Social-Relatedness and Power: Determining Lineages and Multi-Clan Connections within a Singular Housepit (HP54)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Kin, Clan, and House: Social Relatedness in the Archaeology of North American Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper focuses on understanding how lineage-based and clan-based connections structured labor patterns and access to prestige/power within a multi-generational housepit (HP54) over time. The Bridge River site (EeRl4), located in the Mid-Fraser Canyon, British Columbia, Canada, was generally egalitarian, but shows variation and situated power-differentials in terms of wealth and influence of individuals or groups based on familial, lineage, and/or clan connections across several generations. These relationships were likely negotiated both within households and externally between houses as well. Due to the longevity of occupation of HP54 (roughly 346 years), this housepit may be representative of long-lived kin groups who were connected to the initial construction of the housepit, and/or to each sequential expansion of the space. Clan-based resource connections and spatially-defined traditions were potentially passed down through generations, a possibility reinforced by the presence of multi-floor/multi-generational site furniture (e.g. in situ grinding stones). Through an examination of changing patterns in subsistence resource management and the use of space across these occupational floors, we examine micro- and macro-scale shifts in lineage-based connections or alliances at this household level in order to illuminate how such connections interplay with the development of prestige-based social distinctions and subsequent access to power.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Kin, Clan, and House: Social Relatedness in the Archaeology of North American Societies   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22834