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"To what extent can archaeologists reconstruct the social organisation of prehistoric societies?"
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"To what extent can archaeologists reconstruct the social organisation of prehistoric societies?" While social anthropologists can interact directly with people in order to draw conclusions of social organisation, which Barnard and Spencer (1996:510) describes as "the sum total of activities performed in a given social context", archaeologists have only the physical remains of a society as their tools to reconstructing prehistoric social organisation. This essay aims to show that while there are limitations on reconstructing social organisation, there are a great number of tools at an archaeologist's disposal that can help uncover evidence. The anthropologist E. Service suggests that social organisation spreads from dependence on food, clothing and shelter. Service shows that in the animal world, herds only form as it becomes necessary to acquire food or in order to gain protection from predators, and this is how humans act - seeking food or protection, humans form settlements and societies (1971:25-26). Each...
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