Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies: Resistance to Centralization in the Coast Salish Region of the Pacific Northwest Coast

Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 547 Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies Resistance to Centralization in the Coast Salish Region of the Pacific Northwest Coast by Bill Angelbeck and Colin Grier Throughout human history, people have lived in societies without formalized government. We argue that the theory of anarchism presents a productive framework for analyzing decentralized societies. Anarchism encompasses a broad array of interrelated principles for organizing societies without the centralization of authority. Moreover, its theory of history emphasizes an ongoing and active resistance to concentrations of power. We present an anarchist analysis of the development of social power, authority, and status within the Coast Salish region of the Northwest Coast. Coast Salish peoples exhibited complex displays of chiefly authority and class stratification but without centralized political organization. Ethnographically, their sociopolitical formation is unique in allowing a majority of “high- class” people and a minority of commoners and slaves, or what Wayne Suttles described as an “inverted-pear” society. We present the development of this sociopolitical structure through an analysis of cranial deformation from burial data and assess it in relation to periods of warfare. We determine that many aspects of Coast Salish culture include practices that resist concentrations of power. Our central point is that anarchism is useful for understanding decentralized (or anarchic) networks—those that allow for complex intergroup relations while staving off the establishment of centralized political authority. Grier (2006b) described the nature of chiefly power as “power It is said that the history of peoples who have a history is to” organize those who willingly followed rather than “power the history of class struggle. It might also be said, with at over” large, spatially extensive organizations. As such, de- least as much truthfulness, that the history of peoples with- scriptions of chiefdoms found in the classic evolutionary out history is the history of their struggle against the State. models of Sahlins and Service (1960; see also Fried 1967; (Pierre Clastres 1987:218) Sahlins 1963) do not aptly characterize the Northwest Coast Archaeologists and anthropologists have had difficulty char- situation. Conversely, egalitarian models do not effectively acterizing Northwest Coast cultures because these societies capture the high degree of social differentiation and inequality were socially complex but lacked centralized authorities. Many that existed in Northwest Coast societies. Their social struc- have presented Northwest Coast societies as examples of chief- ture—containing classes of nobles and chiefs, commoners, doms because of the presence of chiefs. While these leaders and slaves—formed the basis for a highly structured system were often dressed in the trappings of high authority, they for ownership of resources and social prerogatives (Donald were not the chiefs of the classic anthropological chiefdom 1997; Drucker 1965; Elmendorf 1992 [1960]; Suttles 1987a [1960], 1987b [1958]). Elite families carried hereditary claims model, which posits figures with consolidated authority over to titles and territories, and they owned productive resource large territories. Rather, the power of Northwest Coast chiefs locations, such as berry-harvesting areas, salmon-fishing lo- was quite limited in spatial and social scale. Ames (1995) and cations, and clam beds. Northwest Coast chiefs led elite fam- ilies and households, achieving their elevated position among Bill Angelbeck is an independent archaeologist and anthropologist peers through active self-promotion. The potlatch, the most based in Seattle (6905 Carleton Avenue South, Seattle, Washington renowned of Northwest Coast ceremonies, exemplifies the 98108, U.S.A. [angelbeck@gmail.com]). Colin Grier is Assistant degree to which chiefs promoted and exercised their status. Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University (P.O. Box 644910, Pullman, Washington 99164, U.S.A.) Through the competitive displays of potlatches, chiefs seem- and International Scholar in the Department of History at Kyung ingly worked in direct opposition to the leveling mechanisms Hee University (Seoul, South Korea 103-701). This paper was that anthropologists highlight as fundamental to the main- submitted 1 X 09 and accepted 17 V 11. tenance of egalitarianism in hunter-gatherer societies. 䉷 2012 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2012/5305-0002$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/667621  548 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 Matson and Coupland (1995) summarized the Northwest Background on Anarchism Coast conundrum succinctly, describing societies that “exhibit high social complexity, but low political complexity” (29). The origins of anarchist thought extends back at least to the However, an explanation of how such a system operates and 1800s, stemming from the writings of William Godwin, the principles under which it can function have yet to be Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and Max Stirner, although some see adequately articulated. In this paper, we argue that the North- its elements developing in thinkers many centuries earlier west Coast conundrum stems from the lack of a theoretical (e.g., Marshall 1993). Anarchism as a movement gained mo- framework that can effectively convey the organizational prin- mentum with Mikhail Bakunin. In the days of the first con- ciples of this complexity. As Roscoe (1993) has discussed, gress of the International Workingmen’s Association (or First most political evolutionary models assume an inevitable pro- International), held in Geneva in 1866, members included gression toward the state and its dynamic of political cen- socialists, trade unionists, and anarchists. Over subsequent tralization. In state-focused approaches, political complexity years, a primary debate within the organization crystallized is an outgrowth of increasing socioeconomic complexity. Such around Karl Marx’s communism and Bakunin’s anarchism. models hold egalitarianism as a foil, usually defined by a lack Although these ideas were similar in many respects—mainly of political complexity. Even Marxism, despite its ideal of in their shared criticism of state capitalism and similar aims communism, is structured quite explicitly in the paradigm of for an ultimate form of communism—these two camps were states, with its ultimate accomplishment achieved through the quite opposed in their conceptions of how such a society manifold evolution of various stages of states—ultimately see- should be organized. Mounting tensions produced a split in ing the state itself “wither away” (Engels 1966 [1894]). It the First International in 1872, with Marx taking the asso- remains difficult to situate Northwest Coast cultures in such ciation’s headquarters to New York, essentially distancing it frameworks. from the influence of Bakunin and his anarchist proponents, Anarchism provides a body of theory for an alternative whom he had expelled. Marx then became singularly prom- framework, one that we submit can be used to resolve many inent, not only in the organization but eventually in academic of the apparent contradictions engendered by state-focused contexts. Marxism has subsequently enjoyed an important models of social hierarchy and complexity. The societies of role in the development of both anthropology (e.g., Bloch the Northwest Coast constitute a problem—that is, these so- 1983; Godelier 1977; Meillassoux 1980 [1972]) and archae- cieties represent an exception to extant typologies—precisely ology (e.g., Childe 1964; Gilman 1984; McGuire 1992; Spriggs because they are an elaboration of complex society in a de- 1984; Trigger 1993), and Marxist or Marxian scholars con- centralized form rather than a centralized one. Principles tinue to find utility with his theories today (e.g., Matthews, based in theories of anarchism, we argue, provide a framework Leone, and Jordan 2002; McGuire 2008; Patterson 2003). for understanding these decentralized complex societies on The draw of Marxism for anthropology has been its cogent their own terms, without reference to the highly centralized insights into the internal frictions that exist in societies of all chiefdom and state. We show how anarchist dynamics can be scales and types and how these have ultimate genesis in fun- implemented to analyze the archaeological and ethnographic damental contradictions of a materialist nature. Such an ap- records of small-scale societies. Anarchism also moves beyond proach resonates with archaeological scholars who are con- the limitations of egalitarian characterizations by positing a cerned with economic processes, particularly the socially theory of history where social actors accept those authorities constituted economics of small-scale societies. Marxism that are deemed legitimate and resist those authorities that stresses that inequality resides in the fundamentals of material are considered unwarranted. life. Economic differences are socially meaningful differences, We begin with a brief background on the history of an- and consequently material inequalities and social inequalities archism and then discuss the limitations of egalitarianism as are inextricably linked. a concept. We then describe some fundamental principles of While these socioeconomic inequalities were seen as fun- anarchism and its theory of history. We follow with a case damental problems in capitalist formations by both anarchists study of how an anarchist framework can be used to interpret and Marxists, the path to ultimately defeating inequality was past societies on the Pacific coast of North America, focusing another source of division. Anarchism, as developed in the on the later precontact history of the Gulf of Georgia region work of Bakunin, emphasized self-organized local collectives of southern coastal British Columbia, Canada, and Washing- (Bakunin 1950 [1872], 1970 [1871]; Maximoff 1964; Morris ton State, United States. Our main point is that the canon of 1993). In debates at the First International congresses, Ba- theory that comprises anarchism has a broad historical and kunin argued against the centralization of political and eco- social science foundation that provides significant explanatory nomic organization envisioned by most Marxists as a viable power for interpreting a range of small-scale societies of the solution, contending that it would contribute to more total- past, particularly in relation to how groups self-organize, re- itarian forms of government than those of existing states. In sist, and revolt against those who attempt to centralize and the late nineteenth century, the ruling elites of European states institutionalize sociopolitical inequalities. owned or controlled only part of the economy. If Marxists Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 549 had their way, he argued, the state would exert even more vantages over Marxist thought for the study of nonstate so- control over the economy, leading to more powerful forms cieties. Marxism was developed explicitly for the analysis of of authoritarianism. In the aftermath of the Russian Revo- state societies and has less direct import for the study of lution, some regarded his comments as prescient (e.g., Singer “precapitalist” societies (Marx 1964 [1857–1858]). Anar- 1999).1 chism, on the other hand, focuses precisely on the nature of Following Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin became the leading an- small-scale, decentralized systems and therefore is more ap- archist theorist and activist of the late nineteenth century. Kro- propriate for the study of societies lacking centralized political potkin fought for anarchist ideas in radical cells and socialist authority.2 congresses, and he was imprisoned twice for his activities in For many, anarchism evokes images of chaos, dissent, and France and Russia (Morris 2004). Like Marx, Kropotkin had disorder. Those who harbor such sentiments are typically un- a long-term historical perspective that situated anarchism in aware that anarchist theory, like chaos theory in the physical the process of human cultural evolution. Through his work sciences, differs markedly from its perception in popular con- Mutual Aid (1972 [1902]), he challenged prevalent social Dar- sciousness. Rather than promoting chaos, anarchists devel- winist ideas, which he believed only buttressed support for oped and implemented principles for social organization that capitalist systems. Instead of a “struggle for existence” (as Hux- ensured autonomy for individuals and local groups. They ley had advanced) or a “survival of the fittest” (as Spencer put envisioned communities linked with other communities forward), Kropotkin offered the concept of mutual aid. He through networks of cooperation. Thus, anarchic societies are argued that the principle of cooperation was as important, if not ungoverned societies but rather self-governed societies. not more, than competition as a factor influencing the evo- We emphasize here that anarchism has been advanced as a lution of human social organization—a position to which many form of social organization, not disorder. neo-Darwinian theorists are now moving (e.g., Fehr and Gintis 2007; Gintis 2000; Hammerstein 2006). The Limitations of Egalitarianism Subsequent anarchist theorists include Elise´e Reclus, Emma as a Construct Goldman, Colin Ward, and Murray Bookchin, among others. In recent years, social science theorists have considered the The concept of egalitarianism has had broad use in anthro- affinity and relevance of these and other anarchist thinkers pology and the study of past societies. The term has been to postmodern and poststructuralist thinkers such as Fou- used to describe a social ideal or ethic, a form of economic cault, Derrida, and Lacan (Call 2003; May 1989, 1994; New- redistribution characterized by leveling mechanisms, sharing, man 2001). In anthropology and history, researchers have selflessness, the absence of social inequality, communal own- increasingly explored anarchism (Anderson 2005; Barclay ership of the means of production, and a lack of coercive 1982, 1997; Graeber 2004, 2007, 2009; Morris 1993, 2004, control (Paynter 1989; Wason 1994; Woodburn 1982). The 2005; Scott 2009). Despite these contributions and their con- literature on egalitarianism is complex in that scholars have structive critique of Marxist theory and objectives, anarchist emphasized different aspects of the concept and, over the last scholarly work is not nearly as prevalent in the academy as couple of decades, have provided increasingly nuanced crit- Marxism, as noted by Graeber (2004:3–7). icisms and evaluations of its utility for analysis (e.g., Blake The relative lack of anarchist approaches in academia is and Clark 1999; Clark and Blake 1994; Paynter 1989; Trigger curious, given that both Marxism and anarchism have long 2. We recognize that recent forms of Marxism (or post-Marxism) have histories of development, debate, study, and practice (Gue´rin incorporated elements that have addressed anarchist critiques or even 1989). Both have been reworked and refined over decades, adopted theoretical principles of anarchism. For instance, the autono- leading to a wide variety of perspectives within their own mism of Antonio Negri (1999) emphasizes the coordinated bottom-up lineages that have sharpened their ideas, rhetoric, and debates. actions of autonomous local groups rather than centralized parties. With Michael Hardt, they have stressed the composition of the proletariat as Both have signature thinkers and practitioners over the suc- a “multitude,” or social complexity (Hardt and Negri 1994, 2001, 2004). cessive generations since their origins. Both have been trans- This is similar to Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) argument against the sim- lated into practice in moments of modern political upheaval plification of the worker class, instead advocating for decentralized plu- and revolution: Marxism in Russia, China, and Cuba and ralism that includes student, environmental, and feminist movements— anarchism in Spain and Italy, for example. With similar in part, they included those traditionally regarded as nonlaborers in their analysis. Antonio Gramsci (1971 [1929–1935]) also reinvigorated Marx- traditions, one might find reason enough to explore the utility ism, critiquing many of his contemporary Marxists as too nomothetic of both theoretical realms. In our view, the most compelling and ahistorical; he redirected the heavy orientation on economy and rationale for exploring anarchist theory stems from its ad- ideology toward cultural practices in place for particular historical con- ditions with the concept of hegemony—that is, he added a better un- 1. Indeed, some Marxists also opposed centralizing power. Notably, derstanding of power, which has affinity with anarchist conceptions of Rosa Luxemburg (Luxemburg 1951; Nettl 1989:1–2, 168–170; Scott 1998: power. Gramsci also recognized that leaders could not be of an intellectual 168–174) was an advocate for a more democratic form of Marxism and vanguard but must come from local groups or the grassroots to be seen challenged “imperial” or centralizing forms—such as happened with the as valid and effective. The examples could continue, but it is clear that Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution, which set the basis for the total- anarchist critiques and components have been integrated into forms of itarianism of Stalin. Marxism.  550 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 1990, 2003:669–670). Here we focus on a few key issues in gression of increasing control over resources, labor, and sur- its use and shortcomings. plus by emergent leaders termed “despots,” “reciprocators,” First, egalitarianism has stood in opposition to the state and “entrepreneurs.” and at the same time has been defined and applied by those While such discussions of emergent leadership represent who live within states (Lee 1988; Trigger 1984). Many dis- important contributions to our understanding of the devel- cussions of egalitarianism have included critiques of the state, opment of social inequality and complexity, they do not ef- with egalitarian societies representing and embodying social fectively model how sociopolitical systems resist emergent formations that lack its trappings. These perspectives are ide- leadership. The end result of emergent leadership is presented alist, presenting egalitarian, usually small-scale hunting and as institutionalized authority, even if such changes may reflect gathering societies as a form of primitive communism, where unintended consequences. Blake and Clark (1999) and Trigger social differences involved those of age and gender only (e.g., (1990, 2003:669–670) have identified how egalitarian societies Fried 1967). Such views have been fueled by 1960s notions exert great efforts to resist the consolidation of power. Sim- that hunter-gatherers do not pay for their egalitarianism in ilarly, we see emergent leadership as engaged in a dialectic the form of poverty (Lee and Devore 1968). Hunter-gatherers with resistance in all societies as part of cultural practices that often live quite well, as exemplified by the “want not, need curb the centralization of power. As Foucault (1980, 1997: not” ethic of “Man the Hunter”–inspired studies (e.g., Sahlins 291–293) reminded us, power is embedded in all relations, 1972). Lacking poverty, these small-scale societies stand as and the machinations of aspiring individuals and their in- examples of having a cake and eating it too, being saddled creasing accumulation of power and control bring responses with none of the impositions of the state yet having few, if and realignments from others in the community. In an an- any, of the economic wants seen as the hallmark of hunter- archist view, hierarchies are resisted through mutual aid, con- gatherers living in marginal environments. sensual decision making, and the maintenance of decentral- Anthropologists have rightfully challenged such positions. ized networks. These practices represent cooperative actions Inequalities beyond those based on age, sex, ability, or skill undertaken to constrain the abuse and centralization of exist in all societies, and egalitarian societies must actively power. maintain both a sociopolitical ethic of equality (a conception Nonhierarchical systems that exhibit inequalities and power of people being equal in some social sense) with protocols differences are therefore not reducible to aggrandizers that and practices that encourage and maintain such relations (e.g., centralize power by working against and ultimately usurping social fissioning, ostracism, and mockery; Blake and Clark traditional leveling mechanisms. Rather, with the develop- 1999). Hunters and gatherers generate prohibitions against ment of power and authority come organizational changes hoarding and the control of material surplus in an effort to that are both a reaction and a response to emergent authority, mitigate behaviors that disrupt the economic fundamentals limiting the potential for control and centralization. We sug- of equality (Cashdan 1980; Woodburn 1982). As Trigger gest that anarchic principles of organization are a means to (1990, 2003:669–670) has noted, egalitarianism is asserted and allow for the development of power, privilege, and affluence maintained rather than a natural condition. Such notions are but retain the consensual, decentralized properties of non- consistent with an anarchist position of resisting the author- hierarchical systems. itarianism, hierarchy, and control that can exist in all types A final point we offer concerning egalitarianism and hi- of societies (e.g., Cobb 1993; Scott 1990). erarchies is terminological. A focus on emergent leadership Recent literature pertaining to small-scale societies has has created some curious and awkward wording to describe revealed a wide range of sociopolitical dynamics in the mid- the ground between small-scale foragers and centralized social dle ground between centralized societies (chiefdoms and forms, such as the chiefdom and state. “Transegalitarian” is states) and small-scale, so-called egalitarian societies. In used in a fashion similar to that of “nonhierarchical”—by these societies, which are often described as “transegalitar- reference to the form it supplants or contrasts. It is also com- ian,” skilled individuals do accumulate wealth and have mon to characterize small-scale, nonhierarchical societies with more control than others over subsistence and prestige re- reference to hierarchical social formations. For example, sources, labor, and knowledge. These individuals, often re- phrases such as “reverse dominance hierarchy” (Boehm ferred to as “aggrandizers,” are seen as operating within a 1993)3 and “sequential hierarchy” (Johnson 1982) draw upon backdrop of egalitarianism. Yet in their pursuit of greater 3. Barclay (see his comment in Boehm 1993) has remarked on Boehm’s control over resources, such individuals act in apparent con- terminology that such notions are better characterized in a simpler man- travention to egalitarian ideals. Their success in acquiring ner, akin to what we offer here: “I do not know that ‘egalitarian’ is an preferential access to resources is limited to contexts in appropriate term for the systems that Boehm refers to. As he himself which it either is useful for others or does not impinge on notes, egalitarian societies are not egalitarian when it comes to women and children, and some egalitarian societies practice slavery. For others, the ability of others to access the basic needs of life. In short, such as the Australians, equality is the happy circumstance of the elder they manipulate the system but work within it. Hayden males alone. Boehm’s term ‘reverse dominance hierarchies’ is rather awk- (1995) provides perhaps the most extensive chronicling of ward. I would call these ‘anarchic’ societies, having leadership but no the diversity of these aggrandizer strategies, outlining a pro- government or true legal sanctions” (241). Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 551 the terminology of hierarchy to describe what are essentially not mean atomism in the sense of independent agents con- nonhierarchical sociopolitical forms. Such descriptors invoke cerned for their own affairs. Rather, autonomy conveys per- the kind of incongruity typical of paradigms that are ill fitted sonal and local group freedom but with extensions of co- to explain the phenomenon of interest (Kuhn 1962). Our operation as individuals and groups voluntarily associate with intention here is to present a theoretical position that ad- others in networks of mutual alliance.4 dresses these conceptual inconsistencies. Network Organization Core Principles of Anarchism Mutual aid and cooperative endeavors are seen by anarchists as the core dynamic for structuring the self-organization of The Nuer constitution is highly individualistic and liber- groups. These actions link autonomous local groups into tarian. It is an acephalous state, lacking legislative, judicial, larger communities and regional networks of interaction. and executive organs. Nevertheless, it is far from chaotic. Higher-level anarchic organization is not driven by minor- It has a persistent and coherent form which might be called ities or authorities but rather is generated and structured “ordered anarchy.” (E. E. Evans-Pritchard 1940:296) by the needs of the people involved in negotiation with one Anarchism is a broad corpus of ideas encompassing various another. According to Bookchin (1991:52), the practical canons of thought. Marxism is substantively associated with needs of individuals within local groups are the medium for one individual, even in name. In anarchist theory, no thinker organization. The means through which such mutual needs has been or is singularly predominant, and anarchist thought are met are self-organizing networks. Network forms of or- and practice encourages diversity and contributions from ganization, as defined by Podolny and Page (1998), consti- numerous sources. Anarchism has generated individualist tute “any collection of actors (n 1 2) that pursue repeated, forms, collectivist approaches, and other variants coined as enduring exchange relations with one another and, at the anarchosyndicalist, neoprimitivist, and ecoanarchism, just same time, lack a legitimate organizational authority to ar- to name a few. Graeber (2004:5–6) has aptly noted that these bitrate and resolve disputes that may arise during the ex- are named after practices, not their proponents. Indeed, it change” (59). can be claimed that one does not have to know who Kro- Such processes are in opposition to market systems or potkin, Bakunin, Landauer, or Bookchin was in order to hierarchies. Market relations are neither lasting nor endur- identify oneself as an anarchist. Rather than canonical texts, ing but rather are episodic, existing only for the transaction. there is instead an adherence to a set of principles that guides Hierarchies are structures in which “clearly recognized, le- much of anarchism and provides connections among its gitimate authority exists to resolve disputes” that arise in strains. These principles include individual and local au- matters of socioeconomic exchange (Podolny and Page tonomy and expression, voluntary association, mutual aid, 1998:62–63). Network forms of organization adapt more network organization, communal decision making, justified quickly to changes due to having more effective lines of authorities, and decentralization (including active resistance immediate communication than found in centralized forms. to centralization). Instead of a rigid model for social or- Not only does information travel faster, but it also conveys ganization that should be implemented top down upon a “richer, more complex information” that allows for a wider society, anarchists emphasize core principles to be adapted array of responses from various nodes in the network. This to local contexts in a manner appropriate to regional settings stands in contrast to the narrow options to be delivered and circumstances. Below, we focus on some of these key from managers in centralized forms of organization (Po- principles that lay the groundwork for our case study, show- dolny and Page 1998:62–63). The notion of a nonhierarch- ing how they form a coherent framework for assessing social ical network form of organization5—an acephalous series of organization. parallel pathways for communication and action—has been a common means of describing social networks of many Individual and Local Autonomy varieties, but such a system is rarely considered as a con- According to anarchists, social control should lie not within scious founding organizational principle in and of itself. any one center but rather be distributed more broadly 4. Some archaeologists have examined the changing nature of ex- throughout the society. Centers of control are more robust pressions of autonomy through time, including Douglas (1995), who at smaller scales, beginning with the individual and including analyzed the independence of groups in the Southwest, and Rapp (1977), families, households, and local cooperative groups. Society who evaluated the changing autonomy of women in relation to the de- should be organized from the bottom up, with groups freely velopment of states. 5. Archaeologists have also explored the role of networks in the past. associating with other groups in broader confederations. As For instance, Braun and Plog (1982) described how groups form networks these links of participation build into larger forms of orga- of cooperation in response to resource stresses, akin to what Kropotkin nization, the main centers of control should remain at the would call mutual aid. In addition, Feinman (2000) has examined how local scale. While anarchists advocate for autonomy, this does networks are politically different from corporate formations.  552 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 Even so, while networks do not have centers, they do not Decentralization lack authorities. True progress lies in the direction of decentralization, both territorial and functional, in the development of the spirit Justified Authority of local and personal initiative, and of free federation from the simple to the compound, in lieu of the present hierarchy Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such from the centre to the periphery. (Peter Kropotkin 1910: a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority 914) of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or engineer. For such or such Sebastien Faure has written that “whoever denies authority special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I and fights against it is an anarchist” (Woodcock 1962:9). In allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant much of anarchist theory, antiauthoritarianism is directed to impose his authority upon me. (Mikhail Bakunin 1970 foremost at the state and its centralization of power and con- [1871]:32) trol. Resistance to centralization is not limited to state con- As bluntly stated by Bakunin (1970 [1871]), “authority [is] texts, however. For anarchists, all communities resist tyran- a word and a thing which we detest with all our heart,” adding nical or absolute power, both in principle and in practice. that “this is the sense in which we are really Anarchists” (21). Proudhon, capturing this sentiment, noted that “all parties However outspoken Bakunin was about authority, he did not without exception, in so far as they seek for power, are va- reject it entirely; he made a distinction between natural au- rieties of absolutism” (Woodcock 1962:18). thorities (those sought for their knowledge, skill, or experi- Notions of decentralization have nonetheless played a lim- ence) and artificial authorities (those imposed by institutions; ited role in anthropological models of political evolution. In Maximoff 1964:239). His position is more accurately de- the last 2 decades, however, scholars have worked to develop scribed as an opposition to authoritarianism. Bakunin argued analyses in which decentralization is emphasized. Crumley’s that one should consent to the authority of another on the (1995) formulation of heterarchy is perhaps most prominent basis of reason. Authorities are not fixed; instead, there should among these. Heterarchy describes structures with elements be “a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above that may be ordered or ranked in a variety of ways or that all, voluntary authority and subordination.” Chomsky sum- may remain unranked (Crumley 1995:3). Crumley (1995) ex- marized this antiauthoritarian stance as a core expression of plicitly challenged the association of hierarchy with order, anarchist principles: since this “makes it difficult to imagine, much less recognize and study, patterns of relations that are complex but not Anarchism, in my view, is an expression of the idea that the hierarchical” (3). For example, trees and symphonies exhibit burden of proof is always on those who argue that authority order yet are not hierarchical in structure. This is true of the and domination are necessary. They have to demonstrate, human brain as well; McCulloch (1945) initially developed with powerful argument, that that conclusion is correct. If the concept of heterarchy to help explain brain function, fur- they cannot, then the institutions they defend should be thering the potential for research in artificial intelligence. considered illegitimate. How one should react to illegitimate Archaeologists have pursued analyses of heterarchy in nu- authority depends on circumstances and conditions: there merous regions of the world (e.g., Conlee 2004; Ehrenreich, are no formulas. (Chomsky 1996) Crumley, and Levy 1995; Rautman 1998; Scarborough, Valdez, Anthropologists have provided many examples in which and Dunning 2003), fueled in part by a lack of fit between authority was respected and permitted on the basis of merit archaeological data and expectations derived from hierarchical or a specialty in particular arenas of society. Among the models. Crumley (1995), for example, found that site distri- Coast Salish Puyallup-Nisqually, for example, Smith (1940) butions in the Celtic Iron Age did not adhere to central place noted that warriors were given power over villages but only theory and sought a model that reflected the complexity, but for the duration of battle. In addition, certain household not hierarchy, of Celtic chiefdoms. Similarly, White (1995) chiefs may have been called upon to adjudicate a dispute developed a heterarchical approach to settlement data from between other households. In that role, the arbitrating chief mainland South Asia. Flexible decentralization and local au- does not occupy a formal position but is simply respected tonomy were better able to account for intervillage variability by both parties and is seen to have strong spirit power to in material culture, suggesting a high degree of village au- help resolve disputes (Miller 2001:149–150). In many cul- tonomy during the early formation of states in the region. tures, shamans have been given authority in times of sickness McGuire and Saitta (1996) addressed the nature of U.S. or to counter curses and other ills. In these examples of the Southwest Puebloan sociopolitical organization to confront a warrior, chief, and shaman, the power and allotment of au- parallel problem. Their analysis was a reaction against the thority has a limited range and a narrow time period of rigid categorization of Puebloan groups as either hierarchical applicability. More directly, power of authority must always or egalitarian. To counter, they advanced a dialectical epis- be situationally justified. temology with roots in Marxism. In so doing, they empha- Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 553 sized daily lived experience as the product of contradictions. of a Puget Sound Snoqualmie chiefdom, he mused, “How In Pueblo society, a critical contradiction stemmed from their could a model of local village autonomy explain how hun- sociopolitical organization being both egalitarian and hier- dreds of small villages, competing for wealth, slaves, prestige, archical.6 Saitta and McGuire (1998:335) considered heter- are able to manage their intervillage affairs?” (129). The state- archy a useful but predominantly categorical and descriptive ment implies that the only means to do so is through cen- approach to nonhierarchical complexity. Their dialectical ap- tralizing the decision-making process in the hands of chiefs, proach, which explores the dynamics between communal and who manage the process. As we emphasize, anarchic orga- hierarchical structures as an agent of change, was advanced nizations do exactly that without recourse to centralization. to break down oppositional thinking, whether egalitarian ver- Certainly the question is valid—but the answer is not that sus hierarchical or hierarchical versus heterarchical. Saitta and the situation requires centralized authority. It demands that McGuire’s (1998) critique does not apply to all heterarchical we theoretically consider ways in which such situations are approaches, however. Crumley (1987) posited heterarchy as handled without recourse to centralization, a task to which in a dialectic with hierarchy within societies, which has im- we turn in our case study. portant similarities with an anarchist theory of history.7 We advance the anarchist perspective to address similar A Northwest Coast Case Study: The Coast issues and see our approach as building on the important Salish as an Anarchic Society work of Crumley (1987, 1995), Saitta and McGuire (1998), and others. The advantage of an anarchist approach is that it provides a more expansive and integrated framework for I recognize no infallible authority. (Mikhail Bakunin 1970 analysis. In such settings, it incorporates the flexibility of het- [1871]:32) erarchy through its emphasis on decentralized, network-based They recognize no superior chief. (Manuel Quimper, 1790 systems. Anarchism also integrates a dialectical perspective in [Wagner 1933:131], in the first recorded encounter with that it posits mutual aid and justified authority as a key dy- the Coast Salish) namic of active resistance to centralization. From an anarchist perspective, this dialectic represents ongoing negotiation In 1790, Spanish explorers of the Quimper expedition en- within cultures through time, constituting a persistent tension countered powerful chiefs of the West Coast, such as Ma- between centralized (hierarchical, or “imperial”) and decen- quinna of the Nuu-chah-nulth and Tatoosh of the Makah, tralized (heterarchical, or “anarchic”) forms of social orga- who appeared to rule over large territories. In contrast, as he nization (Carter 1989; Kropotkin 1987 [1897]). The principles sailed through the Salish Sea (fig. 1) Quimper would find of anarchism and its theory of history, in our view, provide himself dealing with numerous chiefs, ultimately writing a foundation from which we can assess how decentralized about the Coast Salish that “they recognize no superior chief” systems are constructed and actively maintained by social (Wagner 1933:130–131). Suttles (1989:262) has remarked that actors. The core principles are not simply descriptive but this statement, penned by perhaps the very first European characterize the objectives and strategies of social actors, visitor to Coast Salish territory, is particularly revealing of which, in their implementation, produce heterarchical forms some important elements of Coast Salish politics. First, it of sociopolitical organization. Much like the recognition of indicates that Coast Salish political organization was not or- egalitarianism as a maintained rather than a natural state, ganized around “superior chiefs.” Second, it conveys that the decentralized political systems are not simply alternatives to Coast Salish were not prepared to recognize superior chiefs hierarchy but represent actively maintained social formations. (presumably including the Spanish, should they have designs We have found these insights illuminating with respect to on such a role). Third and perhaps most intriguingly, it in- debates in our own study region on the Northwest Coast of dicates that they did nonetheless recognize chiefs but that North America. For example, in Tollefson’s (1987) discussion those chiefs were neither superior nor paramount. Quimper’s statement appears to capture in few words a set of organi- 6. In the Northwest Coast, Coupland, Clark, and Palmer (2009) have zational principles that deter and inhibit the centralization of taken a similar approach, although without an explicit dialectic episte- power, as embodied in anarchist principles. mology, arguing that the social dynamics of large Northwest Coast long- A key issue is how far back in the past this political structure house groups were structured by the perpetual management of contra- extended. We contend that the Coast Salish political orga- dictions between communalism and hierarchy in the intimate context of the household. nization that “recognizes no superior chief ” is a product of 7. For highland Burma, Edmund Leach (1954:8–9) similarly argued that a long history that involved the development of peer-exchange there was an oscillation through time between structured, hierarchical po- networks over the last 2 millennia (Blake 2004; Burley 1980: litical systems (gumsa) and acephalous or decentralized forms (gumlao), 66–67; Grier 2003). These exchange networks affected the which he described as “anarchistic.” However, this should not be seen as trajectory of political developments in the Gulf of Georgia a simple and constant alteration of “model systems” of society; as Wolf (1982) critiqued, these polar opposites are not “invariable outcomes” (345), region in that the individuals participating in them actively as each change in sociopolitical form must be viewed within specific his- resisted the centralization of power. They used a variety of torical contexts as people reformulate the organization of society. mechanisms to this end, some of which were inherent prop-  554 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 Figure 1. Map of the Coast Salish world at contact, with the general areas of some local groups indicated. erties of the network itself. In short, resistance to centrali- I suggest that the structure of Native [Coast Salish] society zation shaped the nature of Coast Salish sociopolitical life was not that of a pyramid. There was no apex of nobles, over time. This in turn had significant implications for the medium-sized middle class, and broad base of commoners. broader organizational dynamics of these societies. Social dif- Instead, Native society had more the shape of an inverted ferentiation and the unequal distribution of wealth developed pear. The greater number of people belonged to an upper within Coast Salish societies over the last 2 millennia as part or respectable class, from which leaders of various sorts of a trajectory of increasing inequality without an apparent emerged on various occasions. (Suttles 1987b [1958]:6–7) increase in centralization. This is not a contradiction but rather a consequence of strategies designed to maintain de- We view this inverted-pear society and its unusually top- centralized, mutual-aid networks yet allow for the construc- heavy distribution of status as resulting from the implemen- tion of affluence. tation of principles of social organization that emphasized An intriguing consequence of this trajectory played out in local autonomy, networked relationships, and the decentral- the sociopolitical organization of Coast Salish societies, which ization of authorities. In the case study presented below, we came to include a prevalence of elite individuals. Families of examine the diachronic development of this Coast Salish po- “high class” were the majority. These high-class people were litical organization and present it as an example of how de- those who “knew their history,” received training, and pos- centralized forms can emerge in small-scale societies. sessed private knowledge (Suttles 1987b [1958]). Commoners, The Coast Salish world encompasses the Gulf of Georgia, who were in the minority, did not know their history and Puget Sound, and the major river valleys that flow into these hence were lower class. An even smaller minority consisted waters, particularly the Fraser River (see fig. 1). The last 2,500 of slaves, often acquired as war captives. Suttles described this years of Coast Salish precontact history has been of particular Coast Salish sociopolitical organization as exhibiting the shape interest to archaeologists and ethnographers. The period from of an inverted pear (fig. 2): roughly 2,500 to 1,000 years ago, known as Marpole, provides Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 555 Figure 2. Suttles’s (1987b [1958]:12, fig. 1) model for Coast Salish sociopolitical organization as exhibiting an inverted-pear shape. the most convincing archaeological evidence for the existence to more northern groups (e.g., the Haida, Kwakwaka’wakw, of many of the complex social and economic practices that Tlingit, or Tsimshian). Suttles (1987c [1960], 1990) discussed were evident at the time of contact, including large longhouse- this feature specifically, finding that the Coast Salish system based residences (plankhouses), mortuary practices that in- of bilateral kinship, as opposed to the more strictly defined cluded mound construction and the inclusion of exotics, sig- matrilineal descent typical of northern groups, allowed for a nificant wealth and socioeconomic inequality, and intensive high degree of social mobility and unencumbered associa- storage economies. As these are relatively novel elements in tions. Collins (1979) referred to the situation as a “Coast the broader context of hunter-gatherer lifeways, pursuit of Salish strategy” to allow individuals to choose which house- the origins of these institutions and practices has dominated hold they aligned with and reside within (either the mother’s the attention of archaeologists. Here we make no specific or the father’s side). This capacity to shift affiliations helped arguments concerning the emergence of socioeconomic com- prevent accumulation of material wealth and power within plexity. Rather, we focus on the Marpole and later periods, a households, since individuals could avoid domination time during which the social practices of ethnographically through exercising their autonomy. Grier (2006b) addresses documented Northwest Coast societies had developed.8 Ethnographically, the Coast Salish were known to exhibit this situation in detail from the perspective of household a highly flexible sociopolitical organization relative to other organization, outlining how the flexibility in potential asso- peoples of the Northwest Coast, particularly in comparison ciations functioned as a brake on the power that house chiefs could wield over their household. 8. As a general statement, our view of the nature and significance of This flexibility had implications for how leadership operated these developments over the long term is summarized in Grier (2003). within the Coast Salish sphere as well as how positions of power  556 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 Figure 3. Caw-Wacham, Paul Kane’s ca. 1848 painting of a Cowichan woman with child and cradleboard (oil on canvas; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Purchase, William Gilman Cheney Bequest; photo: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Christine Guest). A color version of this figure is available in the online edition of Current Anthropology. related to the control, concentration, and redistribution of ma- Precontact Status among the Coast Salish terial wealth. For example, among the Coast Salish the potlatch While ethnographers have described many dimensions of acted as a system for redistributing wealth, as is the popular Coast Salish social differentiation and political organization, view of its primary function (Suttles 1987c [1960]). This event of largesse was accompanied with ostentatious displays and individual expression of status. The practice of potlatching cer- concentrations. He provided two cases where Northwest Coast groups tainly facilitated the conversion of material capital into status, were forced or threatened to hold a potlatch soon after acquiring sub- or symbolic capital, but, as importantly, it also ensured that stantial fortunes of loot. Under Chief Maquinna, the Moachat Nuu-chah- nulth raided the fur-trading ship, the Boston, in 1803. Soon thereafter, resources were redistributed to those with less. Consequently, news of their success spread, and they were visited by neighboring Nuu- any tendency for wealth to accumulate inordinately in the hands chah-nulth groups for a potlatch; he complied, redistributing much of of a few was limited and controlled.9 the booty. In contrast, the Yakutat Tlingit, after sacking a Russian fort, opted to keep the wealth for themselves instead of redistribute; other 9. Ferguson (1983:136) illustrated how potlatches controlled for wealth Tlingit then decided to take it from by force and attacked. Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 557 archaeologists have had to consider how expressions of status varies, while the physicality of cranial deformation cannot be were manifest in the precontact material record. Cranial de- undone. The change from labrets to cranial deformation is formation, the deliberate shaping of the cranium, is an im- therefore significant in that it indicates that status represen- portant aspect of the mortuary record bearing on status (Ames tation systems became more rigid. Cranial shape must be and Maschner 1999; Burley and Knu¨sel 1989; Matson and modified during infancy, before it would be possible to ac- Coupland 1995:215; Mitchell 1971:49). Archaeologists have quire high status through accomplishments, and once created argued that cranial deformation has been used to indicate it persists through life. On this basis, the shift to deformation status differences in various regions of the world, including practices from more flexible status marking reflects a corre- Colombia (Boada Rivas 1995), the Eurasian steppes, the An- sponding shift from a flexibly ranked to a stratified society des (Torres-Rouff and Yablonsky 2005), and Chile (Torres- (Matson and Coupland 1995:214–215). Rouff 2002). It has also been viewed as a marker of ethnic General agreement can be found on the basic point that identity (Blom 2005) and as a matter of aesthetics (Blackwood cranial deformation was a more permanent signifier of status and Danby 1955; Dingwall 1931; Trinkaus 1982). It is likely relative to more ephemeral markers. However, the specific all three. In analyzing Chilean human remains, Torres-Rouff status expressed by the practice remains debated, particularly (2002) argued, “Cranial vault modification is not merely an in relation to whether deformation reflected ethnicity or high aesthetic choice but a social signifier of great importance. class. On the basis of the assumption that a high status marker . . . What is critical is the acknowledgment that the shaped should be relatively restricted within any population, Beattie and altered body carries an indelible symbol of membership (1980:59) and Thom (1995) argued that the frequency of in a social group” (178). Beyond this, in perhaps the broadest cranial deformation on the Northwest Coast was too wide- study of the practice, Torres-Rouff and Yablonsky (2005) con- spread to serve as a marker of status. Thom (1995:32) cited cluded that cranial modification from both the Andes and a roughly 50% frequency for cranial deformation within both the European steppes was a marker of higher status, empha- Marpole and later burial populations as support for its use sizing that “the use of the human body to create differences as an ethnic marker. Similarly, Curtin (1991:53) maintained and similarities in a society where they do not necessarily exist that cranial deformation was too common to be of use an- biologically is a crucial conception for understanding the use alytically, pointing out that almost everyone exhibited cranial of intentional head shaping in prehistory” (4–5). deformation in the postcontact period. We emphasize that For the Coast Salish, archaeologists have applied all three these critiques of cranial deformation as a status marker are interpretations: aesthetics, group or ethnic identity, and elite- premised on the practice not being limited to a minority. ness. Early European explorers recorded the practice of cranial While the prevalence of cranial deformation in Coast Salish deformation in many areas of the coast. The historic-period and other Northwest Coast populations has been evaluated painting by Paul Kane in 1847 depicts a woman with a shaped for various times and places, none of these studies have taken head holding a baby bound to a cradleboard, which acted to a fine-grained diachronic view of how the representation of deform the skull of the infant (fig. 3). In interpreting such cranial deformation changes through time. Below, we assess practices, Barnett (1955:75) asserted that it was an aesthetic its prevalence in Coast Salish society through time, with the choice, while Cybulski (1994:78) argued that it was a marker objective of showing how change in its prevalence tracks im- of general Coast Salish identity. Many archaeologists have portant trajectories of change in Coast Salish sociopolitical argued that it represented a marker of membership in an organization. upper stratum or class (e.g., Burley and Knu¨sel 1989; Matson and Coupland 1995:215; Mitchell 1971:54). These various ar- Cranial Deformation: A Diachronic Assessment guments have lacked a diachronic perspective, however, which we see as critical to understanding how the practice may have In total, we have collected data on 264 burials for which some changed and evolved in relation to dramatic changes in Coast determination of the presence or absence of cranial defor- Salish status systems over the last 2 millennia. mation is possible and for which dates can be assigned Confirmed instances of cranial deformation occur first dur- through absolute radiocarbon dating or other association (ta- ing the Marpole Period (2400 to 1000 BP), with the earliest ble 1).10 For many excavated burials such a determination directly dated examples of skeletal material reported at the cannot be made, since they exhibit poor preservation or lack Beach Grove site (2030 Ⳳ 88 cal BP [2720 Ⳳ 80 BP conven- crania altogether. These are not considered here. Of the 264 tional]; Beattie 1980) near Vancouver and the Pender Canal burials for which determinations can be made, 117 have had sites in the southern Gulf Islands (1908 Ⳳ 62 cal BP human bone directly dated by radiocarbon methods or can [2620 Ⳳ 50 BP conventional]; Carlson and Hobler 1993:39). be assigned a radiocarbon age with some confidence through Practices of marking status in the preceding Locarno Beach 10. The data concern Central Coast Salish groups, who predominantly Period (3500 to 2400 BP) are assumed to have involved wear- are restricted to British Columbia. This is the largest set of burials among ing labrets—small stone or bone plugs inserted through slits the four major Coast Salish groups; burial studies regarding cranial de- in the flesh of the face (Keddie 1981). Labrets can be adopted formation in dated mortuary sites simply are not common in the other at any point in life and can be worn or removed as status three Coast Salish regions (Northern, Southern, and Southwestern).  558 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 Table 1. Burials analyzed for cranial deformation Total burials with Radiocarbon Radiocarbon Other Cranial deformation Site name Site no. Source(s) determinations dated association association present Beach Grove DgRs 1 Beattie 1980 14 1 0 13 6 Bliss Landing EaSe 2 Beattie 1972; Beattie 1980:185 2 0 0 2 0 Buckley Bay DjSf 13 Mason and Hoffman 1997; 1 1 0 0 0 CARD 2009 Cadboro Bay DcRt 9 Keddie 1987 1 0 1 0 0 Crescent Beach DgRr 1 Beattie 1976, 1980; Percy 1974 9 0 0 9 0 DcRu 52 DcRu 52 Condrashoff 1984 1 1 0 0 1 Deep Bay DiSe 7 Monks 1977 7 0 2 5 1 Duke Point DgRx 5 Murray 1981; Cybulski 1991 10 0 10 0 0 False Narrows DgRw 6 Burley 1989 28 0 0 28 3 False Narrows DgRw 204 Curtin 1998 3 2 0 1 0 Glenrose Cannery DgRr 6 Styles 1976:206 11 0 0 11 0 Harbour House DfRu 3 Brolly, Muir, and Schulting 1 1 0 0 1 1993 Hatzic Mound Thom 1995 1 0 1 0 1 Helen Point DfRu 8 Beattie 1980 7 0 0 7 0 Hill Site DfRu 4 Hall and Haggerty 1981 4 0 0 4 1 Locarno Beach DhRt 6 Beattie 1980:182 3 0 0 3 0 Long Harbour DfRu 44 Johnstone 1988 23 1 0 22 3 Maple Bay DeRu 12 Cybulski 1998:20 2 0 0 2 2 Marpole DhRs 1 Beattie 1980:181 18 0 0 18 3 Montague Harbour DfRu 13 Mitchell 1971 7 0 3 4 2 Mueller Cabin DgRw 20 Skinner and Thacker 1988 1 1 0 0 0 North Saanich Thom 1995; Smith and 4 4 0 0 3 Fowke 1901 Pender Canal DeRt 2 Weeks 1985; Wright 2000 31 22 2 7 4 Point Grey DhRt 5 Coupland 1991 1 0 0 1 0 Six Mile DcRu 453 Keddie 1988 3 0 0 3 0 Somenos Creek DeRw 18 Warner 1993; Cybulski 1993 6 3 3 0 3 St. Mungo DgRt 2 Calvert 1970 3 0 0 3 1 Tsawwassen DgRs 2 Curtin 1991 57 21 36 0 38 Welbury Point DfRu 42 Skinner 1984; CARD 2009 1 1 0 0 1 Whalen Farm DfRs 3 Seymour 1976 2 0 0 2 0 Willows Beach DcRt 10 Eldridge 1987 2 0 0 2 1 Total 264 59 58 147 75 direct association with another radiocarbon-dated human Georgia precontact history (Ames and Maschner 1999; Carl- bone sample (as with multiple interments) or other nonhu- son and Hobler 1993; Matson and Coupland 1995). Within man sample in direct association with the burial (i.e., within each site, the burial population includes both genders and the burial feature context; table 2). The remainder of the data various age classes and status grades, as evident through mor- set (the remaining 147 of the 264) includes burials that have tuary context preparation, grave inclusions, and cranial de- not been directly dated through radiocarbon methods but for formation. Other sites contribute smaller numbers of inter- which an approximate age can be assigned on the basis of ments to our sample, which are quite variable in terms of stratigraphic associations between the burial and otherwise- their gender, age, and status. Overall, the burial sample rep- dated archaeological contexts. resents more than a narrow range of variation for these char- The sample of burials we have amassed for the Coast Salish acteristics. Moreover, the variability in burials characteristics region goes beyond the data sets considered previously in make it an appropriate data set for our analyses. In fact, this mortuary analyses, including those offered in Beattie (1980), extant sample will likely stand as the bulk of available burial Burchell (2004, 2006), Burley and Knu¨sel (1989), Curtin data for addressing such questions for some time; Northwest (1991), Thom (1995), and Wright (2000). Yet the sample Coast archaeologists no longer target burials in excavations remains quite modest relative to the population of individuals or routinely submit skeletal samples for destructive analyses who must have lived within the study region over the time (such as radiocarbon dating) in respect of First Nations’ cul- frame we are considering. Two major sites (Tsawwassen and tural protocols. Pender Canal) contribute most of the burials to our data set. For dated burials, we calibrated radiocarbon ages using the These two sites were large habitations occupied over long time mixed terrestrial/marine calibration for the Northern Hemi- spans and have been central to our understanding of Gulf of sphere in Calib 5.0, which includes a standard global correc- Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 559 tion and a user-specified local reservoir correction (DR). We 1877:211). Barnett (1955) asserted that it was not associated used a local correction of 390 years, consistent with that used with “aristocratic attributes,” since “everybody had it” (75). employed by others (e.g., Deo, Stone, and Stein 2004). We However, both qualified their statements, noting that slaves assumed 90% marine protein in the diet, consistent with iso- did not exhibit the marker or confer the practice on their topic determinations of most precontact Northwest Coastal children. As Gibbs (1877) remarked, deformation is “confined peoples (e.g., Brown 2003; Chisholm, Nelson, and Schwarcz to children of free parents; slaves not enjoying the privilege” 1983). By calibrating burials in this fashion, we are in some (211). These statements are telling in that accounts stressing cases reporting ages for burials inconsistent with those already its aesthetic significance also indicate its association with free published. In the past, archaeologists have reported and in- status. Coupled with direct assertions that postcontact de- terpreted burial dates from bone without proper calibration, formation practices were specifically associated with high class which has caused confusion in discussions of the chronology (e.g., Collins 1974:219; Duff 1952:91; Elmendorf 1992 [1960]: of development of status systems in the Gulf of Georgia re- 425), it is difficult to sustain the view that cranial deformation gion. Notably, this affects burials at the Tsawwassen site, where was not a marker of status in the region. While it may have our calibration shifts many burials from the Marpole Period been aesthetically pleasing, its perception as such may have to the Late Period. We have corrected all radiocarbon ages stemmed from the value placed on high-status people in Coast similarly so that their relative chronology is clear. Marine Salish society. reservoir corrections will continue to be refined, but further Patterning of cranial deformation in Coast Salish burial refinements should not change the overall chronological pat- contexts should be considered in relation to broader patterns terns we highlight, even while the absolute ages associated of sociopolitical change over the last 2 millennia. Our cranial with the data set may change slightly. We present the data for data show an increase in the proportion of elite to nonelite both the properly calibrated and directly dated burials (14C individuals in Coast Salish society over time, tracking the set) as well as for the combined set of directly dated burials emergence of a top-heavy elite demographic matching Sut- plus burials dated by association (full set) in figure 4. The tles’s (1987c [1960]:6–7, 11–13) inverted-pear society. Suttles results are generally in agreement. (1987c [1960]:6–7, 11–13) offered no argument as to how an Cranial deformation is extremely rare prior to the Marpole inverted-pear society developed, although he explicitly links Period, with only a single potential example occurring before the ethnographically recorded elite demographic to strong 2400 cal BP at the Montague Harbour site (Mitchell 1971: social differentiation in the form of social classes. We see 218). During the earlier Marpole Period, between 2400 to burial data from the last 2,400 years as providing the dia- 1600 cal BP, a minority of burials exhibit cranial deformation chronic perspective and time depth necessary to illuminate (full set: 19 of 112, 17.0%; 14C set: 1 of 6, 16.7%). This per- processes critical to the development of this inverted-pear centage is consistent with expectations for deformation having society. been used to mark an elite status with limited distribution in The predominance of elite-status people in Coast Salish the population. This degree of prevalence continues in the society stands in opposition to traditional views of how po- later Marpole Period (1600 to 1000 BP), with the frequency litical systems expand. From the perspective of increasing cen- increasing only slightly (full set: 2 of 8, 25%; 14C set: 2 of 7, tralization as the dominant perspective in models of political 28.6%). The practice of cranial deformation becomes dom- evolution, eliteness is associated with increasing exclusivity inant in the Late Period, rising to a clear majority of the and restriction of status positions. What explains the expan- sample (full set: 41 of 64, 64.0%; 14C set: 39 of 58, 67.2%). sion of eliteness rather than sustained restriction of that status After 550 BP, the pattern of increasing prevalence continues through time in the Coast Salish case? As discussed above, (full set: 12 of 16, 75%; 14C set: 12 of 13, 92.3%). The sample the Marpole Period represents a time of increasing interac- size is the smallest for the later part of the Marpole Period, tions throughout the region, involving the formalization of but the trend in the data proceeds from a relatively low prev- long-distance relations into a network of peer-exchange re- alence to widespread use of the practice over the last 2,400 lations. This network of ties, likely solidified through inter- years. For 550 BP to contact, a period defined by Schaepe marriage, facilitated the circulation of subsistence resources (2009) as the Sı´:ya´:m Age, the sample is also small, likely due and prestige/ritual objects (Grier 2003). It is these relations in part to the shift to aboveground burial practices beginning and their increasing exclusivity that likely formed the basis about 1000 BP (Thom 1995). Despite these caveats, cranial for an incipient and exclusive elite class that emerged during deformation steadily increases over time during the precon- the Marpole Period. This indicates the consolidation of power tact period. among a minority of elites. The circulation of seated human In the postcontact period, numerous ethnographic and his- figure bowls perhaps represents the most distinctive marker toric accounts have documented the practice of cranial de- of these increasingly exclusive relationships, as might the formation as widespread, with most historic Coast Salish peo- spread of an elaborate burial mound tradition throughout the ple having exhibited the trait. Direct commentary on its use region during Marpole times, both of which suggest the cir- suggests that the Coast Salish practiced cranial modification culation of the symbols of eliteness throughout the region merely for beauty, in order “to make them handsome” (Gibbs (Lepofsky et al. 2000; Thom 1995). Also during the Marpole  Table 2. Burials with human bone directly dated by radiocarbon methods or indirectly dated by association with a radiocarbon age Mean 14C age Corrected Direct Cranial Lab code Sample code Site no. Site name (conventional) median probability Corrected error or indirecta Material dated deformation type RIDDL 100 84-12b DeRt 2 Pender Canal 5170 5127 223 1 Human bone None RIDDL 96 84-31 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 4320 4013 223 1 Human bone None Beta 38357 F-4b DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 4220 3870 125 1 Human bone None RIDDL 268 85-1a DeRt 2 Pender Canal 4070 3682 154 1 Human bone None Beta 38353 D-14 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 3980 3558 62 1 Human bone None SFU 541 85-22 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 3970 3547 70 1 Human bone None RIDDL 107 84-41 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 3940 3523 145 1 Human bone None Beta 38354 D-16 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 3900 3469 70 1 Human bone None GSC-437 6 DfRu 13 Montague Harbour 3160 3375 130 2 Charcoal None GSC-437 15 DfRu 13 Montague Harbour 3160 3375 130 2 Charcoal None GSC-437 11 DfRu 13 Montague Harbour 3160 3375 130 2 Charcoal Frontal (probable) RIDDL 271 85-30 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 3750 3283 164 1 Human bone None RIDDL 274 85-38 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 3630 3138 145 1 Human bone None Beta 39228 D-48 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 3600 3108 70 1 Human bone None RIDDL 272 85-36 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 3600 3104 164 1 Human bone None RIDDL 272 84-39 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 3600 3104 164 2 Human bone None S-2350 6 DgRx 5 Duke Point 3590 3092 130 1 Human bone None S-2350 10 DgRx 5 Duke Point 3590 3092 130 2 Human bone None S-2350 9 DgRx 5 Duke Point 3590 3092 130 2 Human bone None 560 S-2350 8 DgRx 5 Duke Point 3590 3092 130 2 Human bone None S-2350 7 DgRx 5 Duke Point 3590 3092 130 2 Human bone None S-2350 5 DgRx 5 Duke Point 3590 3092 130 2 Human bone None S-2350 4 DgRx 5 Duke Point 3590 3092 130 2 Human bone None S-2350 3 DgRx 5 Duke Point 3590 3092 130 2 Human bone None S-2350 2 DgRx 5 Duke Point 3590 3092 130 2 Human bone None S-2350 1 DgRx 5 Duke Point 3590 3092 130 2 Human bone None RIDDL 275 85-17 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 3520 3016 174 1 Human bone None RIDDL 273 85-37 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 3380 2848 154 1 Human bone None RIDDL 102 84-34c DeRt 2 Pender Canal 3370 2830 282 1 Human bone None RIDDL 108 84-35 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 3270 2701 223 1 Human bone None RIDDL 99 84-27 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 3260 2687 203 1 Human bone None RIDDL 97 84-37 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 3140 2541 203 1 Human bone None RIDDL 106 84-43 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 3050 2448 154 1 Human bone None SFU 545 86-10 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 3040 2435 70 1 Human bone None AECV-1689 C 3a DeRw 18 Somenos Creek 2900 2162 81 2 Marine shell None SFU 26 24 DgRs 1 Beach Grove 2720 2030 88 1 Human bone Lambdoidal SFU 537 86-24 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 2620 1908 62 1 Human bone Present Beta 37843 2 DgRw 204 False Narrows Bluffs 2450 1709 70 1 Human bone None RIDDL 571 4 (2H) DcRt 9 Cadboro Bay 1760 1680 110 2 Charcoal None Beta 37844 1 DgRw 204 False Narrows Bluffs 2320 1557 79 1 Human bone None SFU 639 87-3 DfRu 44 Long Harbour 2320 1556 70 1 Human bone Occipital Beta 37846 6 DgRw 204 False Narrows Bluffs 2300 1532 79 1 Human bone None CAMS 54729 1 DjSf 13 Buckley Bay 2240 1460 62 1 Human bone None  Beta 40985 C-19 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 2160 1390 97 1 Human bone None Beta 40985 C-17 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 2160 1390 97 2 Human bone None Beta 40985 C-18 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 2160 1390 97 2 Human bone Lambdoidal Beta 38348 B-1 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1770 1001 106 1 Human bone Anteroposterior WSU-4627 22a DeRw 18 Somenos Creek 1765 994 70 1 Human bone None RIDDL 267 85-1 DeRt 1 Pender Canal 1710 944 193 1 Human bone None Beta 58221 1 DeRw 18 Somenos Creek 1690 910 79 1 Human bone Fronto-occipital Beta 39231 D-23 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1650 865 70 1 Human bone Bifronto-occipital Beta 38352 C-24 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1620 838 62 1 Human bone Present Beta 38352 C-11 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1620 838 62 2 Human bone Anteroposterior Beta 38352 C-12 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1620 838 62 2 Human bone Present Beta 38352 C-13 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1620 838 62 2 Human bone None Beta 38352 C-15 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1620 838 62 2 Human bone Occipital Beta 38352 C-20 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1620 838 62 2 Human bone Bifronto-occipital Beta 38352 C-21 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1620 838 62 2 Human bone None Beta 38352 C-22 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1620 838 62 2 Human bone None Beta 38352 C-25 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1620 838 62 2 Human bone Occipital Beta 38352 C-26 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1620 838 62 2 Human bone Frontal Beta 38352 C-7 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1620 838 62 2 Human bone None Beta 38352 C-8 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1620 838 62 2 Human bone Anteroposterior SFU-[NA]-4 87-6-C1 DgRw 20 Mueller Cabin 900 823 60 2 Charcoal None Beta 40986 D-7a DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1600 821 70 1 Human bone Lambdoidal Beta 39226 G-3 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1600 821 62 1 Human bone Bifronto-occipital WSU-4626 20a DeRw 18 Somenos Creek 1560 787 79 1 Human bone Frontolambdoidal 561 WSU-4626 20b DeRw 18 Somenos Creek 1560 787 79 2 Human bone Frontolambdoidal Beta 78983 2 NA (HM) Hatzic Mound 840 762 60 2 Wood fiber Present Beta 39225 G-1 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1530 758 70 1 Human bone Occipital SFU 583 C-3 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 1 Human bone Present Beta 39229 D-39 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 1 Human bone Lambdoidal SFU 583 D-12a DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone None SFU 583 D-13 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Anteroposterior SFU 583 D-15b DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Occipital SFU 583 D-19 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Anteroposterior SFU 583 D-20 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Bifronto-occipital SFU 583 D-22 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Occipital SFU 583 D-28 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Anteroposterior SFU 583 D-29 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Anteroposterior SFU 583 D-34a DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone None SFU 583 D-34b DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Bifronto-occipital SFU 583 D-35 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Bifronto-occipital SFU 583 D-42 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Anteroposterior SFU 583 D-43 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Lambdoidal SFU 583 D-49 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone None SFU 583 D-5 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Occipital SFU 583 D-50 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Anteroposterior SFU 583 D-6 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Anteroposterior SFU 583 D-8 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone None SFU 583 D-9 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Bifronto-occipital Table 2 (Continued) Mean 14C age Corrected Direct Cranial Lab code Sample code Site no. Site name (conventional) median probability Corrected error or indirecta Material dated deformation type SFU 583 G-5b DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Bifronto-occipital SFU 583 S-4 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1510 740 70 2 Human bone Bifronto-occipital Gak-6035 1 DiSe 7 Deep Bay 790 729 80 2 Charcoal Fronto-lambdoidal Beta 39230 D-33 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1500 728 62 1 Human bone Frontal RIDDL 270 85-12 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 1460 708 135 1 Human bone None GSC-436 13 DfRu 13 Montague Harbour 730 690 130 2 Charcoal Occipital Beta 38351 C-23 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1450 687 70 1 Human bone Anteroposterior RIDDL 98 84-44 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 1420 664 97 1 Human bone None RIDDL 98 84-86 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 1420 664 97 2 Human bone None WSU 4547 NS-2-1898 NA (NS) North Saanich 1380 643 174 1 Human bone Present Beta 40987 G-7 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1380 627 79 1 Human bone Anteroposterior Beta 38350 C-16 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1360 610 70 1 Human bone Lambdoidal RIDDL 269 85-4 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 1340 606 154 1 Human bone Fronto-occipital Beta 11055 1 DfRu 42 Welbury Point 1260 547 88 1 Human bone Anteroposterior Beta 40984 C-9 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1260 547 88 1 Human bone Anteroposterior Beta 39277 D-40 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1260 547 62 1 Human bone Bifronto-occipital Beta 38355 D-26 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 1250 540 70 1 Human bone Bifronto-occipital WSU 4545 NS-6-1898 NA (NS) North Saanich 1190 487 97 1 Human bone None WSU 4546 NS-4-1898 NA (NS) North Saanich 1140 443 88 1 Human bone Present WSU 4543 NS-1-1899 NA (NS) North Saanich 1160 443 203 1 Human bone Present RIDDL 95 84-42 DeRt 2 Pender Canal 1090 390 135 1 Human bone Anteroposterior Beta 40983 C-1 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 960 285 70 2 Human bone Anteroposterior Beta 40983 C-2 DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 960 285 70 2 Human bone Occipital Beta 40983 C-4c DgRs 2 Tsawwassen 960 273 164 1 Human bone Anteroposterior SFU 247 SG-1-1984 DcRu 52 Victoriab 610 254 441 1 Human bone Present Beta 65249 B2 DfRu 3 Harbour House 870 172 70 1 Human bone Anteroposterior Note. NA p not available. a Direct 14C p 1, indirect 14C p 2. b No site name on record, general location reference. Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 563 Figure 4. Percentage of cranial deformation by period for the full data set (radiocarbon and associated burials) and restricted to the radiocarbon data set. Period, large corporate households and villages first appear the use of prestige-based material culture. These elite em- in various areas of the Gulf of Georgia (Grier 2006b; Matson ployed cranial definition as a hereditary status marker as it and Coupland 1995). Household heads, commanding the became increasingly critical to pass on the status and wealth productive power of these expanding households, were the of household heads to their offspring. dominant actors in regional networks. This incipient elite peer However, by the onset of the Late Period large segments group, managing both a household faction and negotiating of society increasingly joined this elite stratum, suggesting a regional network relations, emerged as a distinctive and suc- nouveau riche, as evident in the expanded practice of cranial cessful group economically, socially, and politically. We view deformation. Why did this occur? We argue that an expansion the limited distribution of cranial deformation in the Marpole of elite-class membership resulted from commoners actively Period as indicative of this initial process, in which household resisting and challenging the increasing status and control of heads emerged as a de facto class with preferential access to the hereditary elite in society. There were multiple practices household and distant resources and who distinguished them- available to mount such resistance. First, while elite success selves symbolically from a large body of commoners through had come through skillful manipulation of local and long-  564 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 distance relations, the flexibility of social relationships in concerns postcontact warfare, which was endemic between Coast Salish society allowed individual members to shift their ca. AD 1790 and 1870 (Angelbeck 2009:69–98). The many household affiliation, acting as a break on household elite oral and written accounts of warfare are valuable for under- control over a key resource: labor (Collins 1979). Second, standing both precontact and postcontact periods of warfare. leveraging this potential autonomy to their advantage, house- Using oral histories, researchers have documented defensive hold commoners could have secured much more prestigious sites in the northern Northwest Coast that are associated with positions in the household, including demanding some of the wars waged 2,000 years ago (Marsden 2001; Martindale and social prerogatives of elite members, including the use of cra- Marsden 2003). Much of this oral history in the Coast Salish nial deformation. Through these processes, Coast Salish com- region relates to the postcontact period of warfare, such as moners were able to level the field—that is, act as a brake on their wars with the Kwakwaka’wakw (Angelbeck and McLay the centralization of power in the hands of elite household 2011). Other histories of warfare are rarely anchored to a heads—by negotiating themselves into the elite stratum as specific period of precontact times. For this analysis, we draw nouveau riche. on this information to assist in the interpretation of elements From an anarchist perspective, this shift involved the of the archaeological record of warfare in the Gulf of Georgia, (re)assertion of commoner autonomy in opposition to in- which include skeletal trauma and defensive sites. creasing hierarchy and centralization of power within house- In a comparative study of skeletal trauma across the North- hold leadership. The actions of the nouveau riche worked in west Coast, Cybulski (1992:157–158) cited a low incidence opposition to constraints imposed on their participation in (6%) of trauma typically attributable to warfare for the Lo- the practice of cranial deformation. Their resistance to the carno and Marpole Periods (3500 to 1500 BP) in the Coast centralization of power and exertion of their potential au- Salish region compared with that in the northern Northwest tonomy allowed for a wider use of the marker, broadening it Coast. But for the Late Period (after 1500 BP), Cybulski (1994: to the bulk of society. These developments indicate a signif- 76–77) noted an increase (to 27.6%) in skeletal trauma across icant transition from a more centralized hierarchy to inclusive the whole region. Although his sample size for the Coast Salish heterarchy and from a restricted elite network to one that region is small, his findings do suggest a correlation between encompassed a wide majority. the timing of increased skeletal trauma inferred to derive from conflict and the construction of defensive sites. The construction of defensive fortifications was a relatively Warfare as a Leveling Practice late phenomenon in the long-term unfolding of Northwest Outside the context of the household, another key element Coast precontact history (Moss and Erlandson 1992). In the of resistance and decentralization was warfare. By the end of Coast Salish region, these date no earlier than 1600 BP. The the Marpole Period, warfare was prevalent in the Gulf of absence of evidence for defensive sites prior to this period Georgia region, as indicated by the presence of defensive sites does not mean that conflict was absent previously but rather throughout the Coast Salish region. The specific timing of that by about 1600 BP the scale and/or frequency of conflict periods of elevated conflict are critical to understanding the had increased to the point that the construction of defensive role warfare played as a practice to resist the centralization sites was warranted. Known defensive sites date to two main of power; we see heightened warfare as an important strategy periods, both correlated with major transitions in regional of resistance to centralization in the region. Warfare can be culture history (tables 3 and 4). Defensive sites initially appear viewed as a strategy for breaking the increasing concentration around 1600 BP, with sites constructed and assumedly in use of power in the hands of Marpole elites. Indeed, oral histories from the Late Marpole Period until roughly 500 BP, which of warfare predominantly concern battles fought between corresponds with the onset of the Sı´:ya´:m Period in the Lower Coast Salish groups rather than as associated with external Fraser Valley (Schaepe 2009). The second period of warfare conflicts with non–Coast Salish peoples (Angelbeck 2009:227– begins after contact, ca. AD 1790, and continues through 229). about AD 1870; the introduction of firearms, epidemics, and Archaeologically, indicators of warfare on the Northwest economic instabilities associated with the fur trade contrib- Coast typically include the presence of weaponry, imagery, uted to opportunities for warfare (Angelbeck 2007). skeletal trauma, and defensive sites and its occurrence in his- Both periods of warfare documented for the Coast Salish tories, both written and oral (Lambert 2002; Maschner and region occur following periods of increased social inequality Reedy-Maschner 1998). In the Coast Salish region, the first (Angelbeck 2009:296–301; fig. 5). The mortuary data pre- two lines of evidence are insufficient for an analysis of the sented earlier point to a significant entrenchment of elites as nature and prevalence of warfare, as weaponry is often not a demarcated social class during the first half of the Marpole specific to combat (Ames and Maschner 1999:209), and im- Period through 1600 BP. Elite entrenchment likely fueled re- agery of warfare in rock art is limited and commonly not sistance by those participating in the system (i.e., other elites dated to particular periods (Bell 1982). with similar and competing objectives) or those left outside There is, however, a wealth of ethnohistoric evidence for the system. We see conflict as having played a role in checking warfare in the Coast Salish region. Most of this information power and accumulation in an era of increasing control over Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 565 Table 3. Radiocarbon dates for precontact Coast Salish defensive sites Site Borden no. Date Ⳳ Material Lab no. Source(s)a Cardale Point DgRv 1 510 60 Shellb Beta 153507 Grier and McLay 2001 Cardale Point DgRv 1 530 40 Shellb Beta 250605 Angelbeck 2009 Cardale Point DgRv 1 540 80 Shellb Beta 250606 Angelbeck 2009 Lime Bay DcRu 123 540 80 Charcoal SFU 123 Keddie 1983 Flemming Beach DcRu 20 580 70 Charcoal Keddie 1996 Flemming Beach DcRu 20 660 65 Charcoal Keddie 1996 Aquilar Point DfSg 3 705 95 Charcoal I-4008 Buxton 1969 Finlayson Point DcRu 23 880 70 Charcoal SFU 772 Keddie 1995; CARD 2009 Finlayson Point DcRu 23 1080 70 Charcoal SFU 773 Keddie 1995; CARD 2009 Aquilar Point DfSg 3 1190 95 Charcoal I-4007 Buxton 1969 Lime Bay DcRu 123 1240 80 Charcoal SFU 791 Keddie 1983 Pedder Bay (Ash Point) DcRv 1 1580 100 Charcoal GaK-1484 Moss and Erlandson 1992; CARD 2009 a Details on sources are provided in Angelbeck (2009). b Shell dates are corrected for the marine reservoir effect (Deo, Stone, and Stein 2004; Stuiver et al. 1998). resources. In our analysis, warfare was an important practice, dispersion of local groups . . . is thus not the cause of war, as targeted internecine conflict, for destabilizing efforts at but its effect, its specific goal” (164). Accordingly, warfare in centralization and regulating concentrations of wealth. such settings exhibits “a centrifugal logic . . . a logic of sep- After about 500 BP, Coast Salish use of defensive sites de- aration which expresses itself from time to time in armed clined, suggesting a decrease in the use of warfare as a political conflict. War serves to maintain each community in its po- leveling mechanism. The centuries between 500 BP and his- litical independence” (Clastres 1994:164).12 The “centrifugal toric contact constitute the Sı´:ya´:m Period. In this period, logic” of warfare acts against the “centripetal logic” of the Schaepe (2009:254–260) found increasing intrasite house size state or against any hegemonic entity with aims of centralizing inequities over time in house pit settlements in the Fraser power, resources, and authority. Notably, this is in marked Valley. On the basis of these data, he argued that the Sı´:ya´:m contrast to Carneiro (1970), who proposed that warfare uni- Period exhibited increasing inequality through time and that fied groups within territories, providing a coercive model for that provided a “strong implication of centralized authority” the process of centralization that ultimately produced states. (Schaepe 2009:261). The transition from the Sı´:ya´:m Period A component of Carneiro’s argument rests on population to the contact period is associated with the rise of the second density, where circumscription denies those faced with asser- main period of warfare, and signs of centralized society among tions of power the ability to fission as a response to the the Coast Salish were no longer present.11 aggressions. Threatened groups could not simply move to In the Coast Salish past, both periods of increasing in- another territory to avoid the consolidating advances of the equality were followed by periods of elevated conflict. These chiefdom or state. However, in small-scale societies without periods of warfare resulted in an overall narrowing of the gap such obvious circumscription bottlenecks, such as the Coast that had developed between elites and commoners. On this Salish, warfare can have a centrifugal nature. This use of war- basis, warfare can be viewed as an action that negated attempts fare as a political “leveling mechanism” reflects and repro- at centralizing or consolidating the power of elites. This active duces a dominant theme in the Coast Salish political world, resistance to increasing centralization and control of resources indicating an opposition to centralization and consolidation reflects another key organizing principle of anarchic systems: of power. active resistance. In the context of South America, Clastres (1994) has argued a parallel point in reference to dispersion 12. In political science, it is common to use the concept of anarchy as a means of eluding efforts at control, explaining that “the to characterize situations of conflict, whether between states or within states, as in revolution or civil war. By using the term, they mean that 11. Indicating a change from increasing house differentiation prior to warfare indicates that there is no authority overriding the situation—the contact, Matson (2003) argued that during the postcontact period there contest for authority or autonomy is being negotiated by force through was a reduction in household sizes. In a comparison of postcontact versus conflict. Helbling (2006) and Snyder (2002) have called for the use of precontact houses predominantly from the Coast Salish area, he deter- this concept from political science for the anthropology of warfare. How- mined that after contact there was reduced compartment width (the ever, this use of “anarchy” derives from its connotation of chaos under distance between rafters) within households. Matson (2003:101) argued a lack of rulership and is not associated with the theory of anarchism, that events after contact affected house compartment size, and he pointed which is about a form of social organization. Here we argue that this to the development of nouveau riche after contact, as Gibson (1991) use of anarchy could benefit from engaging with the theory of anar- detailed historically. In his analysis, the growing presence of the newly chism—as it is, their use simply means the polities in warfare act au- rich had a somewhat equalizing effect, checking the rise in social ineq- tonomously. The theory of anarchism includes such autonomy but pro- uities. vides a much larger framework within which to assess such interactions.  566 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 Table 4. Dates for postcontact defensive sites documented historically and ethnographically Palisaded fortification Year(s) Source(s)a Suxtcikwı´’in˜ 1860–1880s Gunther 1927:183–184 Cowichan area 1850s Grant 1857:300 Shingle Point 1853 Gordon 1853 Keekullukhun 1850s MacDonald 1990; Suttles 2004 Kullukhun 1850s MacDonald 1990; Suttles 2004 Swinomish fort 1800–1850s Sampson 1972 I-eh-nus 1847 Kane 1971 Cadboro Bay 1844 Bolduc 1843–1845; Newcombe n.d. Dungeness Spit 1841 Pickering 1854:15–16 Penn Cove 1838–1842 Wilkes 1845 Rocky Point 1838–1842 Wilkes 1844 Blaine Fort 1820–1858 Suttles 1951:322–323 Guemes fort 1820–1830 Suttles 1951:43, 322–323 Gooseberry Point 1820–1830 Stern 1934:101–102; Suttles 1951:37–38, 322–323 Salmon Bay 1800–1820s Barnett 1944:266–267 S.ba´liuqw 1800–1840 Collins 1974:13, 1980:6 South Vancouver Island 1792 Galiano and Valdes (Gunther 1927:63) a Details on sources are provided in Angelbeck (2009). Discussion to their politics. This is indicated in the bottom-up nature of their political structure, in which households were the extent Our analysis provides a history of the process of status con- of chiefly power (Ames 1995). The autonomy of households struction and resistance to centralization in Coast Salish so- was strident, to the extent that anthropologists have asserted ciety over the last two millennia. We posit that there is con- that villages are more aptly viewed as clusters of households siderable time depth to the development of the Coast Salish than coherent political entities. As Elmendorf (1992 [1960]) status system recorded ethnographically, as suggested by El- described for the Twana of Puget Sound, villages consisted of mendorf (1970:374–375). However, this should not be con- houses that were “politically independent of, and unaffiliated strued as promoting a view of long-term change in Coast with, one another and never exhibited any unity of action as Salish societies as the inevitable evolution of complexity to Twana” (257–258; see also Mitchell 1983). Even within house- its historically recorded form. Rather, the ethnographic social holds, individuals were free to align with either their mother’s structure reflects a long period of social interactions and ne- gotiations in which inequality was repeatedly constructed and or father’s side, as described by Collins (1979). She has also challenged. Importantly, this long-term dynamic cannot be described how authority was granted to individuals with par- effectively described as aggrandizers employing strategies de- ticular skills but only for the duration of the activity, generally signed to defeat or evade egalitarian leveling mechanisms, nor involving the larger-scale building projects such as construc- can this process of development be explained as a classic tion of a plankhouse or the setting of a large fish weir (Collins Marxist-style class struggle in which elites and commoners 1974:113). Leadership was limited in many respects to the were in conflict as classes. Instead, commoners aspired to event, providing a form of justification for such authority. become elites and acquired the right to display elite symbols, Suttles (1983) also stressed that “leadership was specific to an forming a nouveau riche. While there are certainly tensions activity; there were no all-purpose leaders and no great con- of class, these developments do not represent the struggle of centrations of authority” (132). For many major decisions, classes but competing factions. Commoners, aspiring elites, Collins (1974) noted that all household members participated and entrenched elites engaged in a complex series of inter- to determine the resolution in “simple democracy” (112). actions that reflected the historical renegotiation of their social Furthermore, the power of chiefs depended on their house- organization. There were periods of increased entrenchment hold support. As Barnett (1955) described, “No chief in the of wealth and the centralization of authority. There also were give and take of daily life could flaunt his superiority in the assertions of autonomy, pursuits for freer forms of associa- face of his social inferiors and expect their support and co- tion, and resistance to the centralization of authority. The net operation. . . . A chief had to be generous. He gave frequent result was the emergence of a heterarchical and anarchic so- feasts and entertainments to the members of his family group ciety that had inequality, even social classes, but one that to maintain their goodwill” (245–246). emerged with inherent structural resistance to centralization Similarly, Miller and Boxberger (1994) noted that “other at multiple scales. members of the village submitted themselves [to a chief] be- Our interpretations generated through an anarchist frame- cause they derived benefits, not because the headman had work are consistent with the ethnographic portrayals and oral coercive authority” (284). Chiefs needed to be generous with histories of the Coast Salish, which reveal anarchic elements wealth to gather supporters in their households. The orga- Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 567 Figure 5. Chronology showing periods of warfare following periods of increasing sociopolitical differentiation or inequality. nization of the household economy of the Coast Salish itself tikud gained greater authority, he demanded that he perform encouraged more autonomy for individuals. Suttles (1990: one first salmon rite for all the Skagit, an attempt to centralize 151) noted that most household practices were conducted by power over the ritual and fishing season. As Collins (1950) one- and two-person teams. For this reason, Suttles (1990) noted, “Since authority in these realms had earlier been lim- determined that “subsistence activities and relations were not ited to the control of elders over younger persons within the leading the Central Coast Salish toward a greater concentra- family, this concentration of authority was a marked depar- tion of authority” (151). ture from former procedures” (340). Skagit peoples did not Moreover, while there were expressions of authority and stand for such claims, and they killed Slabebtikud. high class, such expressions were under social scrutiny and In this case, Slabebtikud had earned the respect of their critique. Coast Salish oral traditions indicate a high degree of communities through his religious knowledge, and Skagit intra- and interclass tensions, which played out commonly as people had bestowed authority upon him. However, these interpersonal conflict (Bierwert 1996:104; Snyder 1964:131). events show that his authority had limits, and his followers As Miller (2001) has observed of the Coast Salish, “The con- actively ended his authority when his actions exceeded ac- centration of ethnographic material that shows the persistence ceptable prerogatives. In Bakunin’s sense of authority, the of concern for social status suggests that issues of social hi- actions taken based on Slabebtikud’s self-assumed authority erarchy must have been significant and that limits to social were not considered justified. Or as Clastres (1987) argued, mobility were deeply felt and the source of conflict” (117; em- autonomous groups do “not permit the desire for prestige to phasis added). be replaced by the will to power” (210). For the Coast Salish, oral accounts outline resistance to In perhaps its most intriguing expression, decentralized excessive and thus unjustified authority. The rise of Slabeb- notions continue to play out in modern Coast Salish political tikud, a religious leader among the Upper Skagit after Eu- organization. Thom (2010) has remarked how Coast Salish ropean contact, provides an important example. The first groups, during their negotiations with the nation-state of salmon ceremony was a rite typically conducted by a house- Canada in the modern treaty process, emphasize decentrali- hold or households sharing fishing grounds. When Slabeb- zation in their efforts at self-government, referring to this  568 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 practice as “the anathema of aggregation.” Moreover, Thom societies of the Northwest Coast. Moreover, through an an- detailed how the authority of any Coast Salish individual to archist analysis it is possible to clarify how a society can speak for the Coast Salish in such negotiations must be jus- develop and operate when a majority of individuals are in tified for the purpose it serves and accepted broadly as such. fact of “elite status.” As with their ancestors in the past 2 millennia, the Coast In the end, our main point is not to excessively amplify Salish aim to decentralize power, emphasizing greater local the strident nature of Coast Salish autonomy and decentral- autonomy and the subjection of authority to challenge. ization. Our emphasis, instead, is to suggest that there is utility in an anarchist approach to the past. Simply put, societies Conclusion without governments are anarchies. Given that, we propose that the rich intellectual tradition of anarchist theory and The archaeological data we present provides a basis for un- practice has something to offer those studying the material derstanding how processes of decentralization and resistance record of those anarchic societies. operated in past Coast Salish society. The expansion of a hereditary elite class to include a broad segment of society, as measured through the increasing prevalence of cranial de- formation over time, reflects commoners successfully exer- cising and leveraging their autonomy within households to negotiate for elevated status, effectively mitigating increasing Comments socioeconomic differentiation pursued by existing elites. War- fare provided a more overt tool of conflict primarily among Kenneth M. Ames the elite class to break increasing exclusivity of access to ma- Department of Anthropology, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon 97207, U.S.A. (amesk@pdx.edu). 8 V 12 terial and social resources. In these practices, core principles of anarchism were expressed and embedded in Coast Salish This paper contributes to several important trends in our social systems, shaping the historical trajectory of political understanding of Northwest Coast social evolution. The first evolution in the region for 2 millennia. is a remarkable surge of archaeological and ethnohistorical We have argued that the theory of anarchism has much to scholarship over the past decade focusing on the Salish Sea offer to archaeologists and other social theorists. Anarchism and the lower Fraser River. This region is the best known can serve as a framework for the analysis of nonstate or other anthropologically on the Northwest Coast (taking archae- noncentralized societies and, in particular, the dynamics of ology, ethnography, ethnohistory, and linguistics together). power and authority that operate within them. The principles Despite that, it is not all that well know, and single projects of anarchism provide a set of propositions to examine social forces within heterarchical societies. Anarchism allows us to can still force significant revisions of what we thought we move beyond the weaknesses of concepts of egalitarianism, knew (e.g., Clark, Coupland, and Cybulski 2012). The paper expanding our understanding of the dynamics of power and also contributes to a recent welcome rethink (e.g., Coupland, authority in small-scale social formations. The principles of Clark, and Palmer 2009; Grier 2006a; Martindale and Le- anarchism provide not a set of traits to be measured but rather tham 2011) and critique of the models of the evolution of constitute a set of generative principles and overarching social complexity on the coast that took shape in the 1990s framework for the analysis of history. In an anarchist view, (e.g., Ames and Maschner 1999; Matson and Coupland every society constantly renegotiates the terms of its socio- 1995). This critique includes arguments that concepts like political relationships. Accordingly, we would expect shifts in complexity and intensification have outlived their value, do the expression and emphasis of these principles over time, not fit the circumstances of the coast, and should be aban- with shifts from autonomy to domination, from involuntary doned (Moss 2011, 2012) because these broad, universal- identifications to free associations, from cooperation to com- izing ideas founder on the coast’s fine-grained environmen- petitiveness, from hierarchy to heterarchy, and from imposed tal diversity (e.g., Cannon, Yang, and Speller 2011). The to justified authorities. diversity of the coast has been long known (e.g., Schalk 1977; As we have shown with our Coast Salish case study, it is Suttles 1968) but insufficiently appreciated. And as data ac- possible to measure such shifts with archaeological data. In cumulate, the picture becomes even more complicated tem- the process, we have outlined how the theory and principles porally and spatially, appearing like a shifting 3-D mosaic. of anarchism can provide insights into archaeological and At some scales, patterns of change through this mosaic ex- ethnographic patterns that have been confounding or ex- hibit the Rowley-Conwy affect (Ames 2004): change pro- plained only in a cumbersome fashion. The “conundrum” ceeds in fits, starts and pauses, zigs, zags, reversals, and of the Northwest Coast past—where “high social complex- tangents (Rowley-Conwy 2001) in a dynamic that could be ity” was combined with “low political complexity”—arises labeled chaotic or perhaps anarchic. Yet at other scales there from an attempt to fit inappropriate models based in tele- is profound stability or stasis (e.g., Ames 1991, 2000; Can- ologies of centralization to the elaborate yet decentralized non 2003; Lepofsky et al. 2009; Moss 2011). For a discipline Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 569 built on studying change, this presents considerable theo- retical and methodological problems. Elizabeth Arkush Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, 3302 Wes- This paper also contributes to a long-standing anthropo- ley W. Posvar Hall, 230 South Bouquet Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- logical tradition in which the Northwest Coast is a place to vania 15260, U.S.A. (arkush@pitt.edu). 14 V 12 test high-level theory. This is because, as Angelbeck and Grier comment, the coast’s ethnographic societies do not readily fit Angelbeck and Grier’s creative and provocative article draws into anthropological, sociopolitical, or economic (e.g., Deur on anarchist theory as a new way of conceptualizing politics and Turner 2005) categories with its social stratification with- in nonstate societies. I mean it as high praise to say that it out polities (but see Arnold 2006). Consequently, we do not raises more questions—genuine questions—than it answers. lack for theory on the coast; processual archaeology is alive The most obvious question is whether the theory of anarchism and well in places; household archaeology with its Marxian adds anything to a rich literature that has been busy modifying focus on political economy flourishes; some researchers ex- and deconstructing the neoevolutionary model since at least plore human behavioral ecology, others Darwinian evolution, the mid-1980s. To this existing work on egalitarianism, het- while others work within the varied frameworks labeled post- erarchy, networks, and various typologies of transegalitarian modernism. Theories do not go away; they just accrete. What social formations, does anarchism offer new insights into how is lacking is coherence. A question arising, then, is whether political relationships are constituted? Potentially, yes. Two we need anarchy concepts to elucidate the issue this paper aspects of this article are particularly useful. First, it extends addresses. a recent thread of argument (e.g., Wiessner 2002) that aceph- The absence of polities or of even stronger inequality is an alous societies are distinguished not by a lack of permanent issue larger than the Salish Sea. In many places along the hierarchy but by the active assertion of codes and practices coast, populations were large and dense enough to sustain that work against hierarchy and allow people to function permanent political leadership and polities. Ames and Masch- without central leadership. As the authors note, it is more ner (1999) speculate that the coast’s archaeological record may productive to talk about these institutions in positive terms actually contain evidence of failed experiments in polity cre- than as deficits (although, ironically, the term “anarchy” rep- licates the negative wording they critique, along with many ation. The fur trade threw up several great chiefs (Ames 1995) other unavoidable terms in their article and in this comment). along the coast, so it seems not unlikely that also happened The second contribution is the vision of a persistent dialectic earlier. Dislike for arrogant leadership or too much authority or tension between centralizing and decentralizing forces and was not limited to the Coast Salish. The ethnographic record practices in society. Over time, there might be oscillations for the coast is clear—while chiefs might have had high pres- back and forth, a` la Leach (1954) and McGuire and Saitta tige and authority, generally they had little real power or their (1996), or a long-term trend in one direction, but with the power was circumscribed in a number of ways, some insti- ever-present potential for reversal. This perspective directs tutional (e.g., councils of elders), others more direct. For ex- attention toward “collapses,” delays, or “pauses” (Dillehay ample, John Jewitt, an American captured and enslaved by 2004; Harrower, McCorriston, and D’Andrea 2010) and Maquinna, the great Nuu-chah-nulth chief of the early nine- movements away from centralization as things that need ex- teenth century, indicates in his journal that Maquinna feared plaining as much as increasing centralization. assassins sent by other chiefs (Jewitt 1967 [1815]). Explana- Going forward, a core question must be the extent to which tions for the absence of polities include people voting with decentralization (like centralization) is accomplished by hu- their feet (e.g., Stearns 1984). In the final analysis, chiefs con- man agency and practice or by “external” conditions such as trolled slaves only; free peoples could leave. Another possi- resource opportunities and constraints. Tendencies toward bility is structural: there simply were too many chiefs for them anarchism might be more realizable in some social and en- to be successfully integrated into a polity—the centrifugal vironmental contexts. For instance, the crucial ability of Coast force was just too great (Ames 1995). However, these sug- Salish people to “vote with their feet” rests on a flexible bi- gestions lack an integrating theory. lateral kinship system. Did preexisting bilateral kinship foster Angelbeck and Grier present a theory that problematizes decentralization and individual autonomy, or did a general and calls attention to the issue in a way that has not been ethos of autonomy and dislike of unjustified authority lead done before, accounts for the ethnographic data, and appears people to expediently define kin relations in bilateral terms? to link that data to the archaeological record of warfare, cra- This kind of chicken-and-egg question highlights the problem nial deformation, and house sizes in the Salish Sea and lower of how we are to think of a priori anarchist principles like Fraser River. What is perhaps most interesting is their account individual autonomy and voluntary association. Where do of the evolution of the pear-shaped distribution of status these principles come from? (Is their authority justified, so among the Coast Salish. Anarchy theory, at least in their to speak?) Are they part of our evolved heritage as social hands, is productive. I look forward to seeing it applied to animals? Are they inherent and necessary structural properties other aspects of the Northwest Coast’s 3-D mosaic and seeing of an acephalous society if it is to function? Are they present whether it consistently helps us to make sense of things. in germ form in any society, even the most hierarchical? Do  570 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 they emerge at a historical moment, as reactions to move- cated upon a linear progression from small, early, “simple” ments toward centralization? Or are they simply the ideals societies to those that are more populous, later in time, and that occurred to a handful of nineteenth-century Russian rev- “complex.” This scheme, borrowed from classical writers, is olutionaries for one imagined utopia among many of the age? termed primitivism (Crumley 1974; Lovejoy and Boas 1935; Another problem is intentionality. People in the past may Nisbet 1994). It would appear to be straightforward, based not have thought as obsessively about abstract political power on increasing population and the elaboration of forms over as archaeologists and anarchists do, and Angelbeck and Grier time; its implications, however, are closely related to social may attribute too much intentionality to Coast Salish people Darwinism. as conscious agents pursuing a long-term political agenda. “Complex” has been taken to mean the emergence of social The gradual adoption of cranial deformation is produced not and political hierarchies, an interpretative scheme that offered by commoners working together against elites but by com- nineteenth-century nations convenient scientific “proof” of moners aspiring to become elites and leave their commoner superiority and the moral grounds for conquest. Thus, the brethren behind. The treatment of warfare as a leveling strat- world’s indigenous populations could benefit from the co- egy has a curiously functionalist flavor, reminiscent of relict lonial enterprise, and hegemony was the reward. Forms other theories that warfare’s function was to limit population than those that naturalized elite power were dismissed as growth or optimally distribute protein (Harris 1984; Rap- quaint evolutionary byways on the road to progress. paport 1968). Warfare can indeed entrench local autonomy University of Michigan ethnologist Elman Service’s frame- and thwart regional consolidation, but Coast Salish warmon- work of band, tribe, chiefdom, and state (Service 1963) fit gers were probably more concerned with factional competi- neatly within the larger milieu of cultural evolutionism then tion, resource conflict, and social advancement than an ul- prevalent in the university’s Department of Anthropology timate goal of decentralization. That warfare came after (White 1959). In those days, Michigan set the standard for periods of increased inequality does not mean it arose as a American archaeological method and theory; “complex” po- direct reaction to inequality; periods of destabilization and litical systems—tiered hierarchies of power—were considered crisis can be associated with both warfare and opportunities more stable than other forms, a logical outcome of the passage for social advancement, as is clearly the case in the late post- of time. contact period. Yet war could have enabled anarchism re- Nowhere were archaeologists quite as obsessed with the gardless of whether warriors were anarchists. epistemology of chiefdoms and states as in North America, At bottom, the authors are trying to deal with a context in where scholars defined states as sociopolitical hierarchies and which the traits classically associated with complexity are not undertook research on how elites constructed hegemonic tightly correlated. A highly developed social hierarchy contrasts power architectures. This is practically understandable, as with very limited political power beyond the kin group. Yet the large sites with monumental architecture are easier to find. conundrum of an exception to the “classic chiefdom” is hardly However, evidence of coercion in their construction is hardly new. Years ago archaeologists realized that when you array so- clear: ethnographic and documentary evidence demonstrates cieties in clumps along a single axis called complexity, a lot of great organizational diversity in powerful societies, in North them do not fit very well (Feinman and Neitzel 1984; Yoffee America (e.g., Coast Salish, Cherokee, and Iroquois), and else- 1993). That we are still wrestling with the neoevolutionary where. Thus, impressive power can manifest in societies where model after nearly 3 decades of revision and critique speaks to careful checks and balances result in pear-shaped and other the seemingly unshakable hold it has on our imagination. organizational forms. Service himself, ethnographer as well as ethnologist, drew attention to the importance of coalitions, federations, leagues, unions, and communities in societies of all sizes. Archaeologists must reexamine assumptions about com- Carole L. Crumley plexity. Dissatisfaction with the Service mantra is a strong University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 301 Alumni Building, reason for exploring other models; another important incen- Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, U.S.A. (crumley@unc.edu). 27 IV 12 tive is the model’s poor fit with a considerable body of evi- dence. In any event, the question of what anarchic, heter- Amalgamating several strands of critical archaeological theory, archical, democratic, level, or pear-shaped societies look like this fascinating article advances a powerful alternative inter- in the archaeological record is of central importance. pretation for the development and diversity of power rela- One way to explore frameworks is through the lens of tions. By questioning fundamental assumptions that have for complex adaptive systems, which are nonlinear, densely net- millennia shaped interpretations of the past, this approach worked but not hierarchical, and exhibit novel “emergent” could give archaeology an exciting new role in re-visioning properties (thus “complex” in a different way; Crumley 2005, the future as well. 2007a, 2007b, 2012). Another route is the investigation, in Since archaeology’s founding as a discipline, the dominant time and space, of the dialectical relationship between hier- interpretation of sociopolitical organization has been predi- archy and heterarchy, now explored in many regions of the Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 571 world (e.g., Chapman 2003; Crumley 2003; Crumley and “anarchism also integrates a dialectical perspective in that it Marquardt 1987; McIntosh, Tainter, and McIntosh 2000; Scar- posits mutual aid and justified authority as a key dynamic of borough, Valdez, and Dunning 2003; Silverman 2004; Sou- active resistance to centralization.” This is probably a way to vatzi 2008; Stein 1998). integrate efforts and overcome the nearly 150 years of divorce, Organizational flexibility—economic, social, and politi- fratricidal conflicts, and accumulation of defeats and expe- cal—enables groups to adjust to changed circumstances. If riences since the First International.14 we begin with the premise that the tension between com- I believe too that the only way to break down dualistic, petition and cooperation exists in all human societies, it be- oppositional, static categorizations (simple-complex, inequal- hooves us to explore the ways rules and norms preserve or egalitarian, evolutionist-historical, particularist-nomothetic) deny each and how both interact with history and changing is a dialectical approach, in which the dynamics of continuous conditions to forge institutions. transformation is essential. It is the break from outmoded ideas of complexity, the The authors claim that this process of development cannot challenge to the naturalization of hierarchy, and the possibility be explained as “a classic Marxist-style class struggle” between of finding new patterns in the data that make these approaches elites and commoners but rather represents “competing fac- attractive to researchers. At first glance, heterarchy is more tions” of commoners and elites. Beyond political strategies clearly linked to complex systems thinking, anarchy to the (of how to reach a similar social utopia), sometimes the dif- history of political thought. Yet these fresh approaches—the ference within and between anarchist and Marxist approaches archaeology of anarchic societies, societies as complex adap- has been in the explanatory emphasis on one aspect of social tive systems, the tension between hierarchy and heterarchy as dynamics or another. The insistence of certain Marxist ap- the dialectical motor of change—are similar in concept, aim, proaches on emphasizing the system of property, production and their applicability to the archaeological record, and all relationships, labor, and “class struggle” should be, in my seek to explore how our species has organized itself in the opinion, complemented by an interest in the analysis of the past and might do so again. Congratulations to Angelbeck struggle between “factions” and other dynamics highlighted and Grier for the exciting launch of anarchaeology. by the authors, as well as by the process of the emergence of self-organized structures or the operation of prestige and dis- tributed punishment. But the issue of what constitutes a social class or how to deal with the study of societies without a state has been de- Jordi Este´vez Department of Prehistory, Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona, bated, and consensus has not been reached within Marxism. 08193 Bellaterra, Spain (jordi.estevez@uab.es). 19 IV 12 The richness of the nuances and the difference of approaches in Marxist archeology (e.g., in Latin countries) speaks for This paper presents an original point of view13 in the inter- itself.15 pretation of the last millennium of Coast Salish history. Since Careful reading of the founders of Marxism (especially Eng- the first descriptions of them, Northwest Coast societies have els 2004 [1884]) or Bakunin reveals that women were to them generally been elusive of categorization and taxonomy (semi- the first oppressed class. Despite this, the status of women communal, middle range, complex, transegalitarian, etc.). The has often been seen as a simple matter of difference and not problem is probably due in part to the static nature of clas- inequality.16 It has therefore not been the subject of an in- sification versus the continuous dynamics of social reality. It tegrated study and has had little attention in explanations is also partly due to the biased ethnographic information about “social complexity.” In spite of this, it could actually generated by Boas (see Boas et al. [2002], Ruyle [1973], or be a symmetric model and a factor of inequality, exploitation, Moss [2011]), whose interests included fighting evolutionism and structural violence (Vila and Este´vez 2010a, 2010b). (Este´vez and Vila 2010) and discrediting historical determin- The increase in cranial deformation could perhaps be in- ism (Adams 1981; Knight 2011 [1978]; Maud 1982). terpreted, like the change in the use of labrets, not only as a The authors start from the “important work” of Crumley (1987, 1995) and McGuire and Saitta (1996) and the concept 14. In addition to the persecution and mass murder of hundreds of of heterarchy, but they add an anarchist approach because anarchists in North America, Germany, Spain, Russia, Italy, Argentina, and Mexico, this story has been completely concealed by parties of the 13. The first time my colleague Assumpcio´ Vila and I encountered right and left. Anarchism as a valid approach to historical and social the word “anarchism” in the title of an archaeological paper was in problems has been completely distorted and denigrated in academia and Angelbeck’s dissertation (2009). Later, we were happy to see in 2009 at in society in general. the Radical Archaeological Theory Symposium conference in Binghamton 15. For examples, see Bate (1998), Lumbreras (2005), and papers in and a Theoretical Archaeology Group session in Durham that archaeology Revista Atla´ntica-Mediterra´nea de Prehistoria y Arqueologı´a Social, edited had met anarchy. Our interest in radical archaeologies, especially those by the University of Cadiz (Spain), and Boletı´n de Antropologı´a Americana, of the center of the empire, led us to publish two chapters from the published by Instituto Panamericano de Geografı´a e Historia. authors in a monograph specially dedicated to the Northwest Coast from 16. Even among female anarchists there are opposed positions, such our series Treballs d’Etnoarqueologı´a (Grier [2010] and Angelbeck [2010] as those of Mujeres Libres (see Ackelsberg 1991) or those of Emma in Vila and Este´vez [2010a]). Goldman.  572 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 matter related to status (as the authors did) or ethnicity but scale societies self-organize and resist the institution of central as a change in gender relationships. The pictures I remember power. (by Kane, Curtis, or Maynard) are always of women. Angelbeck and Grier assume that resistance against cen- The explanation of the intensification of war as a result of tralization shaped Coastal Salish history. The authors start these social conflicts is more robust, in this case, and opposes with the Marpole Period (500 BC to AD 1000), with its so- the direct causality by subsistence or demographic factors cioeconomic inequalities and tiny elites of hereditary chiefs. triggered by an environmental crisis. It also explains the scar- Angelbeck and Grier demonstrate an increase in the rate of city of dates at the end of the Marpole Period (1500–1000 cranial deformation, which is interpreted as an indicator for RCYBP; Este´vez and Vila 2010). the status gain of the commoners at the expense of the he- But I do not believe that the explanation of war as a cen- reditary chiefs: a transition from “a more centralized hierarchy trifugal movement is inconsistent with its centripetal char- to inclusive heterarchy.” acter. In most wars, there are winners and losers. The battle On the basis of data on cranial deformation, skeletal of Mapple Bay (Angelbeck 2009, 2010) was won by an ad trauma, and settlement fortification, the authors sketch the hoc centrifuge coalition, whereas the Skeena conflict contrib- following scenario: no intensive warfare and high inequality uted to the creation of a paramount (although fleeting) chief- between 500 BC and AD 400, intensive warfare and declining dom. heredity of leadership between 400 and 1500, less warfare and As in Marxism, there is no consensus among different an- increasing inequality between 1500 and 1790, and intensive archist approaches. The authors define Coast Salish emerging warfare and decreasing inequality between 1790 and 1870. society as a “heterarchical and anarchic society that had in- The two periods of warfare (400 to 1500 and 1790 to 1870) equality, even social classes.” I guess that equating “societies followed periods of increasing social inequality; warfare nar- without governments” with “anarchies” (although we name rowed the gap between elites and “commoners”—that is, them “primitive anarchism” even if we can detect some of other “worthy people” as nouveau riche aspiring and suc- the traits of the anarchist utopias) is perhaps too general or ceeding to become elite. The result was the emergence of a simplistic. I think that it probably contradicts some of the heterarchical and anarchic society with inequalities but also anarchist positions that emphasize freedom, equality, coop- with mechanisms against political centralization, as Angelbeck eration, and altruism. and Grier state. Archaeology can demonstrate a high level of organization But why did inequality or hierarchy with hereditary chiefs in the history of Northwest Coast native societies, but it can emerge in the first place? Why did it take 1,100 years for also demonstrate (as the authors do) that native societies commoners to gain status? Why did inequality increase again contained contradictions and thus were dynamic, changing, between 1500 and 1790? What exactly was the role of warfare and capable of finding alternative forms of organization. Ar- in the reduction of hierarchy? Could not the increase in cranial chaeology has a major role to play in changing the charac- deformation also be interpreted as the increasing popularity terization of native people as “fossilized societies incapable of of a noble fashion? change,” which was once attributed to them by white people The authors see the Northwest Coast society with its com- as an excuse to deny them their rights. Certain limitations of plex structure and decentralized rather than centralized form today’s archaeology can be overridden: as in the examples as a problem. But things seem not to be so difficult: relations described by Moss (2011), it is perhaps just a question of between autonomous local groups (anarchy) are egalitarian showing which side archeologists are on. in principle (but relative size and military strength matter), whereas relations within local groups always combine hier- archical aspects (men/women, seniors/juniors, chiefs/com- moners, worthy people/worthless people/slaves) and heter- archical aspects (factions, leaders of local kin groups, rivals, peers, age, mates, etc.). Ju¨rg Helbling The Coast Salish obviously had numerous chiefs (mostly Department of Social Anthropology, University of Lucerne, Frohburgstrasse 3, Postfach 4466, 6002 Luzern, Switzerland chiefs of single villages, perhaps also of village alliances), but (juerg.helbling@unilu.ch). 24 IV 12 not one single overarching paramount chief. The question is, why did they have chiefs in the first place? Legitimate and This paper on the Coast Salish is an exercise in anarchistic accepted authority was accorded to different kinds of leaders anthropology. Anarchist theory (if there is such a thing) fo- on the basis of merit: skilled warriors in wartime, chiefs of cuses on small-scale, decentralized, self-governed societies and local kin groups for their competence in dispute settlement, aims at understanding the mechanisms of how “sociopolitical and shamans for their healing skills. Chiefs had to be generous systems resist emergent leadership.” This opposition against (in competitive feasts) and show their skills and abilities, for hierarchies mainly operates “through mutual aid, consensual instance, in organizing war campaigns and arranging alliances. decision making, and maintenance of decentralized net- That is basically why Coast Salish needed chiefs. Village mem- works.” Anarchist theory, thus, wants to explain how small- bers acquiesced because—and as long as—they derived ben- Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 573 efits from chiefs and not because chiefs exerted coercive au- ciety, political organization, and even symbolic thinking thority. Authority had limits, and chiefs could even been killed evolve together, from savagery to civilization. This theoretical by their followers. The opposition within local groups, how- framework has the advantage of being highly explicative and ever, was not against the chiefly position but against an un- coherent, but many of us feel a bit uncomfortable in what is wanted chief or commoners trying to gain access to the chiefly seen as a much-too-tight corset in which it is difficult to put position. all the voluptuousness of human behavior inside. The reac- Angelbeck and Grier distinguish two key elements of re- tions against the evolutionist paradigm taking place beginning sistance and decentralization. The first is the cognatic kinship in the 1980s have not been able to build a structured alter- system, which allows for a certain flexibility of membership. native. But this kinship system seems to have been in place since It is likely that the key to advancing our capacity to un- time immemorial and thus can hardly explain the nonlinear derstand past human behavior is in reality itself. Studies of upward mobility of the commoners. The second key element the American Northwest Coast bear a long tradition of calling is warfare. Angelbeck and Grier claim that war was “a strategy our attention to the fact that even the best explanatory the- for breaking the increasing concentration of power in the ories leave outside their limits a good part of reality. There, hands of Marpole elites,” but they do not elaborate on how the presence of hunter-gatherer societies with a high social this mechanism worked. I suspect this rise of the commoners complexity, which should be expected in advanced farming occurred because, given the high war-related mortality (and societies, is an example of this asseveration (Price and Brown later mortality due to imported epidemics) and the simul- 1985; Vila and Este´vez 2010a). Angelbeck and Grier show for taneous demand for highly qualified political leaders, local the Coast Salish another apparent paradox: social and political groups could not afford hereditary recruitment of chiefs but complexity does not imply that power is concentrated in the instead had to rely on a more competitive system. Each local hands of a few individuals. It has been proposed that the group needed one or more political leaders to organize war sustained effort in the egoist behaviors of ambitious individ- campaigns, recruit allies, and pursue diplomatic negotiations. uals, the aggrandizers, would have led to the concentration Other village members, however, constantly evaluated their of wealth and power for their own benefit through the ma- performance and could switch to a rival and depose the cur- nipulation of social rules and ritual (Hayden 1996). However, rent leader. Angelbeck and Grier, resorting explicitly to anarchist theory, Pierre Clastres, a proponent of anarchist anthropology, state that the sustained effort in altruism, which can also be points to the importance of warfare in yet another respect: institutionalized, may be as strong as the social mechanisms the unintended reproduction of a decentralized, polycentric, promoting the benefit of a few. They mention the natural anarchical society through warfare between villages with tendency in human groups, even when accepting authorities changing alliances. This corresponds to the balancing strategy deemed legitimate, to avoid concentration of power among in alliance politics, according to the neorealist theory of in- certain individuals. They also show that very complex and ternational relations. We do not know much about the chang- integrated political structures can be maintained without cen- ing conditions of warfare and alliance throughout Salish his- tralized rulers, using concepts such as autonomy, network tory, but warfare has probably shaped this history even more organization, and decentralization. The advantage of anarchist than the opposition against chiefs. War not against superiors theory for understanding past political organization is that it but against equals (other local groups), however, does not fit does not constitute a closed corpus of explanation but just very well with anarchist ideals. some general principles, which can let the theory establish a fruitful dialogue with reality, as these authors show. However, I think that, in their vivid picture of Coast Salish society, the explanation of the mechanisms by which the con- centration of power was avoided and large segments of society Juan Jose´ Iba´n˜ez increasingly joined the elite stratum needs further work. It is Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Mila´ y Fontanals not clear to me why commoners not only succeeded in re- Institution, Spanish National Research Council, CSIC, Egipciacas 15, 08001 Barcelona, Spain (ibanezjj@imf.csic.es). 18 IV 12 sisting the ambition of aggrandizers and kept their autonomy but also managed to reach in massive numbers the elite status. Bill Angelbeck and Colin Grier present a paper that is very Following the logic of the authors, we could suppose that suggestive in several senses. For me, the main point is that there were some shared beliefs and political institutions that they contribute to the widening of our theoretical framework insured interaction among household heads while the con- for understanding the social and political evolution of past centration of power was impeded. Moreover, it is not fully societies. Archaeology and anthropology in general were born explained why war was a factor for breaking the increasing and have been developed within the evolutionist paradigm, concentration of power in the hands of elites instead of the proposing, from Morgan to Service, a growing organizational contrary. Were commoners always successful in resisting the complexity in human societies and the interdependence of attacks of the emergent elites? Why? If we accept that war is the different spheres of human behavior. Thus, economy, so- a continuity of negotiation by other (dramatic) means, we  574 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 should conclude that war is an arena for social interaction, a process toward increasing organizational order as well as so centrifugal or centripetal evolutions of society should be systematic inequality among members of a society. explained from inside the dynamics of the society, indepen- Recently, archaeologists and anthropologists began to avoid dently of the peace of war context. In any case, these ideas the conventional equation of increasing complexity with the should not be considered criticisms of this very interesting development of centralized hierarchy (e.g., Crumley 1995). paper, but they do express my wish to get the authors involved No doubt, decoupling of the two concepts constitutes im- in further deploying their suggestive approach. In this sense, portant progress. But it seems to me that most studies focus it would be very interesting to hear how they explain, from primarily on reconsideration of the nature of complexity per their theoretical position, why concentration of power existed se rather than on why this problematic conceptual linkage in other areas of the Northwest Coast but not in the Salish emerged. The authors elegantly argue that it was inappropriate Sea and if there is any information on what the relationship understandings of egalitarianism and hunter-gatherer socie- between the areas with centralization with respect to the Coast ties that conventional coupling of complexity and centrali- Salish was. We might be tempted to think that decentralized zation in state-focused models actually stems from. This point organizations would be at a disadvantage with respect to the is one of the most significant achievements of this article. centralized ones, but perhaps this idea is again part of our Simplistic, direct connection between subsistence economy strictly evolutionary preconceptions, as some historical ex- and sociopolitical complexity has a long history. Marx and amples (i.e., the resistance of Greek cities against Persian rul- Engels imagined most hunter-gatherer societies as primitive ers) show. communist societies in which capital accumulation and in- Finally, I would like to mention that some of the ideas equality did not exist. Childe considered that socioeconomic proposed in this paper could be useful to achieve a better contradictions emerged only after the Neolithic Revolution, understanding of the first Neolithic communities in the Near which created agricultural surplus to accumulate. Service and East, the historical context in which I work. The concentra- Fried’s “band” was described as an egalitarian society based tions of hundreds and even thousands of persons in some on hunting and gathering. Pre-Pottery Neolithic villages (Goring-Morris and Belfer- The imaginary coupling of hunter-gatherer economies and Cohen 2008), without clear evidence of social hierarchy while egalitarianism has led to another conventional linkage be- an egalitarian ethos probably existed (Iba´n˜ez and Gonza´lez- tween complexity and centralization—many models have Urquijo 2011; Kuijt 2000), could be better understood re- been based on a dichotomous binary opposition of “hunter- sorting to utopian or anarchist theory than to our precon- gatherers p simple p egalitarian” versus “complexity p ceptions about a historical need for evolution toward a centralization p hierarchy p inequality.” It was not long ago concentration of power. that archaeologists and anthropologists were able to separate hunter-gatherer society from egalitarianism and simplicity. I agree with the authors that anarchist theory offers a useful framework for understanding complexity in nonstate complex societies. In particular, their discussion of warfare as a leveling mechanism effectively demonstrates how anarchist theory can Jangsuk Kim Department of History, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 130-701, explain a lack of centralized authority in the study area, which Korea (jangsuk@khu.ac.kr). 23 IV 12 has not been satisfactorily answered by other models. There is, however, one thing to consider. The difference Algenbeck and Grier challenge classic models of social evo- between Marx/Engel’s historical materialism and anarchist lution, which they call “state-focused models,” proposing an- perspectives may have derived from a difference in political archist theory as an alternative framework for analyzing non- strategy rather than from a different understanding of evo- state complex societies. Their discussion is thoughtful and a lutionary “principles.” To solve problems with the European welcome addition to the study of complexity. capitalistic economy of the nineteenth century, Marx consid- Since the late nineteenth century, models of social evolution ered proletariat dictatorship followed by socialist government have usually been based on essentialistic typology of societies as the only realistic strategy. Marx thought that systematic and teleological arrangement of the types. Advocates of social contradictions inherent in capitalism “should” be resolved by Darwinism saw the evolution of human society as a process the establishment of another centralized system. In contrast, from chaotic and primitive to ordered and advanced stages. anarchists saw recovery and reinforcement of autonomy, mu- Other models, such as Marx’s historical materialism, consid- tual aid, and decentralization as keys to utopia. To them, ered it as a process from egalitarian and harmonious to un- people could be emancipated only by resisting and dissolving equal and contradictory. Despite differences in focus and per- centralized, absolute power, which controlled and benefited spective, many models in the twentieth century still seem to from capitalistic economy. In my view, both Marx’s historical have shared (overtly or covertly) assumptions of earlier mod- materialism and Kropotkin’s mutual aid as a factor of evo- els. For example, Elman Service’s model, in my view, was a lution were historical justification of each strategy. This is not mixture of early approaches, regarding political evolution as to say that the authors’ suggestion is of little use. Whether it Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 575 was an academic framework or a tool for justification, an- to which evolutionary type a society belonged. Bill Angelbeck archist theory still provides important insights to analyzing and Colin Grier’s article plunges this discussion into anarchy. human societies, as Marxist theory has done. Angelbeck and Grier do an excellent job of introducing the As the authors admit, anarchist theory is not the single reader to the political theory of anarchism, with its emphasis most powerful explanatory framework. In particular, one on mutual aid and the constant contestation of authority. I might question how decentralization and autonomy, as they highly recommend their discussion to students and scholars stand, can be applied to explaining the development of cen- who naively confuse anarchy with chaos. They present an tralized states. However, I do not think Marxist, neoevolu- equally impressive critique of the limitations of egalitarianism tionary, and anarchist models are contradictory to each other. as a construct. They demonstrate that egalitarianism is not Key concepts of anarchist theory, such as resistance to cen- simply the null case in the absence of hierarchy. Rather, they tralization, mutual aid, and autonomy, are easily found even show that people must actively maintain egalitarian relations in highly centralized states in various forms. They just have via mutual aid, consensual decision making, and a militant rarely been fully appreciated by models based on Marxism refusal to submit to artificial authorities. They argue that an- and neoevolutionism, probably because of a difference in fo- archism’s focus on the nature of small-scale, decentralized sys- cus and explanatory scale. tems provides a superior way for archaeologists to understand Complexity is far more complex than current models con- the complexities of noncapitalist societies. Their case study of ventionally assume. It does not have a single form but consists the Coast Salish finds a historical process contrary to evolu- of multilevel dynamics among strategies adopted by various tionary expectations of increasing hierarchy through time and agents, which include not only conflicts, competition, and that war may serve to level inequalities rather than create them. centralized hierarchies but also strategic negotiations and lev- Angelbeck and Grier’s theory could inform the practice of eling mechanisms. Contextual integration of anarchist theory archaeology beyond the issues of this article. For example, with Marxist and/or neoevolutionary models would provide postprocessual theorists have argued that archaeologists archaeologists and anthropologists with a richer basis for un- should embrace a radical multivocality and give up their au- derstanding diversity in power relations and evolutionary pro- thority to interpret the past (Hodder 1999). The anarchist cesses. distinction between “natural authorities (those sought for Overall, this article is an important contribution to the their knowledge, skill, or experience) and artificial authorities study of complex societies, and I look forward to the authors’ (those imposed by institutions . . . )” suggests that a radical continued work. practice of archaeology might be best served by giving up the artificial but not the natural. The comparison of natural and artificial authorities intersects with my Marxist-derived op- position between the craft of archaeology (our natural au- thority) and who controls the uses of that craft (artificial Randall H. McGuire authorities; McGuire 2008:60–62). Angelbeck and Grier also Department of Anthropology, Binghamton University, State Uni- find many parallels between anarchism and Marxism. versity of New York, Binghamton, New York 13902, U.S.A. Angelbeck and Grier bring to archaeology a debate that (rmcguire@binghamton.edu). 6 V 12 begins with Karl Marx and the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. They recognize that contemporary Marxist and anarchist ar- chaeologists hold many compatible positions. For example, Raise the Red Flag and the Black Bruce Trigger (2003:669–670) asserts that people must main- In the twilight of the twentieth century, numerous archae- tain egalitarianism rather than it being a natural condition. ologists began to question the universalizing categories and They also critique Marxism on two fronts: first, that Marxism assumptions of cultural evolutionary theory (McGuire 2011). as a theory of capitalism and class relations is inferior to They found it difficult to plunk societies into cultural evo- anarchism for the study of noncentralized societies; and sec- lutionary typologies of tribe, chiefdom, and state. Oppositions ond, that the centralization of political and economic orga- between egalitarianism and stratification increasingly failed to nization embraced by Marxist revolutionary movements pre- capture the cultural variability that they observed. Moreover, dictably leads to totalitarianism. the historical narratives that archaeologists wrote ceased to I would admit that the application of class analysis to non- tell tales of evolutionary progress toward greater complexity capitalist societies often has a clunky feel compared with the and/or increased stratification. Many scholars proposed new eloquence of Angelbeck and Grier’s case. They effectively approaches, such as heterarchy (Crumley 1995), the dialectics show how the Coast Salish were complex and how quanti- of egalitarianism and hierarchy (McGuire and Saitta 1996), tative changes in complexity and hierarchy occurred. As a and dual process theory (Blanton et al. 1996; Mills 2000). Marxist, however, I am ultimately interested in accounting They abandoned “which” questions for “how” questions. The for qualitative or revolutionary change. Angelbeck and Grier new methodologies ask how past societies were complex and dodge this issue by beginning their analysis in the Marpole how equalitarianism and hierarchy were related, rather than Period and by setting aside the issue of how sociopolitical  576 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 complexity emerged. I would argue that Marxism, with its pretive shoals (Miller and Boxberger 1994). The final issue is emphasis on the internal contradictions that create social re- whether there is significant continuity between precontact so- lations and conflicts, provides a superior theory of transfor- cial organization, as revealed in the archaeological record and mative social change (Ollman 2003). in oral tradition, and historic and contemporary life, as de- I welcome the anarchists’ warnings about the authoritarian scribed in ethnography. tendencies of Marxist praxis. Anarchism provides a counter- Angelbeck and Grier point to features of society, as anar- balance to such tendencies. We need to recognize, however, chist theory would have it, that they believe characterize both that totalitarianism did not simply spring from Marxism. pre- and postcontact Coast Salish society, including self- Capitalist forces actively opposed Marxist revolutions, and organized local collectives, mutual aid, and the autonomy of this struggle fueled and exaggerated authoritarian tendencies individual and group. A society structured along these lines, in Marxism. Anarchist movements, with their constant aver- they argue, enabled commoners to resist the episodes of the sion to institutional authority, have not led to totalitarianism, concentration of control by elites. The Coast Salish society but they have also always lost in the end. they depict, then, is one in which, as in anarchist theorizing, A radical archaeology should embrace the intersections and elite aggrandizement might get under way and commoners the tensions between anarchism and Marxism. The desire to could block this development. They write, “Our central point transform capitalism drives both theories. Both lead us to is that anarchism is useful for understanding decentralized critical understandings of our noncapitalist pasts. Marxist and (or anarchic) networks—those that allow for complex inter- anarchist archaeologies reveal that capitalism is not the natural group relations while staving off the establishment of cen- state of human society, nor was it an inevitable product of tralized political authority.” cultural evolution. They show that people created capitalism There is a history of deploying the idea of social networks and therefore that people can change it. Raise the red flag, to understand the Coast Salish world. William Elmendorf and beside it raise the black banner too. (1971) and Wayne Suttles (1987d) pioneered this approach some 60 years ago, but their efforts were more metaphor than measurement. I attempted to add some formalism in an early effort (Miller 1989), and Jay Miller (1999) emphasized spir- ituality in advancing the idea of a network of communities Bruce Granville Miller bound by ties to spiritual practitioners. Recently, Carlson Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, (2010) examined the ways in which the Coast Salish Sto´:lo˜ 6303 NW Marine Drive, Vancouver V6K 1Z1, Canada (bgmiller@mail.ubc.ca). 2 IV 12 organized into nested identities operating on multiple scales from individual ancestor, local tribe, and beyond. All of these Angelbeck and Grier have identified several of the vexing are framed from a social network perspective but without the issues concerning Coast Salish social organization and pro- broad explanatory power of the anarchic approach. pose a means to address all of them. They write, “Simply put, Both archaeologists and ethnographers have been interested societies without governments are anarchies.” They point out in the episodic periods of the consolidation of power by elites the inadequacies of current approaches, including models of followed by a retreat. The Marpole Period of 2500 BP is one egalitarianism and Marxist-derived theory, for understanding such period, and Schaepe (2009) describes the Sı´:ya´:m Period, noncentralized small-scale societies such as the historic and the centuries between 500 BP and historic contact, as another precontact Coast Salish of the north coast of North America. period of increasing inequality. Kew and Miller (1999) as- As an alternative, they describe anarchist theory and deploy, sociated the creation and dissolution of tribal councils in the primarily, archaeological materials to make their case for rel- contemporary period with similar processes of the consoli- evance. They make an interesting and compelling argument. dation of power by elite and pushback by local communities. There are four central concerns for ethnographers and ar- All of these processes, operating on different timescales but chaeologists of the Coast Salish in play here. The first is the with similarities, might be incorporated within the framework tension between personal aggrandizement and loyalty to one’s proposed here. Significantly, anarchist theory indicates how local group. A second issue is how groups are composed in emergent leaders are resisted—through mutual aid, consen- the first place in a region with no central authority. Schol- sual decision making, and decentralized social networks. And arship has focused primarily on ecological analyses or on if anarchic ideology underpins Coast Salish practice over the linguistic affiliation and spiritual affinities. This question has last 2,500 years, then it constitutes a significant continuity become vital in an era of litigation over resource rights. and suggests that ethnographic evidence is relevant to the Third is the issue of how complex political action can take interpretations of archaeological materials. place without central authority. Theorists have described the Having suggested the possibilities opened by anarchist the- Coast Salish as having “no superior chief,” or even having no ory, some questions arise: are the authors subliminally cri- political system at all. Tollefson (1987) attempted to escape tiquing contemporary society? They are quite right that there this dilemma by positing mid-nineteenth-century formal are no adequate models from the North Atlantic world for chiefdoms, a position that ran aground on factual and inter- societies such as the Coast Salish. But have there been any Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 577 such anarchist societies in the West? Graeber (2004) is un- in other towns. Persistent conflict kept the power of individuals willing to say that there are, although he writes that there is in check, leading to a heterarchy of clan leaders in ongoing no fundamental divide between supposed “primitive” anar- competition. While there was a heterarchy of clan leaders, hi- chic societies and “modern civilization.” Graeber suggests that erarchical relations of various types were maintained within the Western societies historically have more in common with an- clanhouse itself. archism than we would suppose, including the current global In colonial situations, coalitions of Tlingit groups formed movements. Would this anarchist approach compete with to challenge state institutions; their adversaries were Russia those developed by Jay Miller and Keith Carlson, which go and, later, the U.S. government and the state of Alaska. During beyond the material by emphasizing spiritual connections? I the nineteenth century, the Tlingit resisted theft of their prop- think that it need not and that these can complement one erty and resources, suffered population loss due to introduced another, mutually taking on the central questions about a diseases, adopted new weapons, and took advantage of op- society still not well understood. portunities to gain wealth and prestige. Across the Northwest Coast, arenas for warfare expanded, with several groups en- gaging in long-distance conflicts. Introduced wealth, popu- lation loss due to disease, labor shortages, and the increase in frequency of long-distance interaction stimulated wars Madonna L. Moss fought for slaves, resources, and prestige. The increased fre- Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, quency of these kinds of wars is a response to and a result Oregon 97405, U.S.A. (mmoss@uoregon.edu). 9 IV 12 of colonialism. So using the nineteenth-century record of war- Angelbeck and Grier have demonstrated that anarchy theory fare as a model for precontact warfare or social relations more is a productive way to think about social relations and social broadly may not be appropriate because of the rapid social dynamics among historically known groups living along the changes that were part of colonialism. Northwest Coast of North America. Even though the term Although I agree that anarchy theory has great potential “anarchism” may suggest images of chaos, dissent, and dis- for understanding resistance to centralized control, I doubt order, anarchism was developed as a form of social order. we can push back the cultural patterns observed in the nine- Anarchist theorists and practitioners aimed to develop a form teenth century to the more distant past. The “ethnographic of social organization that ensured autonomy for individuals pattern” is very much a product of history. Although “warrior and local groups, linked in networked alliances of coopera- culture” has ongoing appeal for the Tlingit today, I suspect tion. The authors explain that the principles of anarchism this is a reaction against the suppression of indigenous war include individual and local autonomy and expression, vol- in the nineteenth century, a reassertion of Tlingit identity and untary association, mutual aid, network organization, com- sovereignty, and a result of conflicts with the state not being munal decision making, justified authorities, and resistance resolved satisfactorily. to centralization. With regard to the Coast Salish, the authors identify two Applying this model to the ethnographically documented periods of warfare: one between 1600 and 500 BP and the Alaskan Tlingit, the locally autonomous group is the clanhouse. other after contact. Despite the 148 Coast Salish defensive Members of a clanhouse work together to provide mutual aid sites listed by Angelbeck (2009, app. A), only eight sites have in solidarity with one another to overcome obstacles and defend been radiocarbon dated. This seems to be very limited chro- themselves against adversaries. They are connected to other nological data upon which to propose a period of warfare. houses through networks; clanhouses have relationships to With regard to the data on head shaping (“cranial defor- other clanhouses through intermarriage (across moiety) and mation”), many of the burials were not directly dated, and within moieties within a single town. Clanhouses have rela- age was inferred by association. We are thus left with a tau- tionships to other clanhouses in other towns (again, through tological problem, since cranial deformation has been used intermarriage or within a moiety). Decisions within a clanhouse as a cultural historical marker of the Marpole Period. It is are made communally through negotiation, and leaders (in- certainly possible that head shaping was primarily a marker cluding clan mothers who influence their sons) are persons of status and that the number of people who considered them- who have earned respect through their deeds, expertise, and selves elite increased over time, but other explanations are skill. Leaders are acceded to, but their power is not necessarily not necessarily excluded. Despite these caveats, I hold out permanent. Warfare probably played a role in checking power hope that detailed archaeological studies can help us deter- and accumulation. Such challenges to the elite kept power de- mine to what extent ethnographic descriptions of Northwest centralized and fluid. Tlingit warfare can be seen as resistance Coast social dynamics and warfare are relevant to gaining an to concentrations of elite power not for the purpose of reducing understanding of the precontact past. Recognizing that his- inequality but to decentralize and redistribute power among a torically Northwest Coast societies simultaneously exhibited broader base of elites. Local divisions of Tlingit clans vied for aspects of both hierarchy and heterarchy has been useful. autonomy within a broader network in which they continually Anarchy theory provides yet another framework by which to struggled with clans from the “opposite side” or other moiety understand Northwest Coast social dynamics.  578 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 establishment of power and dominance of property-owning Brian Thom local residence groups, whether these residence groups are Department of Anthropology, University of Victoria, P.O. Box single-household Stselax at Musqueam, local villages like 1700, STN CSC, Victoria, British Columbia V8W 2Y2, Canada (bthom@uvic.ca). 25 IV 12 Quamichan or Tsawwassen, or the larger named regional vil- lage groups like Quw’utsun’ or Chilliwack? Could the regional social and political changes described by Angelbeck and Grier for the transition to the Late Period be explained as an even- Can Anarchism Be a Useful Model Today? tual resistance of this centralization of local group power by In Custer Died for Your Sins, Vine Deloria Jr. famously cau- networks of property-owning extended kin? While data be- tioned against anthropologists “studying Indians” for the sake yond their small sample of cranial deformation would be of developing their own models and cultural theories (Deloria needed to address these questions, Angelbeck and Grier in- 1969). His stinging critique recalls the potential dangers of spire further archaeological work to explore the nature and simplified conclusions drawn by governments and bureau- extent of regional kin networks and local groups over time. cracies based on simplistic misreadings of theoretically driven Angelbeck and Grier fare better with Deloria’s second con- research in American Indian communities and instead im- cern, that anthropology should be useful to the indigenous plores us to collaboratively develop research agendas that can community itself. Thirty years after Deloria, the Harvard Proj- be of practical use in tribal communities today. Angelbeck ect on American Indian Economic Development has shown and Grier’s use of anarchist theory to reframe the long-term that successful self-government is the best predictor for suc- development of Coast Salish sociopolitical organization raises cess of indigenous communities in the Americas (Cornell and both the specter of Deloria’s sharp rebuke and the possibility Kalt 1998). Real decision-making power, capable institutions, of openings that could inform both future research and con- and leadership that acts in the Nations’ best interests are temporary indigenous self-government. important elements of successful self-government, but also It is easy to imagine that Angelbeck and Grier’s character- essential is the goodness of fit between the self-governance ization of stridently independent households in a perpetual political structure and the political culture of the community. state of anarchistic resistance to institutionalization and in- It strikes me that the reading of the archaeological record that equality could be misread in the contemporary political and Angelbeck and Grier are pursuing may offer helpful insights legal climate. In Canada, for instance, court-defined common- for these contemporary efforts. They provide a framework law tests demand that First Nations characterize their com- for seeing the deep roots of an indigenous political culture munities as “organized societies” that can trace their cultural where over a period of thousands of years autonomous local practices back to a time before contact in order to secure the groups have resisted centralization through an extended net- recognition of constitutionally protected Aboriginal rights work economy. Their model suggests that this decentralized, (Bell and Asch 1997; Slattery 1992). Given the abundant cul- nontotalitarian sociopolitical system was achieved through in- tural baggage that has come to be associated with anarchism, dividual and local autonomy and expression, voluntary as- Angelbeck and Grier could be easily misread to suggest that sociation, mutual aid, network organization, consensual de- a society in anarchy is not an organized society at all. While cision making, and justified authority. With some notable yet they provide some caution against such a misinterpretation, fragile exceptions, there continues to be significant reluctance reminding us that anarchic societies are not ungoverned but in contemporary Coast Salish governance building to submit self-governed, this risk is the unfortunate consequence of mo- to centralized authority, in spite of very significant pressure bilizing social theory that draws on more than 150 years of and incentives from state governments to coalesce as aggre- European intellectual history in the context of describing in- gated regional nations (Thom 2010). Many of the values iden- digenous sociopolitical systems. It is precisely the kind of tified by Angelbeck and Grier continue to be vibrant elements theorization that contemporary indigenous scholars have de- of Coast Salish political culture. Provocative labels of anar- manded be framed in indigenous theoretical terms (Atleo chistic self-governance aside, the Coast Salish resistance to 2005). centralization has deep roots and can provide the foundation While Angelbeck and Grier have pointed to the inadequacy for rethinking alternatives to the state’s push for aggregated, of a Marxist theoretical framework to account for Coast Salish centralized self-government. social and political structures, they continue to focus their model on the development of social classes and the resistance of the commoner minority to form the inverted-pear pop- ulation of nouveau riche. One of the key insights of recent ethnography of Coast Salish social and political structures has Reply been to show the importance of both networks of extended kin and local residence groups in the political economy of We wish to thank our colleagues for taking time to carefully the region (Kennedy 2007; Thom 2009). Could the famously consider our contribution and for crafting a set of very in- vibrant Marpole Period be better understood as a time of the sightful and important comments. In our original article, we Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 579 found it difficult, even with the generous space allotted by in generating these outcomes—a degree of agency, we note, Current Anthropology, to fully address many aspects of our readily ascribed to individuals in small-scale foragers who study. In their comments, our colleagues draw attention to maintain interpersonal inequality. We do see substantial several of the areas that we had hoped to cover more fully, agency in all human action and believe that humans have a and so we welcome this opportunity to elaborate on and relentless intentionality (but not necessarily an unwavering amplify elements of our argument. rationality or narrow self-interest). As such, all humans are We also appreciate the constructive nature of the comments deeply invested in their own social existence and perpetually overall and are particularly pleased that our argument was (though not necessarily obsessively) work to construct and found useful by both Northwest Coast archaeologists and manage the social reality in which they live. Such intention- those working elsewhere. Madonna Moss, for example, found ality can have many spatial and temporal scales and can be utility in applying our approach to the Tlingit area, while Juan realized at the scale of regional political organization and Jose´ Iba´n˜ez saw relevance for the Neolithic Near East. It was structure social change over the long term. also well received by those of diverse theoretical stripes, which So, regarding whether the Coast Salish themselves obsessed was our hope and intent. As many commenters point out, on managing their own social dynamics to maintain decen- this article represents a starting point, one that we hope tralized sociopolitics, we see no reason why this cannot and spawns sustained discussion and draws in a variety of voices has been not the case, as both Miller and Thom suggest in and perspectives. their comments. There are obvious lessons concerning proper Since space is limited, in this reply we address issues raised political intentions embedded within Coast Salish oral his- in the comments primarily thematically rather than individ- tories, some examples of which we identify near the close of ually, focusing on archaeological specifics as relevant. We con- the original article (see also Angelbeck 2009:312–314). More- sider four areas: the overall relevance of our approach, in- over, testaments to overreaches of authority or excessive desire cluding some clarifications of concepts and implications; the for power are enduringly embedded in transformer stones broader implications of an archaeological approach based in (typically large, exposed glacial erratics), which act as re- anarchism, including what constitutes an anarchist analysis; minders concerning the consequences. In this way, such in- the connections between anarchism and other theoretical per- tentionalities have been materialized on the landscape and spectives, including those advanced by some of our com- represent a set of persistent guiding principles that inform menters; and the contemporary implications of our approach, social action. particularly for indigenous peoples and the Coast Salish them- Our emphasis on the role of active, conscious political selves. agency is consistent with our perspective on the importance In 1995, Gary Feinman (1995) remarked that “in the his- of fluidity and the limitations of typologies and structural tory of human species, there is no more significant transition models. Jordi Este´vez raised the issue that discussing societies than the emergence and institutionalization of inequality” as anarchies is perhaps simplistic. However, our claim that (255), adding that little systematic analysis of the problem many societies are anarchies is not an effort to invent a tax- had at that point taken place. In the ensuing 2 decades, ar- onomic category or reify a new form of structural model. chaeologists and anthropologists clearly have made progress Rather, our point is to show that societies with anarchic dy- on this front (Ames 2010; Kim and Grier 2006). Part of this namics have been common in the past. Throughout human progress has involved a reconceptualization of inequality, fo- history, communities have organized themselves without (and cusing on equality as an actively maintained system. However, often in opposition to) centralized government. The princi- the dynamic of centralization has been less critically exam- ples emphasized in anarchism—autonomy, association, mu- ined, at least for societies that lack it. As we point out in our tual aid, decentralization, and justification of authority—have original narrative, it has often been assumed that centrali- been enacted, contested, and negotiated as diverse peoples zation is an inevitable track once inequality does emerge. We have aimed to maintain or change their sociopolitical orga- therefore appreciate the general agreement—voiced, for ex- nization. ample, by Elizabeth Arkush and Randall McGuire—that non- We therefore offer an anarchist approach as a form of anal- hierarchical political systems are actively maintained. ysis that archaeologists can use to examine the sociopolitical For the Coast Salish region, we advanced more specifically dynamics of societies in the past and present, whether that that large-scale, decentralized political systems (and therefore society is predominantly anarchic or has institutionalized less hierarchical forms of inequality) were constructed and hierarchies at its core. The principles outlined in anarchist maintained by those participating in them. In response to theory operate in all societies, and in some societies these periods of rising inequality, Coast Salish peoples pursued principles gain ascendancy, remain prominent, and are em- practices that implemented core principles of anarchism, re- phasized in a multitude of ways. Explicating the reasons for sulting in greater autonomy, less restrictive forms of associ- this ascendancy, clearly derived from historical factors in our ation and identity, and less rigid authority. We do find it view, is where we must now must turn our attention (we surprising, therefore, that Arkush (for one) is skeptical of return to this point again below). attributing a high degree of intentionality to political actors By advancing an analysis based in anarchist theory, we do  580 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 5, October 2012 not intend to suggest that any society had or held explicit centrate power and as such was causally critical in the emer- anarchist ideals as formulated by nineteenth-century political gence of centralized polities. We do not challenge this view theorists. In his comment, Ju¨rg Helbling recognizes the im- (though it has had its critics) but rather illuminate that war- portance of warfare in shaping Coast Salish history but stresses fare itself is a complex phenomenon that is used tactically by that it often involved conflict against other local groups, or human actors. We maintain that the singular argument that equals, rather than commoners versus elites and remarks that warfare leads to an increasing concentration of power is in- this does not fit well with the “anarchist ideals” of the struggle adequate. As Iba´n˜ez remarks, both centripetal and centrifugal against authority. This framing, however, presents anarchism directions in political organization can occur without involv- as an “ideal” to pursue rather than as a form of analysis about ing warfare at all. how anarchist principles, such as autonomy or decentralized Our explicit focus on the complexities of sociopolitical dy- organization, are operationalized in any society. Even so, the namics articulates with others who have undertaken such struggle against the unbalanced accumulation of power by analyses, empirically and theoretically. As such, we do not see equals expresses anarchist principles profoundly, in our view. an anarchist analysis as replacing or otherwise superseding As illustrated by our case study, historical change is multi- prior approaches, as Jangsuk Kim also notes. We do see it as directional and dynamic, with oscillations and complexities illuminating social dynamics not previously well understood sometimes only hinted at in the archaeological record. While or appreciated. As we note in our original study, others have we presented the Coast Salish as embodying a complex yet raised the key questions, particularly by those engaged in decentralized political network that poignantly reflects core Marxist analyses. As such, we want to briefly address the principles of anarchism, this is not a timeless statement about connections several commenters have made concerning the the totality of the Coast Salish past. We have argued that there relationship of an anarchist approach with other research were periods when the principles of autonomy were furthered, strains in anthropology and archaeology, especially Marxism, associations between groups increased, cooperative ventures heterarchy, complex adaptive systems, and networks. undertaken, and network forms of organization favored. An anarchist approach, as noted by many commentators Yet at other times there were periods (such as Marpole or and in our own historical overview of anarchism, shares many Sı´:ya´:m) when powerful elites limited the ability of others to elements with Marxism. McGuire highlighted how both ap- promote such principles, strengthening elite power and con- proaches lead to critical perspectives of class, capitalism, and straining the autonomy of nonelites and their ability to as- authoritarianism. Kim describes how both Marxists and an- sociate or identify with elites. As such, we provide a historical archists developed their theories while attempting to achieve examination of how these principles are contested and re- ultimately similar goals and that the theories reflect varying negotiated over time. Here, we have highlighted the periods strategies operationalized in revolutionary practice. At the of resistance to centralization in the Coast Salish, although same time, Este´vez aptly reminds us that both anarchism and there were other periods of their history that reveal trends Marxism do not consist of singular modes of theory but that toward the consolidation of power. each encompasses numerous approaches. In a similar vein, In elaborating on such dynamics, we explicitly avoid re- David Graeber (2004:5–6) emphasized the strength of Marx- sorting to any kind of “cycling” process between centralization ism as theory and the effectiveness of anarchism as practice and decentralization. Change is always historical rather than with respect to realizing the goals they share. a reflection of the swings to and fro between political poles Some commenters also noted the limitations of our ap- (e.g., gumsa to gumlao, as outlined by Leach [1954]). Political proach from a Marxist perspective. Both McGuire and Kim climates are not akin to natural climates, changing with the indicate that our approach seems limited for explaining the seasons while returning to former states in an ahistorical fash- rise of more centralized authority, for instance, during the ion. Processes such as warfare reflect not functionalist regu- Marpole or Sı´:ya´:m Period. However, as Kenneth Ames points lation of a system but broadly collective actions that were out, the origins of Northwest Coast inequality have long been adopted when historical circumstances were likely favorable studied, including by Ames himself (1994, 1995, 2010) and for certain groups or factions. Grier (2003, 2006a, 2006b), among numerous others. While Actions such as warfare and resistance have no inherent many intriguing and satisfying perspectives (Marxist and oth- end or effect but have contextual motivations and are adopted erwise) exist on why inequality developed in Northwest Coast as appropriate by actors in specific situations. We argued that contexts, as Ames notes, the truly critical question remains in the Coast Salish case, warfare has had predominantly cen- why more political inequality (read: centralization) did not trifugal effects, dispersing concentrations of power. In this, develop given the affluence and high degree of social differ- we find an archaeological example that parallels the arguments entiation that appears to have existed for many millennia. of the anthropologist Pierre Clastres (1987). Jordi Este´vez has Less theorized than the emergence of inequality has been raised the notion that warfare does have centralizing effects how those in power are challenged and resisted. Cultural as well, and we certainly agree that warfare can have both. “climax periods” are often viewed as the product of elite We do contrast our approach explicitly to that of Carneiro, actions, implying that nonelites passively accept such efforts however, who has long argued that warfare served to con- or otherwise are only limited actors in such developments. Angelbeck and Grier Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies 581 In times of perceived “decline,” descriptions of how concen- for the residential mobility that formed the basis for individual trations of power dissipated are common, with declines also strategies of resistance? Wayne Suttles (1987c [1960]) certainly framed from the perspectives of the elites. Explanations rarely raised such possibilities when he considered the effects of the involve the active resistance and challenge of such power, patchy and variable Northwest Coast environment upon which is what we have attempted to provide in our study. Northwest Coast societies. These are important questions to For this, drawing on Marxism and anarchism, rather than a which we must turn to flesh out the longer-term histories we single canon, is perhaps the most appropriate way to approach seek as archaeologists (see Grier and Kim [2012] for an ex- complex histories. In the end, we endorse McGuire’s call to ample of this approach). The better answers, in our view, will explore the tensions between Marxism and anarchism. The come through considering reasons for action rather than long-standing debates since the mid-nineteenth century have physical causes and formal models of explanation. been beneficial for both Marxist and anarchist theory, and As a form of analysis, anarchist theory can also lead to we see no reason why this would not hold true for the debates considerations of contemporary contexts, and McGuire offers within archaeology as well. some examples of how anarchist theory can inform contem- In the spirit of Feyerabend’s (1986 [1975]) epistemological porary practice and theory. This does go beyond the scope anarchism, worthwhile dialogues can also occur regarding an- of our original study, but we agree that there is much that archism and heterarchy as well as with network approaches, anarchist theory can illuminate (and critique) regarding the among which there are numerous shared aspects. Archaeo- nature of archaeological authorities and the Western/capitalist logical approaches to heterarchy, which Carole Crumley pi- context of modern archaeological work. It can highlight the oneered, share ties to currents in complex adaptive systems importance, for instance, of collaborative archaeology, which studies, which parallel the sociopolitical focus within anar- mitigates the centralized authority structures that have dom- chism on the ways in which decentralized structures are or- inated many archaeological projects in the past. Collaborative ganized and maintained. As well recognized by Crumley, archaeologies recognize the numerous groups with stakes in McGuire, and other commenters, dialectical motors of change archaeological heritage—particularly indigenous communi- are a key driver of history. ties—and aim to build relationships in often bottom-up or Bruce Granville Miller has described the importance of grassroots fashion in a way that respects and recognizes shared network theories in analyses of the Coast Salish, connecting interests and promotes mutual aid. Clearly there are many this prevalence with our treatment of network forms of or- more elements of contemporary archaeology that could be ganization as a principle of anarchism. We have been struck pursued from an anarchist perspective. by how many anthropologists studying the Coast Salish have Also from a contemporary perspective, Brian Thom raises turned to network models and their decentralized structure some very important issues that go well beyond the scholarly as an appropriate approximation of Coast Salish social rela- intent of our paper but that are critical to address here, since tions. Miller added that these networks can and do readily we (who work with indigenous communities) take seriously incorporate spiritual entities as important nodes and actors. the need to consider the impact of academic scholarship on Here we have focused on sociopolitical aspects, but spirit indigenous communities. We think Thom has in some re- powers clearly also substantiate the power or authority of spects been too quick to see our effort as a violation of De- Coast Salish leaders. loria’s first concern. Our goal is not to “use” Coast Salish What we are drawn to in these related approaches to an- history to develop a generalized model, as has been attempted archism—Marxism, heterarchy, networks—is the emphasis often in the past, particularly with unilinear cultural evolu- on the social. As archaeologists who study human culture tion. Rather, our goal is to show that Coast Salish peoples— through time, it is important to keep our focus on the human and their modern political and legal struggles for autonomy— history, as opposed to relying upon changes in the environ- are and have been part of the collective human history of ment, climate, or ecological carrying capacity as the main resisting unjust authority and striving for self-determination. interpretive framework for understanding change in the past. Such struggles, indigenous or not, should be accorded the We do not deny the importance of the environmental context legitimacy that all such movements warrant. Ironically, such and climate oscillations—perennial emphases in explanations values and actions are often mythologized in the constructed for Northwest Coast “complexity”—as clearly these factors histories of modern nation-states (see, for instance, the an- constrain human actions (e.g., Trigger 1991). However, the archistic leanings of Thomas Paine prior to the American focus should be on the evidence for social decisions made Revolution, challenging the authority of King George). and political actions taken and on how communities re- As scholars, we need to strive for accuracy in the way we sponded to events and processes, whether environmental or characterize Coast Salish political dynamics rather than hedge social. our discourse because it may be misread, and we hope that Such a focus on the social leads, however, to a complicated our study will work to counter the “provocative label” issues relationship with causality in archaeological explanations. 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