1040 social organization: The Americas and continuity of the band For the most part, however, individual bands were self-sufficient The social organization of these bands was essentially egalitarian, meaning that no person or group of persons held a higher status or social position than others because of birth, though, of course, a person could achieve status through greater skill as a hunter Because the groups were constantly on the move, following food supplies and seasonal changes, opportunities to accumulate possessions were few People lived in caves or built temporary shelters out of perishable materials, and for the most part they owned only what they could carry Accordingly there was little sense of caste or social class within these bands Men typically hunted, often leaving the settlement for days at a time (but carefully avoiding encroachment on the territory of other bands) Women stayed near the settlement to rear children and to gather plant foods In coastal communities or those near major bodies of fresh water fishing and the collection of shellfish were important sources of food (Parts of ancient Mexico and the southwestern United States were much cooler and wetter than they are in modern times, so the region contained larger and deeper inland bodies of water.) To say that a culture is egalitarian does not mean that status differences not exist In what is today the southwestern United States along the Rio Grande there lived numerous Pueblo peoples One of these groups made up the ancestors of a culture that came to be called the Tewa The ancestral Tewa were an egalitarian society, and yet status differences were part of their culture The Tewa identified levels of earthly beings, as well as levels of inhabitants of the spirit world The top rung of earthly people, for example, included the patowa, HOW DO ARCHAEOLOGISTS KNOW? How can archaeologists detect something as abstract as an “egalitarian ethic” in a society with no written historical records and only a sparse and incomplete archaeological record? How can they look at bones or tools or pieces of pottery and make statements about the social relationships and organization of people who lived thousands of years ago? In the case of a hunter tribe one specific technique that archaeologists use is to examine such objects as arrowheads and spear points These points, made of stone, have survived through the millennia, while the wooden spear shafts, arrows, and the like have long since decayed and disappeared These stone objects may not be writing, but they can tell a story about the people who made them in much the same way that a written account can In examining points used on hunting weapons, archaeologists are interested in at least three different things First they examine the style of each point they find, looking for points that were probably made by the same person An arrowhead or spear point is like a small sculpture, with a style unique to the person who made it Such matters as size, shape, and the way the sharp edge was formed come into play Archaeologists can sort the points found in an area according to the individual styles in which they were made Second, archaeologists try to determine how many people in a community made points for hunting weapons Sometimes they find a number of points, but all seem to have been made by the same person or perhaps by just two people In other cases they find a variety of styles, suggesting that numerous people made points and perhaps even that each hunter was responsible for making his own Finally, archaeologists are interested in where the points are located If they find points made by a particular hunter in a narrow geographical zone, they can infer that use of those points was restricted to the hunter who made them, along with perhaps a limited number of others in his band If the points are found over a wider geographic zone, they can infer that the points were used by a wider range of people in the band and perhaps even in other bands In Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, for example, archaeologists have discovered that the same small band of hunters made use of six or seven distinguishable styles of points This tells them that each hunter in the band was responsible for making his own points; a smaller number, perhaps one or two, would suggest that one or two people had responsibility for making points for all the members of the hunting group In other societies the existence of unique points, each made by an individual hunter, suggests that a point could be used to identify the hunter who made the kill; this in turn could determine who got the meat Among the people of the Oaxaca Valley, however, the existence of six or seven unique points found over a relatively wide geographic area strongly suggests that points were exchanged with friends and relatives Points, then, could not have been used to identify the successful hunter, since several hunters may have been using the same point For the same reason, the points could not have been used to determine who could lay claim to the meat The effect was to diffuse meat distribution Put simply, it did not matter who made the kill; the meat was equally distributed to everyone Archaeologists can infer that the social organization of the band was egalitarian, with no one person seen as deserving more game meat than any other because of higher social status