Dissertation
A Multitheoretical Comparative Analysis of Social Organizations and Interaction in California, The Pacific Northwest, and The American Southwest
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
2022
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000005539
Abstract
Drawing from archaeological and ethnographic data from the cultural areas of California, the Pacific Northwest, and the American Southwest, this dissertation employs multiple bodies of theory, uses comparative methods, and explores multiple scales to analyze, reinterpret, and form new narratives about the complexities of past human realities. The first case study establishes sustained long-distance interactions and connections between cultural groups in southern California and the U.S. Southwest, and uses complimentary big picture approaches to demonstrate how systemic linkages between the two regions mutually influenced sociopolitical processes and historic trajectories. The second case study compares the organizational capacity of the hierarchical Chumash and heterarchical Yuman-speaking people of California through an analysis of warfare events and economic transactions, and recognizes that different forms of sociopolitical organization can organize at comparative levels of complexity. The third paper explores the multifarious relationships people in California and the Pacific Northwest had with their watercraft by operationalizing a multitheory that overcomes the limitations of singular theoretical frameworks. It reveals watercraft as power-rendering to elites, resistance apparatuses, regional enforcers, actors in entangled networks, sentient beings and family members, relational homologies, as well as other complex meaningful concepts. Altogether, the holistic anthropological archaeology approach I employ allows for new conceptualizations of histories through analyses of the connections people established with their neighbors near and far, the organizational capacities of conflict and exchange, and the dynamic relationships people experienced with non-humans.
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Details
- Title
- A Multitheoretical Comparative Analysis of Social Organizations and Interaction in California, The Pacific Northwest, and The American Southwest
- Creators
- Erin Marie Smith
- Contributors
- Colin Grier (Advisor)Andrew I Duff (Committee Member)William Andrefsky, Jr. (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of Anthropology
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 180
- Identifiers
- 99901051539901842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation