas
"worldview"or"values."[Wolf1980]
Flannery mourns the loss of an integrating concept
of culture in ethnology, and fears the threat of such loss
in archaeology. Now, somewhat more thanten years later,
it appears that the culture situation in ethnology and
sociocultural anthropology is even more problematic.
Back in 1952, Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952:149)
noted that after Tylor published his definition of culture
in 1871,there were no other formal definitions offered for
32 years. Between 1900and 1919,they found six; between
1920and 1950there were 157.The word culture had great
currency throughout this whole time, including the three
decades post-Tylor, but it was being used without explicit
defmition.
According to a recent sunrmaryvolume (Borofsky
1994), research on or about the culture concept, or "the
cultural,"now ranges from linguistic, cognitive, and psychological
approaches to a variety of postmodern and
post-postmodern experimental efforts on the literaryside
to politically, historically, empirically, and/or methodologically
oriented work, to that which focuses explicitly
on the nexus of biology and culture, of naturalscience and
human science, and to that which concentrates on intercultural
encounters in premodern, modem, or postmodern
world systems.3 I return to this issue below, in the
concluding section, but first take up something with
which Iam somewhat more familiar:recent travels of the
culture concept in archaeology.
The culture concept in anthropological archaeology
has followed a well-marked but nonlinear trajectory over
the past several decades. Afterafreewheeling andprimarily
data-free speculative period inthe 19thcentury (Willey
and Sabloff 1993: ch. 2), North American archaeology
developed around a culture-historical approach parallel
to but separate from concurrent processes in European
archaeology (Trigger 1989:187, 195). At the turn of the
century, "theterm culture was first applied to groups of
sites containing distinctive artifact assemblages in the
Ohio Valley. By 1902 William C. Mills had distinguished
the Fort Ancient and Hopewell cultures" (Trigger
1989:187).
At this time in North American archaeological parlance,
Triggersays a "culture"was mainly a geographical
entity-a taxon for one of several synchronic units-because
so little was known about chronology. The period
between WorldWarI and WorldWarIIwas characterized
by intense concern with temporal relations and by a great
deal of historical particularism in NorthAmerican archaeology.
Trigger notes, as have other scholars, that Americanist
archaeologists ofthe 1930sand1940s paid no attention
to human behavior, to function, ecology, or even
quantification.4 There was no interest in culture per se,
although widely used classificatory units (foci, aspects,
phases) were implicitly understood to be cultural units,
possibly reflecting ancient tribes or groups of related
tribes. Archaeological cultures in North America were
believed to be conservative, changing slowly if at all in
response to diffusion of objects and ideas, and/or to migration
of large and small human groups. WalterTaylor's
ARCHAEOLOGYANDTHECULTURECONCEPT/ PATTYJO WATSON 685
detailed critique of Americanist archaeology, published in
1948andpromoting avery differentview of culture to and
for archaeologists, was a radical departure from mainstream
1940s archaeological practice.
Taylor's argument (1948: ch. 4) included a view of
culture as composed of two concepts, one holistic-Culture-and
one partitive-cultures. Holistically speaking,
Culturalphenomena are distinguished from natural phenomena,
both organic (nonhuman biological) and inorganic
(geological, chemical). Cultural phenomena are
emergent, more than the sum of the partitive parts, they
arein a realm of their own, a realmcreated andmaintained
solely by human cognitive activity.
Partitively, the culture concept also denotes a specificpiece
of the whole of humanCulture,a culture. Either
way, C/culture "isa mental phenomenon, consisting of the
contents of minds, not of material objects or observable
behavior" (Taylor 1948:96). Cultural content is cumulative:
"Theculture-whole existing today owes its form and
at least the majority of its content to what is called the
cultural heritage" (Taylor 1948:98). The (or a) cultural
heritage consists of mental constructs. "Merephysical
form is extraneous as far as culture is concerned, being a
property of the world of physics and not of culture" (Taylor
1948:99). What was once called "materialculture" (as
distinct from "nonmaterial culture" or "social culture"),
according to Taylor, is not culture and is in fact two
removes from the real thing:the locus of culture is mental,
ideas inpeople's minds.5Artifactsand architecture are the
results of behavior, which itself derives from mental activity.
"Culture[the first-orderphenomenon for Taylor] is
unobservable and non-material."Behavior (second-order
phenomenon) is observable but nonmaterial, and only
with third-order phenomena resulting from behavior do
we come to artifacts, architecture, and other concrete
materials making up the archaeological record: "this
[third] order consists only of objectifications of culture
and does not constitute culture itself' (Taylor 1948:100).
Taylor'shandling of the culture concept is seemingly
a departure from the position held more or less contemporaneously
by Kroeber, who says that materials and
objects are all part of culture equally with ideas and
customs: "Wemay forget about this distinction" (Kroeber
1948:295-296). If one reads Kroeber's whole discussion,
however, one realizes that his view is probably the same
as Taylor's (and Redfield's). He says,
Whatcountsis not the physicalax or coat orwheat butthe
ideaof them,theirplaceinlife.Itis thisknowledge,concept,
andfunctionthat get themselveshandeddownthroughthe
generations,ordiffusedintoothercultures,whiletheobjects
themselves are quicklyworn out or consumed. [Kroeber
1948:295]
So it is not difficult to see how Taylor,beginning with
the traditional, then-current views on culture, and thinking
about how to transform observations on the archaeological
record into information about culture, came to
the formulation outlined above. If only the ideas and
knowledge in people's minds are culture and the ultimate
source of culture, then archaeologists who want to contribute
to cultural anthropology, the discipline that studies
culture, must address their thrice-removed materials
in ways calculated to delineate past cognitive patterning.
The archaeological record can reveal ancient culturethe
mental activities of long-dead people-if skillfully
interrogated.The archaeologist as archaeologist is merely
a technician digging up physical materials and their associations,
in space and time, but the archaeologist as anthropologist
is uniquely qualifiedto produce trulycultural
information about ancient peoples and extinct societies
throughout time and space.
One might think that to be an exciting and appealing
prospect, but virtually no one heeded Taylor's call to
reshape the practice of archaeology and make it more
anthropological. Nothing happened even after two eminent,
well-respected members of the archaeological establishment,
Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips, repeated
Phillips's earlier admonition that "Americanarchaeology
is anthropology orit is nothing"in awidely readandhighly
influential volume, Method and Theory in American Archaeology
(Phillips 1955;Willey and Phillips 1958:2).Why
not?
One very immediate and practical obstacle was the
ad hominem, or straight-to-the-jugular,technique Taylor
used to highlight the sins and errors committed by living,
active, and highly influential senior archaeologists, who,
he said, preached anthropology but practiced "mere
chronicle,"sterile time-space distributions of selected artifacts.
Such personal assaults are almost never successful
as a long-term strategy. In a published Ph.D. dissertation,
they are suicidal.
Another a priori reason why Taylor's program was
never implemented, not even by Taylor himself, is thatthe
demands it placed upon field and laboratory recording
and analysis were simply impossible to meet at the time
A Study of Archaeology was published. Even now, with
quitepowerful computer hardware and software available
to archaeologists, and with greater knowledge of siteformation
processes as well as more widespread interest
in ancient ideational patterns, Taylor's conjunctive archaeology
is a rather tall order.
As Dunnell (1986:36) has pointed out, there is yet
another possible explanation why Taylor's reform call
was virtually totally ignored, and that is the concept of
culture he provided as the source and center of his formulation.
Taylor asserted, with most sociocultural anthropologists
of his day, and indeed since Tylor,that the locus
of cultureis mental. Artifacts are not culture, they are only
objectifications of culture at several removes from the
real thing. Moreover, he insisted that the highest goal
686 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST. VOL.97, NO. 4 . DECEMBER1995
archaeologists could aspire to was eliciting cultural anthropology
from archaeological remains, which meantthe
mental processes (the true, the real culture) of those past
peoples. This argument easily led to aview of archaeology
as being highly marginal within general anthropology.
As indicated earlier, Taylor's views also ran counter
to the basic operating assumptions of most Americanist
archaeologists at the time he was writing (Binford
1987:397),many of whom did not believe thatthe original
meanings-to their creators-of the items they excavated
could be retrieved, and most of whom were less immediately
interested in this proposition than they were inbasic
time-space systematics. In 1943, Griffin matter-of-factly
stated,
Theexactmeaningofanyparticularobjectforthelivinggroup
or individualis foreverlost, andthe realsignificanceof any
objectinanethnologicalsense hasdisappearedbythetimeit
becomesapartof anarchaeologist'scatalogueoffmds.[Grif-
fin1943:340]
Almost exactly 20 years after Taylor completed the
dissertation published in 1948 as A Study of Archaeology-a
closely reasoned, devastating critique that seemingly
sank without a trace-another reformerpublished a
much shorter and much more successful appeal, similar
insome ways to that of Taylorbut quite differentin others:
Lewis Binford's 1962 American Antiquity article, "Archaeology
as Anthropology," initiated a period of dominance
by processual archaeology, or "the New Archaeology,"as
it is often called.6 Like Taylor, Binford and the
New Archaeologists were intent upon expandingthe goals
of Americanist anthropological archaeology beyond
those of typology and stratigraphy. Although Binford insisted
that all aspects of past societies could be investigated
archaeologically, in practice he focused almost exclusively
upon subsistence and ecology. Processual or
New Archaeology came to be a kind of neo-evolutionary
"econothink" (Hall 1977) with heavy emphasis on hypothetico-deductive
method, quantification, computers,
andstatistics. Binford's concept of culture, appropriateto
the general tenor of New Archaeology and quite different
from Taylor's, was that of his professor at the University
of Michigan,Leslie White:"culture is man's extrasomatic
means of adaptation"(Binford 1962;White1959:8,38-39).
Binfordhimself-like another of his Michiganprofessors,
James Griffin-had little interest in the meanings
archaeological materials might once have had for their
makers and users, and he paid no serious attention to
ideational issues, regarding them as epiphenomena at
best. Thus, under his highly influential leadership, Americanist
archaeology was materialist, functionalist, andevolutionist
in orientation, overtly anthropological andscientific
in its aspirations. This trajectory was very successful
duringthe 1960s and 1970s.In fact, it still represents the
mainstream of practicing archaeology inthe United States
(Willey and Sabloff 1993:317),partly because of the great
initial success ofthe New Archaeology andpartlybecause
of the 1974 federal legislation (the Moss-Bennett Bill, or
the Archeological Conservation Act) mandatingthe inclusion
of archaeology in federally funded environmental
impact assessments. This legislation formalized and
routinized archaeological procedures in an early-1970s
mode that persists throughout the United States today.
In the late 1960s, however, Binford's attempts to
understand the morphological variation in Middle Paleolithic
(Mousterian) assemblages in France resulted in his
turning the full force of his research into ethnography in
northern Alaska and elsewhere (Binford 1983:100-106).
Largely, although not by any means entirely, owing to
Binford's influence, ethnoarchaeology became a standard
research focus duringthe 1970sand 1980sforAmericanist
and other prehistorians and is now an established, productive
sub-subdiscipline.7
Meanwhile, in the late 1970s and the 1980s, the few
anthropological archaeologists who were not entirely
swept away by Binfordian, processualist New Archaeology
with its heavy methodological emphasis received
powerful reinforcement from British and European advocates
of postmodernist (postprocessualist) directions in
archaeology, wherein ontological issues were central.
The most influential among these-at least in the anglophone
world-is usually said to be Ian Hodder (1982a,
1985, 1991a, 1991b). Although Hodder strongly opposes
nearly everything Binford advocates, and Binford wholeheartedly
embraces their adversarial relations, both are
deeply committed to ethnoarchaeology as an essential
archaeological technique.8Obviously the foci of their ethnographic
observations differ. Binford, to whom culture
is humankind's extrasomatic means of sustaining themselves
in a wide array of physical environments through
space and time, documents the interplayof climatic, topographic,
floral, faunal, geological, and other natural factors
with human hunter-gatherer-foragersubsistence and
technology. Hodder, to whom culture is mental (symbolic),
material, social behavioral,and the recursive relations
among all three, takes note of the important roles
played by artifacts in the complex, dynamic tensions characterizing
human social and societal encounters. He insists
on the primacy of archaeology as archaeology and
archaeology as history, ratherthanarchaeology as anthropology,
and stresses an empathic, particularistic approach
to understanding the past, much like that of R. G.
Collingwood (1939, 1946).
Binford rejected the traditional anthropological culture
concept (Tylor's, Kroeber's,Redfield's, Taylor's) because
it was not appropriate to his goals and practice as
an archaeologist, not even as anexplicitly anthropological
one. Hodder is committed to a fluid semiotic version of
the traditional culture concept in which material items,
artifacts, are full participants inthe creation, deployment,
ARCHAEOLOGYAND THE CULTURE CONCEPT / PATTY JO WATSON 687
alteration, and fading away of symbol complexes. Hodder
advocates a contextualist archaeology-as did Walter
Taylor-but one in which artifacts are not just objectifications
of culture, they are culture.
Like Binford's earlier explicit rejection of an archaeologically
unworkable, mentalist-idealist concept of culture
in favor of Leslie White'sfunctionalist, neo-evolutionist
formulation, Hodder's move is clever and strong;but it
is in the opposite direction of Binford's. Hodder begins
with the mentalist concept of culture, then takes archaeology
from a completely peripheral position with regard
to that concept and places it squarely in the center of
symbolic-structuralist inquiry. Artifacts-their creation,
use, and discard-are "symbols [i.e., Culture] in [social]
action" (Hodder 1982a). Hence, archaeology with its primary
focus on material culture is very centrally and strategically
located in the arena of social theory.
Binford does not deny that artifacts had intrinsic
meaning, semiotic content, fortheirmakers andusers, but
this does not interest him. He rejects the traditional archaeologist's
narrow focus on artifacts solely as markers
of time and space, and he also rejects Taylor's focus on
artifacts as mere clues to-objectifications of-cultural
patterns in minds long gone, as he rejects the further
implication that, no matter how hard they try, archaeologists
who accept Taylor'sprogramcan never be more than
cultural anthropologists manque. Binford views artifacts
and associated non-artifactual/ecofactual information as
the essential means to interpret the interactive dynamics
ofpaleoenvironments and humanpaleoeconomies in synchronic
and diachronic detail, important work that only
archaeologists can do. To make the artifacts and ecofacts
comprising the archaeological record speak substantively
to these issues, however, those artifacts and ecofacts
must be approached via site formation processes and
ethnoarchaeology, all of which Binford refers to as "middle
range theory."
Hodder is not interested in matters of subsistence
and brute livelihood. Rather,the intrinsic meanings with
which the artifacts were imbued, the roles they once
played in complex social actions and interactions, are
central. He agrees with the symbolic anthropologists and
other social theorists that symbol systems are what distinguish
the human primate from all other beasts; those
symbol systems include and are importantly shaped by
material objects and architectural forms. Hodder approaches
these issues of symbolic systems, past and present,
via ethnoarchaeology (Hodder 1982a, 1982b).
So what is this thing called ethnoarchaeology, upon
which the most influential representatives of contemporary
Euro-American archaeology have converged? Ethnoarchaeology
is one of the multitudinous ways in which
archaeologists obtain information relevant to creating
and expanding their inferences from archaeological data,
and to making those inferences more plausible. Ethnoarchaeology
can be as simple as collating descriptive and
functional details about objects and processes archaeologists
frequently encounter-stone scrapers, bone awls,
sherds from wheel-made pots, metallic ore, and slagfrom
archival sources, such as old ethnographies, ancient
histories, museum exhibits and collections; or from published
and unpublished photos, drawings, paintings. But,
classically, ethnoarchaeology means designing and carrying
out ethnographic research in one or more contemporary
locales, chosen for their relevance to some archaeological
problem. Binford picked the Nunamiut of
northern Alaska because he believed the caribou hunting
techniques they practice in an arctic environment are
relevant to his archaeological interpretation of Middle
Paleolithic caribou hunters in arctic western Europe during
the Late Pleistocene. The Nunamiut also instructed
Binfordabout the dynamics of mobile, successful huntinggathering
groups in close touch with relevant natural
resources in their landscapes. Binford's books and articles
on lessons learned from the Nunamiut were, and are,
highly influential amongAmericanist archaeologists, as is
the other ethnoarchaeological or actualistic research he
has done in the interests of middle-range theory: "the
relationship between statics and dynamics, between behavior
and material derivative."9
Hodder initially chose East Africa as a suitable place
to investigate, for archaeological purposes, spatial patterning
of artifacts in relation to ethnic boundaries (Hodder
1982a),but then he was distracted by other aspects of
the contemporary scene in Baringo and turned to the
study of material objects, symbol systems, and their intersection
with archaeological interpretation. In examining
ideas about spatial patterning of material culture, ideas
that were widely held among archaeologists, Hodder
found that his observations among several East African
groups (the Njemps or Ilchamus, the Lonkewan Dorobo
and Samburu, the Lozi, the Nuba) contradicted these
ideas, orat anyrate made them appearhighlyproblematic.
For example, most archaeologists would readily agree
that material culture reflects the degree of interaction
between groups: the more interaction, the greater the
similarity of artifacts, and vice versa. Hodder noted that
the natureof the interaction andthe degree of competition
between the groups play an important role in how basketry
or styles of ear decoration are used "to constitute
and reproduce ethnic group distinctions despite the long
history and high degree of inter-ethnic flows" (Hodder
1982a:35). He also found that the symbolic status and
functioning (the cultural meaning) of material items, such
as the spears carried by young unmarried men and the
calabashes decorated by young married women, determine
the morphology and distribution of those items
within and beyond a single society (Hodder 1982a:ch. 4,
1991a:109-119). Finally, he was strongly impressed with
the fluidity and activity of symbolic loading on and in
688 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST* VOL.97, NO. 4 * DECEMBER1995
objects of material culture, which are continually created
but also continually act back on their creators, users, and
perceivers to maintain or to disrupt culturally defined
boundaries within and between social groups (young men
versus old men, men versus women, Samburu versus
Dorobo):
materialculturetransformsstructurallyratherthanreflects
behaviorally... refuse and burialpatternsrelateto social
organizationviasuchconceptsaspurityandpollution.... So,
howmaterialculturerelatesto societydependson theideo-
logicalstructuresandsymboliccodes.10
Hodder and other postprocessualists are also very
concerned about the sociopolitical setting of contemporary
archaeology. They urge archaeologists to be aware
and self-critical about their biases and preconceptions,
lest they unwittingly create a past in the image of their
own present, a past that then helps legitimate contemporary
social or political themes (Hodder 1991a: ch. 8;
Shanks and Tilley 1988:ch. 7).
In sum, regarding the two men and their programs:
one may, and should, quarrel with Binford's narrow
"econothink"focus, as does Robert Hall (1977:499), who
coined the word in reference to 1970s New Archaeology
(see also Fritz 1978;Redman 1991). And one may object
to the ahuman (no people in it) ecosystemic orientation
(Brumfiel 1992),andthe general theoretical underpinning
of Binford's position (P. Watson 1986a, 1986b; Wylie
1985), but his influence has instigated and continues to
impel a considerable amount of fruitful archaeological
research. That is, Binford has been successful in defining
goals and methods that many archaeologists find feasible
and rewarding.
Much of the work of Hodder, his students, and his
postprocessualist colleagues has been heavily dependent
on ethnographic andhistoric information, andthe method
he advocates has yet to be comprehensively demonstrated
for purely prehistoric data, although such a demonstration
is perhaps forthcoming from the work he is
currently directing at the famous site of Chatalhoyuk in
Turkey. Meanwhile, however, Hodder and other postprocessualists
(by now a diverse group scattered through
Europe, Australia, and North America) have certainly
influenced contemporary archaeological practice in the
heartland of the old Binfordian New Archaeology, and
even in parts of the cultural resource management universe.
There is much more interest now than even five
years ago in semiotic approaches and in critical theory
applied to the archaeological record and to the practice
of archaeology. Itis perhaps too soon to see a comprehensive
synthesis emerging, but some manner of rapprochement
is definitely underway (see Willey and Sabloff
1993:312-317).
Beginning in 1989, the Archeology Division of the
American Anthropological Association requested a
prominent archaeologist to deliver a distinguished lecture
at the yearly divisional get-together during the annual
meeting of the association. Veryconveniently for my purposes
here, the four lectures published so far all address
this very issue.]] The four distinguished archaeological
lecturers provide a series of authoritative opinions and
examples concerning relations between archaeological
theory-past and present-and the actual doing of archaeology
(fieldwork, laboratory and librarywork, interpretation
and publication). Each speaker focuses upon
crucial themes in archaeological theory andpractice, past
and present, and provides suggestions about how to improve
our present understanding of the past.
Redman (1991) begins the series bypointing out how
much continuity there is between 1970sand 1980sarchaeology.
He also notes that although contextualist or postprocessualist
archaeology and New Archaeology (processual
archaeology) are obviously complementary, it is
unlikely that there will be significant integration. He
thinks coexistence is the best we can expect because a
majorimpetus for postprocessualist critiques comes from
fundamental differences between archaeologists with humanistic
goals and those committed to science. He advocates
making the most of both approaches, and recommends
that "we encourage serious scholars to do what
they are best at doing and to coordinate diverse thinking
to form a loose but lasting alliance for new knowledge of
the past and present" (Redman 1991:304).
Inspite of Redman'swell-founded reservations about
explicit integration between processual and postprocessual
archaeology, Bruce Trigger (1991) sets himself the
task of indicating what such a synthesis might look like.
He characterizes processual archaeology as neo-evolutionism
and ecological determinism, counterposing it to
postprocessualist emphases on "the contingent, psychological,
and mental aspects of human experience" (Trigger
1991:553). In other words, the confrontation is between
"reason" and "culture" (Trigger 1991:551, 554).
Trigger then discusses external and internal constraints
on human behavior: ecological, technological, and economic
factors and forces being the most familiarexternal
constraints, whereas cultural traditions made up of mental
constructions-some unique to specific societies,
some much more widespread cross-culturally-are the
internal constraints. Because cultures are "historicalprecipitates,"
the invention of new concepts is not random,
but is strongly affected by earlier concepts and their
history. The best means archaeologists have to get at the
cultural meanings of historically related archaeological
evidence is to develop the direct historic approach, Trigger
says (1991:562), admittingthat we will probably never
know the specific meaning thatUpperPaleolithic cave art,
say, had for its creators. Nevertheless, he urges archaeologists
to embrace wholeheartedly "the study of cultural
traditions as well as of ecological and systemic con-
ARCHAEOLOGYANDTHECULTURECONCEPT/ PATTYJO WATSON 689
straints... to takeaccountof theconstraintsimposedon
human behavior by cultural traditions as well as by rational
accommodations to external factors," thus synthesizing
the ecological determinism ofprocessual archaeology
with the historical particularism of postprocessual
archaeology (Trigger 1991:562-563).
Trigger'soptimism about the possibility for synthesis
is encouraging, but he fails to give any consideration to
the very significant problems involved in deciding what is
"cultural"("internal")andwhat is "natural"("external")in
ethnographically or archaeologically documented societies.
Hence, this part of his discussion misses the whole
point of the anthropological enterprise, which is to obtain
knowledge about that very conjunction: How is it that
human individuals and human societies-past and present-intricately
blend and intertwine nature and culture?
Brumfiel's distinguished lecture (1992) is a clear and
eloquent argument about the importance of paying attention
to social change in ways that the dominant ecosystemic
orientation of New Archaeology discouraged or
disallowed. She is especially concerned with gender,
class, and faction, and argues three points:
First,the ecosystemtheorists'emphasisuponwholepopulations
and whole adaptivebehavioralsystems obscures the
visibilityof gender,class,andfactioninthe prehistoricpast.
Second,an analysisthattakesaccountof gender,class, and
factioncan explainmanyaspects of the prehistoricrecord
that the ecosystem perspectivecannot explain. Third,an
appreciationforthe importanceof gender,class,andfaction
inprehistorycompelsusto rejectthe ecosystem-theoryview
thatculturesareadaptivesystems.Instead,we mustrecognizethatculturallybasedbehavioral"systems"arethe
composite
outcomes of negotiationbetween positioned social
agentspursuingtheirgoalsunderbothecologicalandsocial
constraints.[Brumfiel1992:551]
In the body of the address, Brumfiel succeeds in
showing how thoughtful archaeologists could actually
begin to forge the synthesis Trigger speaks of, or at least
the "loose but lasting alliance"Redman hopes for.
Cowgill's distinguished lecture to the Archeology Division
(1993) is an even more explicit attempt to bring
together and build upon the most successful aspects of
processual archaeology and the most exciting promises of
postprocessual archaeology. In describing the achievements
and shortcomings ofprocessual archaeology, Cowgillnotes
that one characteristic of most archaeologists is
underconceptualization of the past at different levels: On
the lowest level there are no people at all, just pots or
potsherds, projectile points, or other artifacts. At the second
level, people are present but they have no individuality;they
are Ruth Tringham's "faceless blobs" (Tringham
1991). At the third level, people are "rational actors."
Cowgillpoints out thatwe badlyneed afourthlevel, where
people not only find food, shelter, mates, allies, and enemies
while creating, using, modifying, losing, breaking,
and discarding material things, but also these people perceive,
they think, they plan, they make decisions, and in
general they are ideationally active. In the rest of his
paper, Cowgill discusses how archaeologists might hope
to approach the ideational realms of prehistoric peoples
by trying harder to get at ancient ideation; by becoming
more sophisticated about direct historical approaches
(here he obviously agrees with one of Trigger'spoints);
and by working imaginatively and responsibly to develop
what he calls "MiddleRange Theory of the Mind."By this
he means, in part, seeking out widespread aspects or
principles of symbolization, attempting to link design
properties (in art styles or architecture) with social features
and/or culturally specific cognitive maps, and in
general taking seriously what he dubs "psychoarchaeol-
ogy."
Whatis most interesting and heartening to me about
this suite of distinguished lectures is that all four explicitly,
creatively, and thoughtfully address the majorschism
in contemporary Americanist archaeology, and all four
explicitly, creatively, and thoughtfully recomrnend ways
to bridge the schism at various points, as well as ways to
advance archaeological knowledge using methods from
both sides of the fault line.
Another very promising development is the new generation
of ethnoarchaeological fieldworkers who are undertaking
and completing longer-lasting, finer-grainedinvestigations
than those of Binford and Hodder. Of many
good examples I note just three here: the 30-year trajectory
of ethnoarchaeology among the San of Botswana
from the work of Yellen and Brooks to that of Hitchcock,
Weissner, and Kent; Longacre's 20-year-long Kalingaceramics
project in northern Luzon; Herbich and Dietler's
ten years of research on Luo pottery and on Luo settlement
biographies in western Kenya.12
As regards the other focus of this paper, is there an
edifying conclusion to be drawn from comparing the odysseys
of the culture concept inAmericanist sociocultural
anthropology/ethnology and in archaeology? Yes,there is.
In each subdiscipline, certain practitioners took that concept
very seriously, notjust as a more or less meaningless
piece of antiquated anthropological dogma. Because archaeologists
of the 1930sdidnot attempt to operationalize
the prevailing culture concept, but ratherignored it while
absorbed in creating time-space frameworks essential to
North American prehistory, WalterTaylor (1948) made a
strenuous effort to align Americanist archaeology with
Americanist sociocultural anthropology by taking the traditional,
Tylorean culture concept as a central tenet in his
argument. He had very little immediate influence on his
archaeological colleagues, in large part because that cultureconcept
could not be implemented oroperationalized
in ways congruent with archaeological concerns of the
1940sand 1950s.Binford enjoyed much greatersuccess in
the 1960s and 1970s by insisting with Taylor that archae-
690 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST* VOL.97, NO. 4 * DECEMBER1995
ology must be anthropology, while highlighting a nonTylorean,nontraditional
concept of culture, that of Leslie
White.Hodder has gone back to something like the traditional
culture concept but modified it to place artifacts,
architecture, and archaeology in the center of anthropology
and social theory, while explicitly rejecting Phillips's
conclusion that "archaeologyis anthropology orit is nothing."
"Archaeology is archaeology," he and the postprocessualists
insist, even as portions of their program are
being incorporated into both academic and cultural resource
management Americanist anthropological archaeology,
partlyto reinforce certain minority themes present
there before the postprocessualist movement, and partly
to further syntheses between processual and postprocessual
goals in archaeology.13
The revisionists in sociocultural anthropology and
ethnology eventually found that the traditional culture
concept was not very useful to them, so they modified it
to suit their purposes. Manyof them, past andpresent, are
quite explicit about this, and many of them were quite
successful at initiating productive research lines based
upon their new formulations. 14Insociocultural anthropology
over the past 40 to 50 years, there has accordingly
been a proliferation in approaches to culture from the
earlier essentialist concept to cultures as configurations
of a psychological sort, as a series of distinctive cognitive
maps, as symbolic and/or adaptive systems, as infinitely
varying surface phenomena that may reveal deep truths
about universal human thought processes, as social
knowledge networks, and as trait complexes defined and
studied within neo-Darwinian frameworks.
Does this mean that the center of anthropology-belief
by all anthropologists in some widely sanctioned variant
of a unified culture concept-has been destroyed? If
so, does the lack of unanimity about culture-what it is
and where it is and whether it matters-mean that anthropology
itself as a holistic discipline is, oris about to be, no
more?
Morethan 20 years ago, that was Rodney Needham's
prediction for the verynearfuture about academic anthropology
(Needham 1970).He thought thatpieces of anthropology
would be redistributed among neighboring disciplines.
That was Wolfs conclusion 14 years ago (Wolf
1980),the theme picked up by Flannery in his 1981American
Anthropological Association Distinguished Lecture;
and apparently James Clifford (1986:4) was of the same
opinion eight years ago when he remarkedthat" 'Man'as
telos for a whole discipline" has disintegrated. Clifford
Geertz,in his Current Anthropology interview with RichardHandler
(Handler 1991) says 50 to 75 years from now
academic anthropology departments will no longer exist
because anthropology will have evolved into several different
disciplines.
Perhaps these conclusions are correct; perhaps general,
integrated anthropology is already or soon will be
gone. Although Icare deeply about this issue, owing to my
1950simprintingin holistic anthropology, Icannot get too
worked up over the disintegration prediction. Anthropologists
have been worrying about this for at least 40
years and recently went through another bout of explicit
fretting in the pages of the Anthropology Newsletter (see
Givens and Skomal 1992). Those who contributed to the
discussion are pro-integrationand pro-four fields. Givens
and Skomal (1993) conclude that a four-field holistic anthropology
is, at the present time, both myth and reality.
Another reason that I manage to remain calm in the
face of savage attacks on the old-time culture concept,
attacks supposed by some to mark or presage the disintegration
of anthropology, is that the sociocultural subdiscipline,
and, ultimately, all of anthropology benefits from
the culture conceptual shifts briefly referred to above. In
sociocultural anthropology, as in archaeology, each new
research trajectory counterposed to some aspect of the
traditional culture concept results in new data, new insights,
and new knowledge. Moreover, the old-time culture
concept still plays an integrating role as a central
reference point even for the radically revisionist anthropologists,
for whom it is variously a bete noire, apunching
bag, or a springboard to alternative perspectives on the
human condition, past and present.
Finally, the 1950scharacterization ofanthropology is
true enough and strong enough to bear the weight of most
contemporary, intradisciplinary construction and reconstruction.
Anthropology is still the only human science all
about humankind, from four million years ago to the
present: Who are we? Where did we come from? What
happened to us between origin and now? What is the
scope in all its compelling detail of past and contemporary
humanphysical and culturalvariation, and what does that
variation mean in biological, social, and cultural terms?
No other discipline has ever asked these questions
about the entire spatial and chronological sweep of the
human past and present, as well as about the particulars
concerning specific portions of that sweep. And certainly
no other scholarly band ever set out to actually obtain
answers to such questions. In spite of episodic skeptical
crises within anthropology, and a chronic agoraphobia
about where our center is and where our boundaries are,
anthropology is still here-even Geertz gives it another
half-century: an undisciplined discipline, an unruly semiaggregate,
but one with research methods and research
results of enormous global importance and great intrinsic
interest.
Notes
Acknowledgments.I am gratefulto AnnaM.Watsonfor insights
on culture in the partitive sense and on cultural diversity
in the contemporary world, to Rubie S. Watson for providing
some crucial bibliographic guidance, to James L. Watson for
ARCHAEOLOGYANDTHECULTURECONCEPT/ PATTYJO WATSON 691
many lively discussions about contemporary developments in
sociocultural anthropology, and to Richard A. Watson for commentaries
on postmodernism in literature and elsewhere. David
Browman and Richard Fox kindlysupplied important reference
material on short notice; a chance remark of Jean Ensminger's
was the inspiration for the direction taken by this essay. My
account of the culture concept in archaeology originated during
a short course on archaeological theory that Don Fowler invited
me to teach in the CulturalResource Management program at
the University of Nevada-Reno in January 1992, and was developed
furtherduringsuccessive meetings of a seminar on archaeological
theory at Washington University, St. Louis: I owe a
special debt of gratitude to the students in those classes. Prepublication
revisions to this paper were made at the Camargo
Foundation, Cassis, France; I am grateful to Michael Pretina,
director, and Anne-Marie Franco, administrative assistant, for
their support.
1. Dunnell 1980; Gumermanand Phillips 1978;Meltzer 1979;
Wiseman 1980.
2. Chippindale 1989:69;Clarke 1968:13;Hodder 1991a:ch. 9;
Shanks and Tilley 1988:213,item 6.5; Shennen 1986;Tilley 1989:
especially 110.
3. Barth 1994;Bernard 1994;Bloch 1994;Goodenough 1994;
Harris1994;Keesing 1994;Kottakand Colson 1994;Marcus1994;
Sahlins 1994;Salzman 1994;Scheper-Hughes 1994;Strauss and
Quinn 1994;Tambiah 1994;Tishkov 1994;Wolf 1994;see also A.
Watson 1992-94;J.Watson 1994;R.A.Watson 1964;R.R.Watson
1978;R. S. Watson 1994.
4. Bennett 1943;Binford 1962;Kluckhohn 1940;Taylor 1948.
5. See also Kroeber 1948:295-296; Kroeber and Waterman
1931:11.
6. Caldwell 1959; P. Watson, LeBlanc, and Redman 1971,
1984;R.A. Watson 1972.
7. Gould 1978;Kleindienst and P. Watson 1956;Kramer1979,
1994;Longacre 1974;P. Watson 1979;Yellen 1977.
8. Binford 1987, 1988;Binford and Stone 1988;Hodder 1988,
1989, 1991a;P. Watson 1991.
9. Binford 1976, 1978a, 1978b, 1980, 1981, 1982. Quotation
comes from Binford 1981:29;see also parts 3 and 4 in Binford
1989.
10. Hodder 1982a:210-211; see also pp. 155-170 for his detailed
discussion of bone refuse disposal and burial customs
among the Nuba.
11. Redman 1991;Trigger 1991;Brumfiel 1992;Cowgill 1993.
12. Kramer 1994 provides references and commentaries on
the San work; see Longacre 1991 for overviews of the Kalinga
research, and of other work in ceramic ethnoarchaeology, some
of which long predates the eraof New Archaeology; Herbich and
Dietler's project is summarized in Herbich 1987and Herbich and
Dietler 1991.
13. See, for example, Fritz 1978;Hall 1976, 1977;Kehoe and
Kehoe 1974;Marshack 1972.
14. For earlier and more recent examples, see Aunger 1992,
in press; Benedict 1934, especially ch. 3; Geertz 1973:4-5; Fox
1989;Harris 1964;Kroeber1952:part 1;Levi-Strauss 1955, 1962;
Tyler 1969.
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