Emergent Tribal Formations in the American Midcontinent

Abstract

Archaic societies in the American midcontinent tend to be viewed as “archetypal” egalitarian, subsistence-oriented, gatherer–hunters. The strong techno-environmental orientation of most recent studies makes it hard to understand how and why increasingly socially differentiated gatherer-hunter societies emerged during the later Woodland period. In this article I attempt a social perspective on gatherer-hunters in general and those of the Archaic in particular. I suggest that alliance and exchange are universal hominid strategies and that, while they may have ecologically or biologically adaptive features, they are primarily about social relations and social reproduction.Gatherer-hunter reciprocity has been stressed in the literature, but the opposite side of the coin is debt, and debt is about inequality, however slight or well masked. The internal social feedbacks embedded in alliance and exchange that might exacerbate social differentiation, and the feedback between social demand and productive intensification are explored. The divide between the midcontinental Archaic and Woodland begins to crumble.