Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-npwhs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T16:52:26.081Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Reconstruction of Kinship from Archaeological Data: The Concepts, the Methods, and the Feasibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

William L. Allen  and
James B. Richardson III
William L. Allen
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara
James B. Richardson III
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Archaeologists have recently attempted to reconstruct the residence and descent systems of particular prehistoric communities. Based on a study of residence and descent theory and pertinent examples from the ethnographic literature, we conclude that unless extremely detailed historical data exists, the analysis of kinship is best left to the ethnographer. The paper was conceived of as an attempt by archaeologically oriented anthropologists to resolve some of the difficulties encountered by us in our review of the archaeological literature on kinship reconstruction. We have, therefore, limited the scope of this paper accordingly; that is, it has been written principally with the problems of the archaeologist not the ethnographer in mind. An abbreviated version of this paper was presented at the 64th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , January 1971 , pp. 41 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Barnes, J. A. 1960 Marriage and residential continuity. American Anthropologist 65:850–866.Google Scholar
Barnes, J. A. 1962 African models in the New Guinea High lands. Man 62:5–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berndt, Ronald M. 1957 In reply to Radcliffe-Brown on Australian local organization. American Anthropologist 59:346–351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1962a Archaeological investigations in the Carlyle Reservoir, Clinton County, Illinois, 1962. Southern Illinois University Museum, Archaeological Salvage Report No. 17.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1962b Archaeology as anthropology. American Antiquity 28:217–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1968 Archaeological perspectives. In New perspectives in archaeology, edited by Sally R. and Lewis R. Binford, pp. 5–32. Aldine.Google Scholar
Bohannan, Paul 1957 An alternate residence classification. American Anthropologist 59:126–131.Google Scholar
Bohannan, Paul 1963 Social anthropology. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.Google Scholar
Buchler, I. R. 1963 A note on Nuer residence. American Anthropologist 65:652–655.Google Scholar
Campbell, John M. 1968 Territoriality among ancient hunters: interpretations from ethnography and nature. In Anthropological archeology in the Americas, edited by Betty J. Meggers, pp.1–21. The Anthropological Society of Washington.Google Scholar
Carr, William K. 1957 Some factors affecting residence mobility. American Anthropologist 59:1082–1085.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carrasco, Pedro 1963 The locality referent in residence terms. American Anthropologist 65:133–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carrasco, Pedro 1964 Family structure of sixteenth-century Tepoztlan. In Process and pattern in culture: essays in honor of Julian H. Steward, edited by Robert A. Manners, pp.185–210. Aldine.Google Scholar
Deetz, James 1960 An archaeological approach to kinship change in eighteenth-century Arikara culture. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Anthropology, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Deetz, James 1965 The dynamics of stylistic change in Arikara ceramics. Illinois Studies in Anthropology, No.4. The University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Deetz, James 1968 Late man in North America: archaeology of European Americans. In Anthropological archaeology in the Americas, edited by Betty J. Meggers, pp.121–130. The Anthropological Society of Washington.Google Scholar
Dunning, R.W. 1959 Rules of residence and ecology among the northern Ojibway. American Anthropologist 61:806–816.Google Scholar
Eggan, Fred 1964 Alliance and descent in Western Pueblo society. In Process and pattern in culture: essays in honor of Julian H. Steward, edited by Robert A. Manners, pp. 175–184. Aldine.Google Scholar
Fischer, J. L. 1955 Avunculocal residence on Losap. American Anthropologist 57:1025–1032.Google Scholar
Fischer, J. L. 1958 The classification of residence in censuses. American Anthropologist 60:508–517.Google Scholar
Flannery, Kent V. 1966 The postglacial “readaptation” as viewed from Mesoamerica. American Antiquity 31:800–805.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fortes, Meyer 1953 The structure of unilineal descent groups. American Anthropologist 55:17–41.Google Scholar
Fortes, Meyer 1959 Descent, filiation, and affinity: a rejoinder to Dr. Leach. Man 59:206–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gjessing, Gutorm 1963 Socio-archaeology. Folk 5:103–112.Google Scholar
Goodenough, Ward H. 1956 Residence rules. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 12:22–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, James N. 1966 A prehistoric community in eastern Arizona. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 22:9–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hogbin, Ian H., and Wedgewood, Camilla H. 1953 Local groupings in Melanesia. Oceania 23:241–276; 24:58–76.Google Scholar
Kluckhohn, Clyde 1939 The place of theory in anthropological studies. Philosophy of Science 6:328–344.Google Scholar
Leach, Edmund R. 1957 Aspects of bridewealth and marriage stability among the Kachin and Lakher. Man 57:50–55.Google Scholar
Leach, Edmund R. 1961 Pul Eliya: a study of land tenure and kinship. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Leacock, E. 1955 Matrilocality in a simple hunting economy (Montaignais-Naskapi) Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 11:31–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Richard B., and Devore, Irven, (editors) 1968 Man the Hunter. Aldine.Google Scholar
Linton, Ralph 1936 The study of man. D. Appleton-Century.Google Scholar
Longacre, William A. 1964a Archaeology as anthropology: a case study. Science 144:1454–1455.Google Scholar
Longacre, William A. 1964b Sociological implications of the ceramic analysis. In Paul S. Martin et al., Chapters in the prehistory of eastern Arizona, II. Fieldiana: Anthropology 55:155–170.Google Scholar
Longacre, William A. 1966 Changing patterns of social integration: a prehistoric example from the American Southwest. American Anthropologist 68:94–102.Google Scholar
Longacre, William A. 1968 Some aspects of prehistoric society in east-central Arizona. In New perspectives in archeology, edited by Sally R. and Lewis R. Binford, pp. 89–102. Aldine.Google Scholar
Lowie, Robert H. 1920 Primitive Society. Liveright.Google Scholar
Mcpherron, Alan 1967 Pottery style clustering, marital residence, and cultural adaptations of an Algonkian-lroquoian broder. In Proceedings of the 1965 conference on Iroquois research, edited by Elizabeth Tooker, pp. 101–107. University of the State of New York.Google Scholar
Murdock, George Peter 1949 Social structure. The Macmillan Co.Google Scholar
Murdock, George Peter 1957 World ethnographic sample. American Anthropologist 59:664–687.Google Scholar
Murdock, George Peter, et al. 1962 Ethnographic atlas. Ethnology 1:113–134.Google Scholar
Notes and Queries on Anthropology 1951 Sixth Edition. Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 1935 Patrilineal and matrilineal succession. Iowa Law Review 20.Google Scholar
Romney, A. Kimball 1962 Social organization. Biennial review of anthropology, edited by Bernard J. Siegal. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall D. 1961 The segmentary lineage: an organization of predatory expansion. American Anthropologist 63:322–345.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall D. 1965 On the ideology and composition of descent groups. Man 97:104–107.Google Scholar
Scheffler, H. W. 1964 Descent concepts and descent groups: the Maori case. Journal of the Polynesian Society 73:126–133.Google Scholar
Sears, William H. 1961 The study of social and religious systems in North American archaeology. Current Anthropology 2:223–246.Google Scholar
Struever, Stuart 1968 Woodland subsistence-settlement systems in the lower Illinois Valley. In New perspectives in archeology, edited by Sally R. and Lewis K. Binford, pp.285–312. Aldine.Google Scholar
Taylor, Walter W. 1948 A study of archaeology. Memoir of the American Anthropological Association, No. 15.Google Scholar
Thompson, Donald E. 1968 An archaeological evaluation of ethnohistoric evidence on Inca culture. In Anthropological archeology in the Americas, edited by Betty J. Meggers, pp.108–120. The Anthropological Society of Washington.Google Scholar
Watson, William 1954 Correspondence on bridewealth and the stability of marriage. Man 54:67–68.Google Scholar
Wedgewood, C. H. 1952 An annotated glossary of technical terms used in the study of kinship and marriage. South Pacific 6:450–458.Google Scholar
Whallon, Robert 1968 Investigations of late prehistoric social organization in New York. In New per spectives in archeology, edited by Sally R. and Lewis R. Binford, pp.223–244. Aldine.Google Scholar
White, Carmel and Peterson, Nicolas 1969 Ethnographic interpretations of the prehistory of western Arnhem Land. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 25:45–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winters, Howard D. 1969 The Riverton culture: a second millenium occupation in the central Wabash Valley. Tlte Illinois Archaeological Survey Monograph No. I and The Illinois State Museum Reports of Investigatio No. 13.Google Scholar