abstract: This dissertation develops a multidimensional approach to examine the ways in which people in small-scale societies create, perpetuate, justify, and overcome social inequality. Inequality can exist within a number of independent domains, some of which are likely to be subtle and dissimilar from those familiar to Western society. The advantages and disadvantages of inequality can shift between various groups and across social scales. Recent ethnographic work suggest that the most common domain of inequality in small-scale societies may involve status accrued to founding lineages. This hypothesis is examined in relation to four additional domains, each inspired by ethnographic data from indigenous groups of the U.S. Southwest: differential access to productive resources, ritual knowledge and practice, nonlocal objects and styles, and material wealth. Analyses are carried out with data from seven archaeological sites in the Mimbres region of southwestern New Mexico, spanning a period from approximately 250 to 1130 C.E. Results show that inequality was present throughout the Mimbres archaeological sequence but that it shifted over time, across space and social scales, and varied in magnitude in non-directional ways. Results also identify persistent factionalism wherein groups vied for moral authority based on differences in residential antecedence and justified via religious differences. Insight from this research benefits the social sciences by developing a number of methodological approaches, particularly to the archaeological study of primacy and antecedence, by demonstrating the necessity of a nuanced, multi-faceted approach to inequality, and by revealing the complex and plastic nature of inequality. / Dissertation/Thesis / Chapter 3 Appendices (I - II) / Chapter 4 Appendices (III - XIX) / Chapter 5 Appendices (XX - CVIII) / Chapter 6 Appendices (CIX - CXVII) / Chapter 7 Appendices (CXVIII - CCXL) / Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2016

This study reconstructs vegetation and climate encompassing pre-full glacial and Holocene time for the Mogollon Rim region of Arizona. Implications for the southwestern United States are discussed. Pine species (some currently disjunct) or species groups are identified. Two lakes were cored, the sediments were analyzed for pollen content, and dates were obtained by radiocarbon analysis. Hay Lake (2780 m) is surrounded by mixed conifer forest in the White Mountains, Arizona (34°N and 109°30'W). Jacob Lake (2285 m, 34°25' N and 110°50' W) is surrounded by ponderosa pine forest. Extrapolated dates for basal sediments are approximately 42,000 B.P. and 20,000 B.P. for Hay Lake and Jacob Lake respectively. Based on pollen, local vegetation at Hay Lake between approximately 42,000 and 29,000 B.P. consisted of mixed conifer forest dominated by Pinus aristata, P. flexilis and/or P. strobiformis with Picea codominant. Of the identified pine species, 98% are haploxylon and most are pinyon pine. Pinyon pine was more widespread at lower elevations than today. The proposed 1 Mid-Wisconsin climate has greater winter precipitation and summers cooler than today. However, the climate was warmer and probably drier than the full-glacial. Treeline was above the site. The period 29,000 to 25,000 B.P. is climatically and vegetationally transitory to the full glacial. Yellow pines (p. ponderosa/contorta) are present for the first time and Picea pollen increases from previous levels. The full glacial (25,000 to 13,700 B.P.) at Hay Lake is characterized by an association of Picea and Gramineae pollen and at Jacob Lake by Picea and Artemisia pollen. A high elevation parkland at the forest-tundra ecotone surrounded Hay Lake. Open coniferous forest surrounded Jacob Lake. A conservative estimate of treeline depression is 570 m. Winters during the full glacial were warmer and wetter and summers were cooler and drier than today. The early and middle Holocene is characterized by an increase in open vegetation and in herbaceous pollen taxa; Artemisia at Hay Lake and Gramineae at Jacob Lake. The climate was cooler and wetter than today but less so than during the Pleistocene. Iron-mottled sediments and a hiatus in the pollen record at Jacob Lake (between about 11,850 and 900 B.P.) together with expansion of Artemisia at Hay Lake represent overall drought during the middle Holocene when compared with today although summer monsoons may have been intensified. Modern pollen assemblages begin at Hay Lake about 1700 B.P. and are not datable at Jacob Lake. The transition to modern conditions may have resulted from increased fire frequency at Hay Lake and from fire suppression by early settlers at Jacob Lake.

This dissertation explores some of the thousands of smaller Native American archaeological sites with meager architectural elements commonly found along part of the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau in east-central Arizona in an area known as the Mogollon Plateau. Small surface structures of less than five rooms were typically built of a combination of stone masonry and wattle and daub, and they are generally interpreted as evidence of repeated occupations of limited duration, primarily dating between AD 800 and 1300. Accordingly, these small sites have also served a number of roles in ongoing discussions of settlement systems and land use, and they present challenges for cultural resources management. The fundamental characteristics (or lack thereof) typically used to classify small sites have traditionally relegated them to settlement pattern studies rather than extensive excavation, generating a broad range of hypotheses concerning their significance and drawing heavily upon historical ecology. GIS methods are used to explore several ecologically and socially-driven models and examine the roles of small architectural sites in archaeological and systemic landscapes. Common pool resources offer some explanatory power regarding small sites, but some have suggested competition and conflict led to a "tragedy of the commons" and environmental degradation. Two primary site concentrations are identified, and the evidence supports an interpretation of extensive and sustainable use of the area, much of which seems to have been a frontier. Recommendations for research-driven management and preservation of cultural resources are provided.

Thesis (M.A. in anthropology)--Washington State University, December 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 157-180).

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Thesis (M.A. in anthropology))--Washington State University, December 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-180).

Thesis (M.A. in anthropology)--Washington State University, May 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Apr. 2, 2009). "Department of Anthropology." Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-68).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.