Navajo multi-household social units : archaeology on Black Mesa, Arizona /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Rocek, Thomas R.
Imprint:Tucson : University of Arizona Press, ©1995.
Description:1 online resource (xiv, 237 pages) : illustrations, maps
Language:English
Series:Book collections on Project MUSE.
Subject:
Format: E-Resource Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/13455073
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9780816548965
081654896X
0816514720
9780816514724
Notes:Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-221) and index.
Restrictions unspecified
Electronic reproduction. [Place of publication not identified] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2017.
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212
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Print version record.
Summary:In this rigorous archaeological study, Thomas R. Rocek explores a neglected but major source of social flexibility in Navajo societies. While many studies have focused on household and community-level organization, few have examined the flexible, intermediate-sized, "middle-level" cooperative units that bind small groups of households together. Middle-level units, says the author, must be recognized as important sources of social flexibility in many such cultural contexts. Furthermore, attention to middle-level units is critical for understanding household or community-level organization, because the flexibility they offer can fundamentally alter the behavior of social units of larger or smaller scale. In examining the archaeological record of Navajo settlement on Black Mesa, Rocek develops archaeological methods for examining multiple-household social units (variously called "outfits" or "cooperating groups") through spatial analysis, investigates evidence of change in middle-level units over time, relates these changes to economic and demographic flux, and compares the Navajo case study to the broader ethnographic literature of middle-level units. Rocek finds similarities with social organization in non-unilineally organized societies, in groups that have been traditionally described as characterized by network organization, and particularly in pastoral societies. The results of Rocek's study offer a new perspective on variability in Navajo social organization, while suggesting general patterns of the response of social groups to change. Rocek's work will be of significant interest not only to those with a professional interest in Navajo history and culture, but also, for its methodological insights, to a far broader range of archaeologists, social anthropologists, ethnohistorians, ethnoarchaeologists, historians, cultural geographers, and political scientists
Other form:Print version: Rocek, Thomas R. Navajo multi-household social units. Tucson : University of Arizona Press, ©1995