15. Polynesia

The Rise of Social Inequality and Complexity

• The “Rank Revolution,”

• What led to the emergence of social stratification (rise of classes) and complexity (regional integration and institutional differentiation within communities)

• How was personal and social autonomy and egalitarian social structures transformed into societies in which people were subordinate to others based on birth and social position, at both community and regional levels

Forms of Social Organization

• Pre-State (kin-based societies):

– bands and tribes: small-sized (10s to 100s autonomous social groupings, egalitarian, division of labor and status based on age, sex, and personal characteristics

– chiefdoms: medium-sized social formations (1000s to 10,000s), ranked kin-groups based on hereditary status (incipient classes), regionally-organized, integrated (non-autonmous) communities

• State (territory and class-based societies):

– societies divided into various social classes, with centralized government, a ruling elite class, able to levy taxes (tribute), amass a standing army, and enforce law

Chiefdoms

• Transitional form between pre-state and state-level societies• simple “two-tiered” hierarchy: people are either elite or commoner, in

part related to hereditary (incipient classes)• generally based on intensive economies• various communities integrated into regional society, typically showing

a “bi-modal” or ranked pattern: one or a few large (first-order) settlements, with smaller (second-and third-order) settlements linked to these

• formal, even full-time specialists: religious specialists, warriors, chiefs, artisans

• Thus, chiefdoms defined by two principle characteristics: they are hierarchical, having institutional social ranking of kinsgroups into upper and lower segments, and are regionally organized

• In other words, personal autonomy of individuals in communities and social autonomy of communities in regional social systems has been transcended

Ancient Polynesian Society

• The chiefdom was first clearly defined in Polynesia

• Societies based not on reciprocity, but on redistribution economies: strategic resources were concentrated in the hands of a few (chiefs) who then redistributed these to other community members

• In the Pacific, APS has its roots in Southeast Asia, where hierarchical social organization emerged first and then diversified as it spread throughout Polynesia

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Pigs, chickens, yams, dog, taro carried on sailing vessels

Lapita Colonization of Pacific 4000-1500 B.P.

Lapita Pottery

GroundstoneBone, andShell Tools

Tikis

The Ramage or Conical Clan

• Internally ranked, or hierarchical, social organization

• Tendency to “ramify,” that is subordinate lineages split off main group to found new communities

• Over time this process results in long-distance – island-hopping – migrations that resulted in peopling of Polynesia by Austronesian-speaking peoples

Colonization• Eastern Polynesia was

colonized between ca. 2000-1000 BP,

Diversification

As colonizing populations adapted to the unique

conditions of different islands, APS groups became increasingly

diversified and distinctive

Major Distinction between highislands, low islands, and atolls,

each with different potentialsfor cultural development

High islands provided the richest environments for human exploitation

and here we see the development of the largest and most complex

of the Polynesian chiefdoms, atollswere at the opposite extreme

Bora Bora

Tonga, Samoa, Fiji

• By later prehistoric times, ca. AD 1000-1750, Tonga was ruled by two major rulers, the principle hereditary chief, believed to be descended from divine origin (the “Tui Tonga”) and a secular leader appointed by the Tui Tonga

• The Tui Tonga ruled over an area which encompasses hundreds of islands, and was the top of a pyramid including, regional sub-rulers, island paramounts, and village chiefs

• The Tui Tonga engaged in alliance marriages with daughters of ruling lineages from Samoa and Fiji, and maintained some control over the other multi-island polities

Trade, Interaction, Alliance:regional organization of

Polynesia chiefdoms

Trobriand trading vessel

Shell necklaces and armbands, components of the famous Kula trade ring

Fish Weirs

Marae (Temple)

Stone Houses

Hawaii

Hawaii was perhaps the largest and most

complex of the Polynesia chiefdoms after, Chief

Kamehameha consolidatedthe five island polities

into a single multi-islandpolity by ca. AD 1700

Pie-shaped distribution of territories,corresponding to ecological as well as

social differences

pondfields

Heiau temple

Easter Island (“Rapa Nui”)First Settled ca. 1600 B.P. (400 A.D.)

(About the same time as Hawaii)

•Easter Island

>800 “Ahu” (Giant Tikis)Earliest =

ca. 700 A.D.

Construction of Ahu

Tallest Ahu >30 ft (9.8m)

Competition, Deforestation, Abandonment

and Starvation

Society and Politics

• Conical clan organization: all social relations based, in part, on an idiom of hierarchy

• Hierarchy based on primogeniture, which is basis of ranking kingroups into hereditary elite (anetï) and commoner (kamaga) ranks

• Elite individuals tend to marry other high-ranking individuals, either their first cross-cousins or elites from other villages (rank endogamy), which maintains distinctions between ranks, although there is mobility between ranks

• Communities throughout region formally integrated through co-participation in chiefly (elite) rites-of-passage and exchange rituals orchestrated by chiefs

Ritual and Ideology

• Accumulation of symbolic resources through ritual actions, notably chiefly rites of passage, differentiates individuals

• Begins at birth with recognition of hereditary chiefly status, certain individuals, such as the sons and daughters of principle “sitting” or named chiefs, are then further recognized in chiefly rites-of-passage (accumulate more symbolic resources)

• The accumulation of symbolic resources, prestige, through the course of one’s life provides certain individuals with unique authority and capacity to accumulate political power (ability to make decisions for and control others) and economic wealth, at least temporarily

• Rituals create metaphorical link with divine creators – Sun and Moon; they not only represent but perpetuate the social order, notably social hierarchy

• Ritual co-participation and elite marriage alliances provide basis of regional social integration, although no community or chief has been able to consolidate his regional prominence across generation – I.e., no paramount village, or capital controls other villages

Europe and Beyond

Late Neolithic Faming Village, ca. 2500 BC

Distribution of Barrow Cemeteries and Henges in Europe in Bronze Age (c. 2500-1500 BC);

Bronze Age cemeteries also sometimes characterized by largehoards of bronze artifacts, such as swords, interred with people

of particularly high status

Temperate Europe

• During bronze and iron-age times (after 2000 BC), regional chiefdoms existed in various areas of temperate Europe

• Up to the Roman conquest of much of temperate Europe, social formations consisted of relatively autonomous villages, chiefdoms, and small kingdoms

Bronze-Iron Age (c. 2000-500 BC)

fortified settlement in Germany

Celts

• Iron-age Celtic speaking peoples were distributed widely across temperate Europe

• These were hierarchical (chiefdom and kingdom) societies, but only sometimes forming weak alliances between them

Celtic Noble Couple

Celtic States

• Celtic peoples, by and large, did not live in cities, but instead were distributed more widely across landscape

• They did organize large populations under powerful rulers, commonly engaged in large-scale warfare with their rivals