The University of Chicago Press Journal of Anthropological Research

RESOURCE CONTROL AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL ECONOMIES IN SMALL-
SCALE SOCIETIES Contrasting Prehistoric Southwestern Korea and the Coast Salish Region
of Northwestern North America
Author(s): Colin Grier and Jangsuk Kim
Source: Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 68, No. 1 (SPRING 2012), pp. 1-34
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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JOURNAL OF
ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH
(Formerly Southwestern Journal of Anthropology)
VOLUME 68 • NUMBER 1 • SPRING 2012
ft* <&>
RESOURCE CONTROL AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF

POLITICAL ECONOMIES IN SMALL-SCALE SOCIETIES
Contrasting Prehistoric Southwestern Korea and the

Salish Region of Northwestern North America
Colin Grier
Department of History, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 130-701, Korea

and Department of Anthropology, Washington State University,
Pullman, WA 99164-4910, USA. Email: cgrier@wsu.edu
Jangsuk Kim
Department of History, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea. Email: jangsuk@khu.ac.kr
key words: Archaeology, Korea, Northwest Coast, Households, Intensification, Political

Economy
The emergence offormalized leadership, institutionalized political hierarchies,

and elite control over resources are key areas of study in relation to the emergence
of complex societies. In this paper we consider these developments in two areas
of the world: the Coast Salish region of the precontact Northwest Coast of North
America and prehistoric southwestern Korea. On the Northwest Coast, increasing
house size through time reflects an increasingly central role for households in
orchestrating production and consumption. In southwestern Korea, houses and
households expanded similarly with the adoption of dry farming agriculture.
However, with the subsequent adoption of intensive, wet rice agriculture, houses
shift to small, single-family structures and storage moves to external features. We
contrast these case studies, attributing the divergent trends to distinct historical
trajectories of household organization and differences in the scale at which
resources were controllable. Analysis of these regions illuminates key factors in
the development of political systems in small-scale societies.
The emergence of formalized leadership, institutionalized political hierarchies,

and elite control over resources are key areas of study in relation to the emergence
of complex societies. Analysis of these developments has typically focused on the
Journal of Anthropological Research, vol. 68, 2012

Copyright © by The University of New Mexico
2 JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH
rise of chiefdoms and states (e.g., Earle 1997; J. Kim 2001; Pauketat 2007; Yoff
1993). However, the study of complex hunter-fisher-gatherers and small-sca
agricultural societies provides insight into changes in economic strategies, soc
practices, and political organization that predate the formation of centralize
polities in many regions of the prehistoric world. Over the past few decades
the study of complex hunter-fisher-gatherers has illuminated how economic
intensification, communal labor organizations, resource ownership, so
inequality, and formalized regional exchange networks can develop in small-sc
contexts. The outcome has been a richer set of models that attempt to account
the development of complexity in societies across a range of organizational sca
(e.g., Aldenderfer 2010; Ames 2006a; Arnold 1993; Cobb 1993; Cowgill 19
Kim and Grier 2006; McGuire and Saitta 1996; Sassaman 2004, 2005; Trigg
2003; Widmer 2004).
This paper is an analysis of economic intensification, household change, an
the development of systems of resource production and control in two areas:
Coast Salish region of the Northwest Coast of North America and prehistori
southwestern Korea. Both regions were initially home to maritime- an
riverine-adapted hunter-fisher-gatherer societies. In both places, large, corpor
households developed in concert with an initial period of economic intensificati
This intensification involved the adoption of agriculture in southwestern Ko
but not on the Northwest Coast, where intensive food collection and storage w
practiced rather than large-scale food production.
Despite similarity in these initial developments, important differences ar
then evident, which are effectively illustrated by divergence in their respecti
trajectories of house and household change. Prior to 2500 bp, houses in the Coa
Salish region of the Northwest Coast were primarily above-ground plankhou
or semisubterranean pit dwellings (the latter predominantly in the easternm
portion of the Salish region) that housed one or two families. Coincident wit
the widespread development of marine- and riverine-focused intensive stora
economies (following 2500 bp), much larger plankhouses and pithouses inhab
by several families were constructed. House size and form exhibit some variabil
both before and after 2500 bp, and small houses continue to be used after 25
bp (Matson 2003; Schaepe 2009); however, the salience of larger structure
the archaeological record of the past 2,500 years attests to the important role
the multifamily household as a central institution of production, storage, an
consumption in Coast Salish lifeways in recent millennia.
In southwestern Korea, coastal hunter-fisher-gatherer groups inhabited sma
and likely single-family structures up to roughly 3,000 years ago. During th
initial agricultural period known as Early Mumun (3000 to 2600 bp), residenc
shifted to large, multiple-family longhouses. In the subsequent Middle Mum
period (2600 to 2200 bp), which involved the adoption of intensive, irriga
agriculture, houses were small, round structures likely occupied by single-fam
households. Concurrently, storage of subsistence resources shifted to extern
locations increasingly segregated from individual houses (J. Kim 2006b, 2008
Lim 1999). This pattern suggests a central role for large, multifamily househo
POLITICAL ECONOMIES IN SMALL-SCALE SOCIETIES 3
in agricultural production initially in the region, but a shift away from this pattern
as new, more intensive forms of agricultural production were adopted.
In this paper, we examine the archaeological record of these two regions in
order to link change through time in household form and size to broader changes in
socioeconomic organization. Our overarching objective is to consider changes in
household organization as one marker of the development of political economies
and systems of resource control by elites in each region. Empirically, we draw
primarily on the archaeological record of houses for each region, incorporating
data on overall house size, internal storage capacity, and the spatial patterning
of external storage features. We use these data to consider the changing role of
households in production, consumption, and control over resources, focusing on
the extent to which households maintained their autonomy in the face of broader
socioeconomic changes.
Theoretically, comparison of these two regions is directed toward illuminating
the circumstances under which the control of resources can shift from the
household to suprahousehold institutions and the social and economic conditions
that promote or hinder this change. We see evidence for a shift to suprahousehold
control of resources by elites in southwestern Korea. In contrast, in the Coast
Salish region large households remained a dominant and relatively autonomous
institution of economic, social, and political organization. In each case, household
change can be viewed as part of a broader process of increasing inequality and
formalization of political control over resources by elites.
In our analysis, we explore the interactions between households, emerging
elites, and broader socioeconomic change. We explicitly incorporate what
Souvatzi (2008:5) has described as a "bottom-up" approach to the study of
sociopolitical change. This approach attempts to balance the view that political
economies develop through impositions by emergent rulers with the recognition
that households and their historical trajectories also affect social change. As we
hope to show, household organization represents an important nexus of both
bottom-up and top-down strategies in small-scale societies. As Canuto and
Yaeger (2000:8) and others point out, the analysis of social change necessarily
involves consideration of a variety of scales of human action, including the
household, community, and region. Building outwards from the basic analytical
framework of the household, we highlight the interrelatedness of household
production, consumption, and exchange with other scales of action, and how
these interactions generate long-term, historical trajectories of change in small
scale societies.
HOUSEHOLDS IN SOCIOPOLITICAL CONTEXT
A concern with households as an analytical unit emerged in both anthrop

and archaeology in the 1970s, leading to analyses of the dynamics of hous
organization itself and how households change in response to changes in o
aspects of society (e.g., Coupland 1996; Fricke 1986; Netting 1993; He
1996; Souvatzi 2008; Wesson 1999; Wilk 1991). Following the lead of cu
anthropologists and sociologists (e.g., Fricke 1986; Laslett 1984; Netting 1982
1993; Yanagisako 1979), archaeological approaches have involved analyses
households as social and political units, co-residential groups, units of product
and consumption, and complex decision-making structures (e.g., Ames 2006b
Carsten and Hugh-Jones 1995; Cheal 1989; Coupland and Banning 1996; Hayde
and Cannon 1983; Souvatzi 2008; Wilk 1989). An outgrowth of these effo
has been the recognition that households are multidimensional, flexible,
potentially unstable organizations with complex internal dynamics and exter
interactions (Hendon 1996; Souvatzi 2008; Wilk 1991). This complexity ste
in part from the necessity of reconciling the divergent interests and needs
household members with the often changing and unpredictable circumstances
the world around them (Coupland et al. 2009; Fricke 1986; Wilk 1991).
Despite their variability, households are and have been a central organizatio
element of human societies (Ames 2006b; Canuto and Yaeger 2000:10; Souvatz
2008; Wilk and Rathje 1982). Although social action and interaction takes plac
at many scales, households are an important arena in that they are the institut
through which most resources of daily life ultimately flow. As such, househo
are a critical context in which the allocation and control of resources, both lab
and property, are negotiated and realized as daily practice (Cheal 1989; Coupl
et al. 2009). However, households are rarely harmonious wholes, and the cont
of resources within a household must be viewed in relation to a complex set
power relations and inequalities (Cheal 1989; Hendon 1996; Wilk 1991).
To model such dynamics fully, we must consider how households are shape
both by their internal dynamics and their external relations. A productive directi
in this respect has been research into household autonomy (Alexander 19
Netting 1993). The degree to which any household may act autonomously ran
greatly within any society and cross-culturally. Individual households that e
largely independently of constraints imposed by overarching power structu
can be found in ethnographically documented hunting and gathering societies
described for many indigenous North American Arctic groups (Balikci 1970:1
Burch 1981:44—45; Cassell 1988; Grier 2000). In reality, no recent hun
fisher-gatherers have been left unaffected by the larger economic and socia
structures of colonialism and the world economy. However, even in these conte
individual households may retain relatively flexible and voluntary interhouseh
associations—an important measure of household autonomy.
Studies of households in peasant communities have provided a useful windo
into how household autonomy can be maintained, compromised, or lost unde
changing economic and political circumstances (Fricke 1986; Netting 1993; W
1991). In her study of household change in colonial-period Yucatan, Alexande
(1999) describes some of the processes that erode the autonomy of household
as their economies become increasingly integrated into larger market system
Disenfranchisement from the means of subsistence production, specialization
household labor in producing market-bound commodities, and a redirection
household labor away from domestic tasks (often involving taking up wage lab
jobs; see Martin 1984) are some of the changes that households undergo in respo
to the demands of market economies. The articulation with larger economies can
produce radical reconfigurations of household membership and social structure
and promote new forms of inequality within households (Wallerstein and Smith
1992; Wilk 1991).
Investigations of households prior to the emergence of the modern world
system have illuminated how analogous external processes affected households
in the deeper past. Household organization can be significantly changed and
autonomy compromised by the increasing centralization of authority that occurs
with the emergence of regional-scale, hierarchical political systems (Pauketat
1998). One factor that can directly impinge on household autonomy is the
requirement to produce resources to meet the social demands of emergent
rulers and elite (Bender 1985). Under such pressures, households must adjust
their organization of production to satisfy this external demand, which can
place constraints on household decision-making (Wesson 1999). Nonetheless,
households are not simply passive responders to external changes outside their
control; rather they can take on strategies of resistance and skillful action to affect
the external world (Alexander 1999; Netting 1993; Wesson 1999). Although
households have often been treated as unified actors in such circumstances,
they should not be viewed as simply adaptive mechanisms or treated as "black
boxes" (Wilk 1989).
In short, households are historical institutions. Although they are but one
scale lens through which the questions we pose can be addressed, pursuit of a
greater understanding of their organization is critical. In the two case studies
presented below, we emphasize the linkages between internal household
dynamics and larger-scale economic, social, and political processes as a means
to better illuminate the strategies of households and emergent elite that fueled the
development of formalized leadership, institutionalized political hierarchies, and
elite control over resources.'
HOUSEHOLD ORGANIZATION AND

COAST SALISH ECONOMIC PRACTICE
We first look to the Northwest Coast of North America, considering ar

and ethnographic data from the Coast Salish region of southweste
Columbia, Canada (Figure 1). The particular character of Coast Sa
organization as recorded following European contact and inferred for p
times warrants some discussion, since households in this region were
somewhat atypically relative to those documented elsewhere on the N
Coast and in small-scale societies generally.
Ethnographically, the fundamental unit of Coast Salish social orga
was the large, multifamily household (Barnett 1955; Suttles 199
households consisted of multiple nuclear or compound families, which
to here as domestic groups. Across the Northwest Coast, the term "hou
it is typically used refers to the set of co-residing domestic groups th
a single large, cedar-planked longhouse or pithouse. Six or eight or mor
Figure 1. Map of the Gulf of Georgia/Salish Sea region of the North

Ethnographic group names are indicated, along with
archaeological sites referred to in the text.
domestic groups might make up a household, with total populat

20 to 50 or more persons (Suttles 1991). As a corporate grou
typically operated in a coordinated though not always unified f
and consume resources. Typically, the household acted as a sing
under a house chief or elite family (Barnett 1955; Schaepe 2009
Socially, relations of kin were an important mechanism
membership in a household. Most domestic groups within a
traceable though not necessarily direct relationship to a househ
which was typically a high-status family or families tied most
house structure, the house site, and the identity of the househol
Coast Salish kinship was bilateral, and a household might
that had married in from distant locations or had only limited
household core. Bilateral kinship was accompanied by biloc
any family residing in a household would have options for residency in other
households. As Suttles (1991) has aptly described, households were flexible
in their membership, and the Coast Salish shed roof house architecture was in
fact designed to accommodate changing household size and membership (Grier
2006a).
This fluidity of household membership was offset by the stability of the core set
of household members (Grier 2006b; Suttles 1991). An important internal dynamic
within households appears to have been the constantly negotiated relationship
between the household core and less-embedded domestic groups (Coupland et al.
2009, Grier 2006a; Suttles 1991). While all benefitted from participation in the
household enterprise, each element of the household group worked to establish a
better position vis-a-vis household resources consistent with their own interests
(Coupland et al. 2009; Grier 2006a). As such, successful households were those in
which the household core could stabilize membership and thus productive labor
through stressing such factors as economic interdependence, a common social
identity, and shared political objectives (Ames 1996,2006b).
This ethnographic model, derived and somewhat generalized from a
variety of traditional ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources (e.g., Barnett
1955; Elmendorf 1971; Suttles 1974), has provided a baseline from which
archaeologists have considered the development of large households in precontact
times. Diachronically, large households likely coalesced for two reasons. First,
these groupings constituted the labor force required for many Northwest Coast
subsistence pursuits (Ames 1996). Subsistence pursuits such as the large-scale
capture, processing, and storage of salmon and sea mammal hunting were only or
most effectively undertaken with coordinated labor, incorporating specialists to
direct various aspects of the process. Non-subsistence pursuits (e.g., tree felling
and transport for canoe manufacture, the raising of a large house) also required
substantial and coordinated labor (Ames 1996; Mitchell 1990). Large households
therefore were in part an outgrowth of the intensive labor demands of Northwest
Coast life. Specialization of individual domestic groups within the larger household
economy, documented both ethnographically and archaeologically (e.g., Ames
1995; Chatters 1989; Grier 2001; Smith 2006), allowed for the diversification of
household subsistence practices to exploit the diverse and productive Northwest
Coast environment.
Second, large households were an institution of resource consumption.

Successful Northwest Coast households produced substantial surpluses, which
were typically stored, shared, and consumed by members of the household
(Ames 1996; Suttles 1991). Effectively, the household that produced together,
consumed together; a contribution of labor to collective pursuits came with
an entitlement to the products, though not necessarily in a fully equal fashion
(Grier 2006a). Multifamily households therefore constituted relatively bounded
production, redistribution, and consumption groups that developed in concert
with the long-term process of economic intensification and control of surplus
resources characteristic of the Northwest Coast political economies (Ames
1995; Grier 2006a, 2006b).
Archaeological evidence suggests that the complementary nature of domes

group specializations was accompanied by increasing control over househ
resources and a growing degree of social inequality within households (Chatt
1989; Grier 2001; Smith 2006). Most discussions of household inequality outli
a process through which specific individuals, groups of individuals, or famil
employed a variety of strategies to maneuver or elevate themselves into a posit
of greater access to resources. Such strategies might include effectively manag
the labor of the households, promoting their own skill and prowess in a particular
significant subsistence task, developing local or regional political connections,
emphasizing their proximity to an ancestral house founder. Such strategies app
integral to the promotion of social inequality in small-scale societies (e.g., A
2010; Clark and Blake 1994; Hayden 1995, 2001; Spencer 1993).
Moving beyond their internal dynamics, archaeological evidence suggests
that during the Marpole period (2400 to 1000 bp), households, spearhead
by house elite members or chiefs, established strong ties with other househ
elite across the Coast Salish region. These ties facilitated widespread exchang
of prestige and subsistence resources, allowing individual households to g
access to distant resources unavailable locally (Grier 2003, 2006a). These l
distance arrangements elevated the material wealth of households overall and
specific individuals within them, likely those of the household core, who we
central in establishing and developing these external ties. This household strat
likely provided a great degree of autonomy to individual households, in that
they had the opportunity to broker their own extralocal relations rather than
through a centralized, community-level authority. These long-distance ties am
household elite, likely established through intermarriages, have been viewed
instrumental in the formation of an increasingly exclusive social class of elite
Coast Salish society (Angelbeck and Grier in press; Suttles 1987).
The dual importance of internal and external household relations in t
formation of Coast Salish political organization has resulted in less attention
community-level analysis (though see Schaepe 2009 for a recent study). Suttl
(1991) has argued that community relations were of limited importance rela
to household dynamics and the regional "elite interaction sphere" that he saw
the mechanism of Coast Salish elite formation. Schaepe (2009:292) argues for
view of "community" that is spatially extensive rather than settlement-specif
at least for the Sto:Lo of the Fraser River region. We see the nature of precont
Coast Salish communities as an open question and, while beyond the scop
this paper to consider fully, a fruitful avenue for further analysis that would
to the perspective we present here. The archaeological record of communitie
many areas of the Coast Salish region is frustratingly limited, with an impor
exception being the lower Fraser River, where substantial pithouse villages h
recently been documented (Schaepe 2009). These data, along with ongo
research by Grier (e.g., 2001, 2006b) in the Gulf Islands and by Graesch (200
also on the Fraser River, among many others, will bring community-level anal
more crisply into focus throughout the Salish Sea.
HOUSEHOLD CHANGE IN THE

ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD OF THE COAST SALISH
Below, we consider the archaeological record of household change in the

Salish world, focusing on the inner, protected coastline and adjacent river s
of the Strait of Georgia in southwestern British Columbia, Canada (Figure 1
region is now formally referred to as the Salish Sea, reflecting the deep conne
of Coast Salish peoples to the region over many millennia. Archaeological
provide a long-term though clearly incomplete record of house and hous
change over the past five millennia (see recent discussions by Coupland e
2009 and Lepofsky et al. 2009). An important element of the archaeo
record of the region is that in situ development of Coast Salish cultures
be confidently argued (Mitchell 1971; Murray 1982; Clark 2010). Chan
house structures over time are therefore not attributable to in-migrations or
external inteijections into relatively local processes of change. As we
below, significant change in the organization of precontact households ca
seen in two respects: first, houses are generally larger, though change ap
more punctuated than gradual, and second, differences in house size also in
through time.2
The earliest archeological evidence of house remains in southwestern Br
Columbia dates to roughly 4500 bp. The Maurer site on the lower Fraser
includes a single house, likely the remnants of a rectangular wooden stru
measuring approximately 35 m2 (Lepofsky et al. 2009:606). This house inc
a single hearth, suggesting a single-family structure (Schaepe 2003). The X
site, also on the lower Fraser River, contains the remains of multiple struct
roughly similar age to the Maurer house. A well-preserved rectangular str
(Structure 2), initially described by Mason (1994; see also Lepofsky et al.
is similar to that found at Maurer, though appreciably larger. Estimates of
range between 80 and 110 m2 (Johnstone 2003:112; Lepofsky et al. 2009;
1994). Based on the presence of two distinct hearths, it appears to repres
two-family structure. Structure 1 at Xa:ytem, located on a lower terrace at th
is also rectangular but smaller, measuring around 20 m2 (Ormerod and M
2000:16). While bearing some similarities to later Coast Salish plankh
these early structures may represent dwellings of varying seasonality, size
potentially architectural style (Ormerod 2002; Ormerod and Matson 2000:
Nonetheless, it appears that single- or two-family (or perhaps extended-f
structures were the norm at the time.
The record of structures is limited but informative for the period betw
4000 and 2500 bp. Several small pithouse features have been identified th
to this period, including an example at the Crescent Beach site on the Str
Georgia coast south of Vancouver, B.C. (Matson 1992). Such structures rep
small, likely single-family structures. Otherwise, evidence for a larger plan
style dwelling may exist at the Long Harbour site on Saltspring Island (Joh
2003). Here, posthole patterning suggests a plankhouse feature measuring
in width and as much as 60 m2 in area. However, the site has been only ind
dated to the Locarno Beach period (3300 to 2500 bp) and would constitute the
only example of its kind if it does in fact date prior to 2500 bp (Johnstone 1991:63,
2003). Other potential evidence for plankhouse structures at this time is much
more fragmentary, being limited to incomplete lines of postholes at the Pender
Canal site in the Strait of Georgia (Johnstone 2003).
The situation changes dramatically thereafter, with much larger and
undoubtedly multifamily houses identified at villages in the Salish Sea region
after 2500 bp. At the Scowlitz site on the Fraser River, Lepofsky et al. (2000,
2009) document a house structure (Structure 3) measuring 17 by 11 m, or just
under 200 m2. This corresponds to as much as a fourfold increase in floor area
compared with earlier houses on the same stretch of the river. Houses on the coast
also undergo a similar expansion, as exemplified by the Dionisio Point village
site in the Gulf Islands and the Beach Grove village on the mainland coast near
Vancouver (Grier 2003). Houses at the Beach Grove site, which was originally at
least a 10-house village dating to roughly 1500 bp, measure on average 150 m2 in
floor area (Grier 2003; Matson and Coupland 1995:207). Dionisio Point, a five
house village site also dating to roughly 1500 bp, includes four "smaller" houses
measuring no less than 200 m2 and a fifth, larger house encompassing roughly 400
m2 (Figure 2).
0 50 100
meters |\|
Coon Bay
Strait of Georgia
DgRv-006
Late period
Maple Bay Plankhouse
c. 1000 to 600 BP
: DgRv-003
Parry Lagoon
^ Marpole village
•' c. 1800 to 1500 BP
Galiano Island
Figure 2. The Dionisio Point locality, which includes the Marpole-age (1800-1500 bp)
DgRv-003 five-house village and a Late period (1000 to 600 bp) house. These two sites
effectively illustrate the large houses and the significant size disparities
among houses evident after 2500 bp.
Late prehistoric period houses remain large. Matson (2003) reports on house
compartments at the late period Shingle Point village on Valdes Island, dated to
900 cal bp, that measure 50 m2. These compartments likely reflect single family/
domestic group dwelling spaces, and houses at Shingle Point appear to have
consisted of at least three and perhaps as many as six compartments (Matson
2003:10). This suggests a house potentially as large as 300 m2. Similarly, the
recently excavated late period house at Dionisio Point measures 40 by 10 m
(Grier and Stevens 2011). In the historic period, some truly huge houses were
documented ethnographically. Suttles (1991) describes houses measuring
hundreds of meters along their longest dimension. Similarly large structures
have not been identified archaeologically for the precontact period. It is likely
that these extremely large houses are long, linear arrangements of individual
house compartments and may be a form of short-term, ceremonial aggregation
for potlatching rather than permanent, long-term dwellings, as argued by Suttles
(1991). Postcontact houses deserve a fuller treatment in and of themselves in their
full historic context. Nevertheless, available data suggest house size remained as
large as those documented for the late precontact period (Coupland et al. 2009;
Matson 2003).
In addition to the overall trajectory of increasing house size, a second pattern
of change in house size is evident in the region. Following roughly 2000 bp,
some houses within villages become substantially larger than others. Dionisio
Point provides an important example, where the largest house (40 by 10 m) was
twice the size of the four other houses at the site (which each measured 200 m2;
Figure 2). This pattern is also clearly evident, though occurring much later, in the
eastern portion of the Salish Sea along the Fraser River. Here, Schaepe (2009) has
documented increasing size disparities in pithouses within villages after 550 bp,
driven primarily by the addition of examples larger than 100 m2 to the record. On
the northern Northwest Coast, where numerous well-preserved villages from the
past two millennia have been documented (Archer 2001; Coupland 1996), villages
with houses of dramatically different sizes are often described as "ranked" (Archer
2001; Coupland et al. 2003; Schaepe 2009). The implication of this assessment
is that larger houses were those of households that achieved greater wealth and
status than their neighbors. While clearly some villages in the Coast Salish region
had significant house size disparities, the timing of the development of this pattern
appears to vary across the Salish Sea region. For example, existing maps of the
Beach Grove village site (e.g., Grier 2003:185; Matson and Coupland 1995:207)
indicate the site contained house depressions of roughly similar size at 1500 bp.
In seeking to translate house patterns into arguments concerning household
organizational change and ultimately the development of Coast Salish political
systems, several additional points are pertinent. First, household size can be used
as a rough measure of storage capacity. Northwest Coast plankhouses functioned
effectively as large storage boxes. This has been argued by Suttles (1991) for
ethnographic Coast Salish houses and by Ames (1996) in his archaeological
discussion of the precontact Meier house on the Columbia River. Increasing house
size (and thus interior volume) correlates with increased storage capacity overall
(though not necessarily per person) and, inferentially, a greater emphasis on

storage of resources (Ames et al. 2008). While external pits have been identified
in archaeological cases, as at the Meier (Ames et al. 1992) and Paul Mason
(Coupland 1988) sites, the capacity of these features is limited when compared
with the storage potential of plank- and pithouses (Suttles 1991).
Second, overall house size correlates directly with the number of inhabitants
and therefore labor available for household production. Ethnographically, Coast
Salish architecture is conspicuous in its absence of large areas of nondomestic
space within houses, and substantial nonresidential structures have not been
identified archaeologically (Ames 2006b; Ames et al. 1992; Grier 2006a, 2006b;
Suttles 1991). This suggests any increase in house size reflects an increase in th
size of the productive unit it housed, since most of the area was typically domesti
space (Matson 2003).
Third, inequality in the distribution of resources is evident archaeologically
within households from roughly the same time that the earliest multifamily
households and significant house size differences are evident in the Coast
Salish archaeological record (that is, after 2000 bp). The identification of ritual
wealth, and status items concentrated in specific areas of houses, as at Tualdad
Altu (Chatters 1989) and Dionisio Point (Grier 2003), provides evidence for the
centralization of surplus household resources in the hands of specific domestic
groups. This pattern suggests a connection between increasing household size,
storage and surplus production, and the reconfiguration of the flow of resources
within households. These household changes are temporally correlated with
the construction of monumental mound burials and other indications of strong
status differentiation in Coast Salish societies across the region, including cranial
deformation and elite burials (Ames and Maschner 1999; Burley 1989; Lepofsky
et al. 2000; Thorn 1995).
These archaeological data reinforce the point made in our earlier theoretical
discussion of households—that changes in household organization arise from th
restructuring of their internal and external dynamics, and that these two sphere
should be considered as intimately connected. Increasing overall size and disparitie
in the size of households can be (and has been) seen as directly connected t
processes of economic intensification and the emergence of formalized leadership
and status differentiation that occurred throughout the region over the past thre
millennia. In the Coast Salish world, the long-term expansion and elaboration
of the institution of the household attests to the persistence of the centrality an
autonomy of households despite changes toward increased social inequality
and the development of a political economy. We return to this point later in our
discussion.
THE SOUTHWESTERN KOREAN MUMUN PERIOD (3000-2200 bp)
The archaeological record of southwestern Korea (Figure 3) offers an opportunity

to compare the trajectory of change documented for the Cost Salish region of the
Northwest Coast, which remained economically focused on marine resources for
subsistence, with a region in which agriculture was ultimately adopted. The Early
Mumun period, dating between 3000 to 2600 bp, was the first agricultural economy
in southern Korea, replacing the previous Chulmun hunting and gathering lifeways.
Agriculture was introduced as a complex of new material culture and economic
practices from northeastern China around 3000 bp (J. Kim 2002, 2003a), and
Chulmun hunter-fisher-gatherer lifeways (such as marine resource exploitation)
disappeared quickly from the peninsula thereafter (for more detailed discussion
of Chulmun subsistence and why Chulmun people adopted farming, see J. Kim
2003a, 2003c, 2004, 2006a, 2010; Kim and Yang 2001; Lim 2008). Early Mumun
economies depended heavily on the dry farming of rice, with rice fields typically
located near settlements (Figure 4). In some locales where natural marsh and bogs
were well developed, wet farming was also practiced, but dependence on wet
farming was extremely limited.
Figure 3. Map of the southern Korean peninsula showing the study area.
JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Figure4.EalyMumnloghusevilagndsociatedry-famingeldsfromE-eun1Stlemn,Jiju(afterS.GLe19).
Early Mumun dwellings were rectangular longhouses with multiple internal

hearths (Figure 5). Available data indicate that the size of Early Mumun houses
increased dramatically over those of the Chulmun period (J. Kim 2002). Although
averaging just under 70 m2, some Early Mumun longhouses were as large as 250
m2. From their size and the presence of multiple hearths, Korean archaeologists
infer that Early Mumun longhouses were occupied by more than one nuclear
family/domestic group (Ahn 2006; S. O. Kim 2006; H. W. Lee 2009), much like
the larger houses of the Northwest Coast of North America. In the Early Mumun
period, storage pits were typically located inside houses, suggesting that storage
of resources during this period was internal and that stores were under the control
of individual households (J. Kim 2006b, 2007,2008; Kim and Hwang 2010).
Settlements in Early Mumun times vary in size, being composed of between
2 and 20 houses. In some parts of the peninsula, settlements became larger in the
later part of the period, including as many as 80 houses. This process likely reflects
aggregation at agriculturally productive locales. These new large settlements do
not appear to have played a role as political centers, and there is no evidence
that intersettlement site hierarchies developed. Despite the intensification and
elevation of productive capacity associated with Early Mumun agriculture, social
and political inequalities appear to have been limited (J. Kim 2008; Kim and
Hwang 2010; H. W. Lee 2009). At the end of the Early Mumun period, population
pressure may have developed in some locales, probably owing to high population
densities in productive farming areas and continuous cultivation. Large, densely
populated settlements dramatically decrease in size and number, and populations
dispersed to coastal areas. Marine resource exploitation, which had ceased entirely
during the Early Mumun, resumed (J. Kim 2003b).
Around 2600 bp, a new material culture complex known as the Songgukri
culture appeared first in the Geum River Valley in the northern part of the study
region and then rapidly spread to other areas (Hwang 2009; J. Kim 2003b, 2008;
S. O. Kim 2001; H. J. Lee 1993). During the ensuing period (2600 to 2200 bp, the
Middle Mumun), farming was clearly intensified compared with Early Mumun
practices, probably initially in response to population pressure at the end of the
Early Mumun period. This suggests wet rice farming was a local development
rather than a wholesale import of a new farming complex from elsewhere. Rice
was cultivated in constructed paddy fields, providing higher productivity but
requiring more labor input for initial paddy construction, paddy maintenance,
and control of the water supply (Ahn 2004; B. Kim 2006; J. Kim 2006b; Song
2001). Along with the adoption of rice paddy farming, new farming implements
appeared, including triangular harvesting knives and grooved axes, which were
noticeable improvements over previous technologies. These developments
significantly increased the level of agricultural production possible and would
have allowed for production of a substantial surplus.
This increased productivity is reflected in increased storage capacity. Kim
(2008) has analyzed the volume of storage pits for both the Early Mumun and
Songgukri periods. In terms of cubic meters of storage per square meter of floor
area, the Early Mumun value is 0.0045; in the Songgukri period it increased twenty
Figure 5. An Early Mumun longhouse from Yongamri Settlement, Hwanchon

(after Ji et al. 2007).
times to 0.09. This calculation does not take into account potential above-ground
storage within houses (that is, on wall shelves or in rafters), but it nonetheless
suggests that the adoption of rice paddy agriculture resulted in the generation of
significantly more storable products.
Songgukri settlements differed markedly in character and scale from those
of the Early Mumun period (Ahn 2006; J. Kim 2003b, 2006b; H. J. Lee 1993;
Song 2001). The number of houses in villages was substantially larger, with some
settlements including as many as 200 houses. The typical house form was round,
and houses were substantially smaller than Early Mumun longhouses (Figure
6). The size of Songgukri houses, averaging under 20 m2, indicates these were
undoubtedly single-family residences. Songgukri houses lacked any form of
internal storage facilities. Storage features were instead located outside houses
and usually occurred in clusters. In many settlements, these clusters of storage pits
were located away from individual or groups of houses.
At the same time, political centers with defensive walls appeared in some
areas. Many of these centers lacked storage facilities within the settlement itself
despite the large number of houses they contained (J. Kim 2007, 2008; Kim
and Hwang 2010). Specialized storage sites were often located outside but near
settlements. These storage sites contain only a few houses, while the number of
storage pits usually exceeds 50 (J. Kim 2006b, 2008; Lim 1999). In the case of the
Songgukri settlement Buyo, the largest political center in the region, more than one
hundred houses have been documented but no storage pits have yet been identified.
Rather, storage pits for the site were located a few kilometers from the settlement
in the valleys of secondary and tertiary rivers that flowed down to the settlement.
Figure 6. An excavated example of Songgukri house from Dosamri Settlement, Seocheon

(after H. J. Lee et al. 2005). The house is 5.70 m in diameter.
These changes in household, storage, and settlement patterns were

accompanied by new burial practices that reflect strong status differentiation
within Songgukri society (Kim and Hwang 2010; S. O. Kim 2001). Stone cist
were used exclusively for elite burials and jar coflin tombs for nonelites. Bronze
items, mostly daggers, were included as burial goods in elite burials. These bronze
objects were an imitation of contemporaneous examples found in northeastern
China, but design differences suggest local production (Jo 2005; J. Kim 2001;
Y. M. Lee 1998). Around 2300 bp, the use of bronze items as elite burial goods
was intensified, with the number and diversity of bronze burial goods increasing
sharply (Jo 2001,2005). Despite these changes, bronze goods remain exclusively
associated with elite burials and have not been recovered in ether utilitarian
contexts or nonelite mortuary contexts.
AGRICULTURAL INTENSIFICATION, STORAGE,

AND HOUSEHOLD CHANGE IN KOREA
The shifts that accompanied the change from Early Mumun to Middle Mum
Songgukri culture suggest a significant reconfiguration of lifeways in southwes
Korea over the first millennium bc. These developments comprised a s
closely related changes in social and economic practices that occurred relat
quickly and in conjunction with the adoption of rice paddy agriculture. As s
these developments warrant consideration in relation to the core themes o
analysis: household autonomy, resource control, and the development of poli
economies. Below we explore possible explanations for the shift, focusin
strategies of labor allocation and control of household surplus as impo
elements of the emergence of a Songgukri political economy.
In the Early Mumun period, multiple domestic groups occupied longhou
and the storage of agricultural products occurred inside houses. House
were likely both a labor mobilization unit for agricultural production
consumption unit for resources produced. As Netting (1993:82-101) ar
in detail, the inherent flexibility of the household as a labor allocation
scheduling unit makes it the most appropriate unit for "smallholder"
production. As a corollary, individual households also typically manage
stores, as Early Mumun households appear to have done (Netting 1993:82-84
Decisions concerning surplus allocation (such as the portion that was consu
immediately, that which was slated for exchange, and what was stored for l
consumption and planting) were likely made by each household (Netting 19
Testart 1982). As Netting (1993) addresses, surrendering these decisions to la
decision-making structures hampers the flexibility that small householders e
These observations are consistent with the archaeological record of the Ear
Mumun period, as smaller-scale dry rice production required no infrastruc
elements or organizational efforts that could not be handled by large househ
Smaller households and the use of external storage in the Middle Mumu
period minimally clearly represent a shift in the way agricultural products
stored and handled. Beyond this, we can also suggest a shift in the rules th
governed the control of stored products. There are several ways to acc
changes. First, perhaps the adoption of external storage was strictl
development, with households retaining rights to their own prod
constructing and using outside (and often distant) storage faciliti
even if storage moved to external facilities for simply functional
small houses make less-than-ideal storehouses for large surpluses)
agricultural products remained under the control of individual hou
have argued they were in the Early Mumun period), we would exp
facilities to have been located in close spatial association with spec
Proximity between house and storage facilities would be key t
individual household control over access to those stored products. H
was not the case in Songgukri settlements. Storage pits were locate
far from houses, and, furthermore, many political centers lacked
altogether, with the closest storage facilities being located a few kil
Alternatively, perhaps the use of external storage in the Songg
was communal and was adopted to decrease storage costs for
households, representing an economy of scale that capitalized
labor for construction and maintenance of storage features. In th
form of communal storage may have developed in which househo
rights of access to/control over their stored agricultural products.
this "common storage" to distinguish it from storage involving in
resource pooling and redistribution. While a "common storage" ap
explain the change in physical location of storage facilities relativ
does not incorporate an important element that emerges in Songgu
the emergence of an affluent elite as evident in the burial record of
order to account for this, it is necessary to move beyond function
to consider political elements of storage and resource control.
The intentional location of storage facilities away from either s
or groups of houses suggests, in our view, that control over agricul
shifted from the hands of individual households. Communal storage
pooling and redistribution of stored resources above the level of the
serve as a mechanism of redistribution or sharing of agricultural pr
households to level wealth disparities and/or promote social cohesio
inequality appears to increase, not decrease, in Songgukri society. A
burial data, particularly the exclusive use of exotic bronze daggers a
elite graves, suggest that Songgukri social reality was anything b
as does the strong distinction between elite and commoners conve
practices. This obvious inequality apparent in mortuary contexts mak
to argue that staple resources held in communal storage were redist
to all village households as a leveling mechanism. Rather, the u
suggests that some portion of communally stored products was con
production of prestige goods for exclusive use by elites.
These data suggest, in our view, that control over subsistence p
relation to both production and consumption, was increasingly ce
Songgukri culture. How might such a shift have occurred? The an
found in the scale of labor organization required for wet rice paddy production
compared with previous dry rice farming practices. The construction of rice
paddy fields and associated irrigation systems requires large-scale inputs of
labor beyond that possible by individual households (Netting 1993:178-79),
and entire villages may have been mobilized for constructing rice paddies in the
Songgukri period.
Individual households may have undertaken day-to-day tending of specific
field plots and, as Netting (1993) argues for "smallholders," likely would have
done so to maintain the capacity for flexible day-to-day labor allocation. However
the coordinated practices required to construct and maintain rice paddies provided
an arena in which communal rules and notions that undermined household
autonomy and control over their products could be established. We see this
"communalization" of infrastructure production as key because it served as a basis
for the construction of a broader notion of communal property (one that extended
to agricultural produce in addition to infrastructure) and for the development for
suprahousehold institutions to manage that property. When an important element
of the means of production is effectively communal, this can act as a basis for
asserting or rationalizing that agricultural products are also in some sense
communal property, or, minimally, that they should be communally managed.
The conceptual transfer of some realms of agricultural production and control
over agricultural products from a solely household concern to a communal
concern—using communal infrastructure production as a basis and rationale for
this—could have been effected in many ways, including simply to avoid "the
tragedy of the commons" (Agrawal 2003; Hardin 1968; McCay and Acheson
1987). Regardless of the specific rationale for the process, two important changes
occur in the flow of resources. First, producers physically surrender control
over at least some of their resources, entrusting them to a larger social entity or
institution. Second, certain individuals are accorded managerial authority over
those products. Again, while managers often portray their practices as "system
serving" through reference to a corporate, inclusive ethic (Ames 1996; Feinman
2000, 2001), these references can mask underlying efforts to obtain preferential
access to communal resources. Managers may exert their prerogative to manipulate
resource aggregation for the public good while limiting the role of individual
producers in the process. Communal resources to which no one has individual
control leave the effective control of these resources in the hands of managers.
The redistribution of pooled resources can play out over significant periods of
time, opening up a role for managers to manipulate access to stores over the
long term, further distancing resources from their original context of production
and allowing ambitious or powerful individuals and groups to "rescript" such
processes (Clark and Blake 1994; Cobb 1993; Hirth 1996).4
In reviewing this situation, two issues have been at least partially addressed
for the Korean case: we have considered, first, how aspiring Songgukri elites
could have convinced producers to initially give up their rights to their own
produce, and second, how they may have obtained control of, and ultimately
preferential access to, what were essentially the communally stored resources of
individual producing households. In the Songgukri case, we see a situation in

which communal storage emerged initially for economic and practical reasons
as a consequence of new forms of production adopted early in the Songgukri
period. Only later were certain individuals or institutions, as managers, able to
obtain significant control over the flow of resources. We feel this likely because
of the challenge of justifying open appropriation with inequitable redistribution
in small-scale societies (Blitz 1993; Cobb 1993; Hirth 1996; Ingold 1983; J. Kim
2001). In small-scale societies, forceful appropriation is seldom a sustainable
approach because the relatively intimate context and daily face-to-face contact
of life make social frictions damaging for all (Feinman 2000, 2001; Hayden
1995, 2001; Netting 1993). Rather, initial appropriation is typically justified with
the intent of redistribution, with the manager being self-cast as a mechanism of
redistribution rather than of appropriation, which mitigates resistance. However,
unless appropriation actually results in equitable redistribution, compliance with
appropriation can wane quickly. If true alienation of producers from their products
is to be sustained in the absence of equitable redistribution, other strategies likely
must be pursued.
As many have argued elsewhere, these "other strategies" would involve
pursuing legitimatization of their roles as natural decision-makers, as well as
perpetually reinforcing the advantages of communal storage for the group. The
association of Songgukri elites exclusively with bronze items was one salient
material signal of their social distinction and status as managers of the public
purse. Production of these expensive items both required the consumption of
surplus resources and at the same time legitimized that consumption.
In Songgukri villages, differences in house size are relatively minor, and
no clear division between elite and commoner residential areas is evident. Elite
houses do, however, contain greater numbers of wealth items (B. Kim 2006). This
situation suggests a dual ideology may have existed in the Songgukri period—a
communal, redistributive ideology in daily life and an ideology of elite distinction
based in prestige items. This paired ideology represents two sides of one coin,
supporting a single objective: managers could orchestrate preferential access to
agricultural products by locating and managing them physically and conceptually
in the public realm while simultaneously distancing actual producers from access
(Cobb 1993).
In relating this process to household change in southwestern Korea, the
autonomous nature of large Early Mumun households would have presented
inherent resistance to "communalizing" resources at a level greater than the
individual household. Conversely, small households would be more easily
coaxed into a collectivization strategy because the infrastructure of wet farming
demanded more labor than they can provide. However, we are not suggesting
that aggrandizers orchestrated the fragmentation of large households into single
family households in a "divide and conquer" approach. Rather, changes in the
organization of production that accompanied intensive agriculture provided an
opportunity for aspiring elites to reorganize and manipulate resource flows in
ways that were not previously possible. The shift away from large, autonomous
households was a necessary precondition to moving agricultural products to

public sphere. However, the initial change in household organization sho
be viewed as part of a "bottom-up" reorganization of household production f
wet paddy agriculture. Transformative change occurred through the interacti
of bottom-up (basic household ecology) and top-down (political econom
strategies, and, more critically, through the interaction of internal househo
dynamics and changing external conditions.
COMPARING THE TWO TRAJECTORIES:

HOUSEHOLD AUTONOMY, RESOURCE CONTROL,
AND THE EMERGENCE OF POLITICAL ECONOMIES
Although the two cases can be interpreted in their own context, it is useful t
closely examine why each region undertook its particular trajectory of ch
relation to household organization and resource control by elites. Specific
what factors produced initial similarities in house size and storage systems
early portion of the sequences followed by a divergence in the later archaeo
record of the two regions?
One answer we wish to dismiss is that agriculture was adopted in one r
and not in the other. The adoption of agriculture has often been invoked to ac
for the divergent trajectories of hunter-fisher-gatherers and agricultur
However, an important outcome of the study of complex hunter-fisher-gat
over the past three decades has been that many of the traits thought to c
a package with agriculture—village life, sedentism, land ownership,
property, and political centralization (including chiefdoms)—have ap
in various contexts independent of agriculture (J. Kim 2006a; Kim and G
2006; Rowley-Conwy 2001; Smith 2001). Moreover, the sharp distinction
practices of small-scale agriculturalists and complex hunter-fisher-gathere
been eroding as appreciation is gained for the extent to which complex h
fisher-gatherers were in fact food producers (Duer and Turner 2005; Smit
In particular, recent research on Northwest Coast societies (e.g., Duer and
2005; Grier et al. 2009) illustrates how these groups intensified, manipulat
managed their environments at a depth and scale previously attributed o
agricultural people.
In each area, change in household size cannot be viewed as solely a res
adaptive responses to subsistence intensification or a straightforward outgr
the organizational demands of specific forms of production, though these
do certainly play a role. We feel it is critical to add the political dimension
change in household size in both areas can be viewed as related to the develo
of resource control and the strategies of elites to establish this control.
Coast Salish region, the objectives of elites were best accomplished by incr
household size and solidifying its autonomy. In contrast, in the Songguk
the decrease in household size and relocation of storage facilities to exterio
provided an opportunity for aspiring elites to obtain increasingly exclusiv
to surplus products.
While similar forms of houses and, inferentially, corporate ho

organization occurred in the Early Mumun period of southwestern Kore
Marpole period of the precontact Coast Salish area, the process throug
these large households emerged can be seen as different. In the Co
region, households increase in size after 2500 bp in part owing to
interactions across the landscape as part of a strategy to acquire distant
Larger households provided a larger labor pool and increased surplus p
to fuel this objective. As discussed in earlier sections, the key to h
expansion in the Gulf of Georgia region was that households, and part
elites within those large households, sought out distant alliances with
access resources they needed. These external relations provided househ
a means to maintain their autonomy in their local context, in that the
for pooling resources at a level greater than the large corporate house
weak. On this basis, households could resist or circumvent the efforts
households to establish greater spheres of local authority (Angelbeck and
press).
As a result, household autonomy was maintained and enhanced over time,
resulting in an increase in size of the production unit to accommodate further
economic intensification, in part to generate surplus resources for household elites
to participate in regional networks. This household strategy had a role in shaping
the form of development of Coast Salish political systems. Although spatially
extensive and regionally formalized, Coast Salish political systems developed
over the last two to three millennia as decentralized, nonhierarchical networks of
peer elite household heads (Angelbeck and Grier in press; Grier 2003; Miller and
Boxberger 1994; Suttles 1987).
The Korean case study presents a different situation. Much as in the Gulf
of Georgia region, an initial period of intensification of production in the Early
Mumun period was accompanied by the development of large, multifamily
households. These households were institutions of appropriate scale for mobilizing
the labor force for dry farming and the storage of agricultural products. Resources
remained in the hands of these households, as evidenced by the presence of
internal storage features. A point of contrast in the two cases is that in southwestern
Korea agricultural production emphasized local rather than extensive subsistence
resource production and acquisition. Early Mumun dry farming was undertaken
near settlements, as was later wet rice cultivation in paddy fields. This situation
allowed aspiring elites in the Korean situation to control resources by establishing
control over their local production sphere. In the Early Mumun period, large
households were able to maintain household autonomy because the scale of dry
farming was suited to large household production (Fricke 1986; Netting 1993).
With the onset of large-scale wet rice production, the reorganization into smaller
households was accompanied by a more communal yet ultimately local form of
intensive production. This situation set the stage for bringing resources into the
public sphere.
A key element of contrast between the two regions is therefore the spatial
scale at which resource production and acquisition took place. While farming
and marine resources have different spatial, temporal, and organizational scales
at which they operate (Ingold 1991; Netting 1993), it is this factor—local versu
nonlocal production—rather than a distinction between "foraging" and "farming"
that can better account for the contrasting trajectories of household change and
the development of political systems of resource control. Although many forms o
Northwest Coast production were communal (e.g., large-scale salmon fishing and
storage), these tasks were effectively handled by ever-expanding households and
extralocal alliances (Grier 2003, 2006a).
A second key factor is the contrasting strategies of elites in pursuit of
preferential access to resources. In southwestern Korea, the introduction o
intensive rice agriculture in the Middle Mumun period/Songgukri culture was
an opportunity for emergent elites to capitalize on communal infrastructure
construction to undermine household autonomy and remove resources to the
public sphere, where they were controllable. Rice paddy infrastructure would hav
required cooperative work far beyond what households could have accomplished.
This moved control of decision-making to suprahousehold managers, who were
then in a position to make decisions concerning how to allocate agricultura
products. Under this form of resource control, the ability of individual household
to control their own resources was curtailed.
In contrast, in the Coast Salish region, extralocal ties allowed staple and
prestige resources to flow over large distances (Grier 2003). Coast Salish elites
used their external connections to maintain and promote household integration
and autonomy, a strategy that was successful for millennia. The extralocal
element of the Korean equation came in the use of prestige goods and technology,
particularly bronze, to legitimize elite managerial roles that were the basis for
preferential access to resources at the local scale. Although bronze daggers were
used as important prestige symbols, they were not imported but rather locally
produced. This suggests the Songgukri elite adopted bronze daggers not as a
product of their participation in regional prestige exchange networks, but rather
as a symbol to create and reinforce their distinct status and managerial rights
over agricultural surplus at home. In other words, the use of bronze items appears
aimed primarily at securing greater control over local resources.
CONCLUSIONS
In this comparative study we have focused on identifying some of the

factors that structured how political economies and mechanisms of
control by elites emerged in two examples of small-scale societies. In the
situation, suprahousehold institutions of resource control can be se
outgrowth of managerial opportunities that emerged (at least initially)
the reorganization and shifts in scale of some basic elements of ho
agricultural production. These suprahousehold structures were one mec
through which social actors worked to restructure rules of access to agr
products, undermining household autonomy. In the Coast Salish case, r
systems of resource access emerged, but the actors in these exchange n
were individual large households, which reinforced the autonomy of these

institutions over time in their local contexts.
Contrasting historical trajectories of household organization and
differences in the scale at which resources were controlled (and controllable),
particularly whether local or regional, were key factors in shaping household
changes and, in turn, broader social changes. From our vantage point, the nature
of the production system at various junctures in the past played a key role in
shaping the kinds of political strategies that could be employed by emergent
leaders. Many other economic, social, and political elements were clearly at
play in producing the long and complex histories of each region, and we offer
our analysis as but one of many angles from which similar problems could
be addressed. Political actions and effects at a variety of different scales of
organization—within the household, within communities, among local groups,
and at regional scales—are all critical for achieving the depth of understanding
necessary to establish how changes in political organization developed over the
long-term (Canuto and Yaeger 2000).
Our analysis articulates with current perspectives on the nature of social
and political systems in small-scale societies, particularly with the notions of
heterarchy (Crumley 1995; Rautman 1998), corporate-network systems (Feinman
2000, 2001), and, most directly, the dialectical approach of McGuire and
Saitta (1996). In our analysis, we have stressed the tension between household
autonomy and that of aspiring elites. In both case studies, elements of hierarchy
and heterarchy were combined, and both corporate and network strategies were
invoked by various actors. We prefer, however, not to label either of our case
studies in various periods as either heterarchical or hierarchical, or as corporate or
network, but rather to emphasize that all of these elements were in play throughout
the long-term history in each region in a fundamentally dialectical relationship. In
particular, the relationship between communalism and differentiation provides an
important dynamic in the trajectories of change in household organization and the
emergence of political economies, a point recently made by both Coupland et al.
(2009) and Schaepe (2009) for the Northwest Coast.
In conclusion, our goal has been to emphasize the factors that shaped the long
term history of both regions, and in the process to move forward discussions of
the forces and factors that shape the development of political economies in small
scale societies generally. We emphasize the many social and political dynamics,
including the collective and individual strategies of elites and commoners, and
of households, worked in concert to produce the specific historical trajectories
of change evident in the archaeological record of these two regions. From
both a top-down and a bottom-up perspective, the fundamental production and
consumption processes of households are critical to consider as a starting point
for the emergence and institutionalization of systems of resource control, for the
development of elites, and, ultimately, for the emergence of regionally centralized
political systems.
NOTES
Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Jangsuk Kim. We would like to thank

Lawrence G. Straus and four anonymous reviewers for valuable comments. We also th
Jina Huh for assisting us in drawing Figure 3, and Dr. Sang Gil Lee at Kyungnam Universi
Mr. Jong Mo Choi at Gangwon Institute of Cultural Properties, and Dr. Hong Jong Le
Korean Institute for Archaeology and Environment for allowing us to use Figures
and 6. Funding for developing this study was provided by Kyung Hee University (
20100626), and this paper was prepared during Grier's appointment as an Internati
Scholar at Kyung Hee University. Field research in Canada that generated some of the
for this study was made possible through collaborations with BC Parks, the Hul'qumi'
Treaty Group and the Lyackson and Penelakut First Nations.
1. In using the term "resource control," we adopt its political economy usage
derived from Marxist notions of within-group frictions and contradictions, focusing o
mechanisms through which certain individuals within a group come to have greater a
to resources. Other perspectives, such as that presented by Dyson-Hudson and Smith (1
and Matson (1983) draw upon a human behavioral ecology framework, seeing reso
control as an outgrowth of territorial exclusion from localized and predictable reso
patches. The human behavioral ecology approach emphasizes a between-group proc
and is often applied to foragers. In politically centralized systems, resource control is o
glossed as direct and overt "tribute extraction" and thus exploitation by political leade
That is the not the sense in which we use the term. We focus on how certain individuals
in small-scale societies move to establish greater access to resources in contexts where
overt extraction, appropriation, and exploitation are rarely, if ever, viable (see, for example,
Clark and Blake 1994; J. Kim 2001; Spencer 1993).
2. All house measurements provided here are based on actual house feature dimensions
identified during excavations rather than maximal house platform measurements.
3 Anthropologists have long considered such systems of communal production and
redistribution as an important feature of small-scale, egalitarian societies. Drawing from
the work of Marx and Engels, societies without private property are viewed as inherently
egalitarian societies (e.g., R. Lee 1990). In hunter-fisher-gatherer societies in particular,
pooling and sharing behavior has long been viewed as a leveling mechanism (Sahlins
1972). Netting (1993:194, 229) has correctly pointed out that communal production and
common property have little to do with maintaining egalitarianism.
4. A very similar process appears to have occurred in the North American Southeast
Mississippian period (ad 900-1500). Wesson (1999) shows that prior to the Mississippian
emergence around 900, the majority of food storage was accommodated within individual
households. In contrast, Mississippian societies usually lack household storage facilities,
and large, community-based facilities were constructed.
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RESOURCE CONTROL AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL ECONOMIES IN SMALL-

(Formerly Southwestern Journal of Anthropology)

VOLUME 68 • NUMBER 1 • SPRING 2012

RESOURCE CONTROL AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF

Contrasting Prehistoric Southwestern Korea and the

Department of History, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 130-701, Korea

Department of History, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea. Email: jangsuk@khu.ac.kr

key words: Archaeology, Korea, Northwest Coast, Households, Intensification, Political

The emergence offormalized leadership, institutionalized political hierarchies,

The emergence of formalized leadership, institutionalized political hierarchies,

Journal of Anthropological Research, vol. 68, 2012

HOUSEHOLDS IN SOCIOPOLITICAL CONTEXT

A concern with households as an analytical unit emerged in both anthrop

HOUSEHOLD ORGANIZATION AND

We first look to the Northwest Coast of North America, considering ar

Figure 1. Map of the Gulf of Georgia/Salish Sea region of the North

domestic groups might make up a household, with total populat

Second, large households were an institution of resource consumption.

Archaeological evidence suggests that the complementary nature of domes

HOUSEHOLD CHANGE IN THE

Below, we consider the archaeological record of household change in the

(though not necessarily per person) and, inferentially, a greater emphasis on

THE SOUTHWESTERN KOREAN MUMUN PERIOD (3000-2200 bp)

The archaeological record of southwestern Korea (Figure 3) offers an opportunity

Early Mumun dwellings were rectangular longhouses with multiple internal

Figure 5. An Early Mumun longhouse from Yongamri Settlement, Hwanchon

Figure 6. An excavated example of Songgukri house from Dosamri Settlement, Seocheon

These changes in household, storage, and settlement patterns were

AGRICULTURAL INTENSIFICATION, STORAGE,

individual producing households. In the Songgukri case, we see a situation in

households was a necessary precondition to moving agricultural products to

COMPARING THE TWO TRAJECTORIES:

While similar forms of houses and, inferentially, corporate ho

In this comparative study we have focused on identifying some of the

were individual large households, which reinforced the autonomy of these

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Jangsuk Kim. We would like to thank

Agrawal, Arun. 2003. Sustainable governance of common-pool resources: Co

pp. 16-22. Calgary: Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary.

Hayden, Brian. 1995. "Pathways to power: Principles for creating socioeconom

. 2006b. The Pre-Songgukri material culture and Songgukri assemblag

Lim, Sangtaek. 1999. Cheonan Daeheungri site. Daejon: Chungnam Nationa

. 1990. "Prehistory of the coasts of southern British Columbia and northern

Pauketat, Timothy R. 1998. Refiguring the archaeology of greater Cahokia. Journ

Rautman, Alison E. 1998. Hierarchy and heterarchy in the American Southwest: A

. 1991. "The shed-roof house," in A time of gathering: Native heritage in Washington

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