Sociopolitical Complexity and the Bow and Arrow in the American Southwest

Abstract

The evolution of sociopolitical complexity, including heightened relations of cooperation and competition among large nonkin groups, has long been a central focus of anthropological research. Anthropologists suggest any number of variables that affect the waxing and waning of complexity and define the precise trajectories that groups take, including population density, subsistence strategies, warfare, the distribution of resources, and trade relationships. Changes in weaponry, here the introduction of the bow and arrow, can have profound implications for population aggregation and density, subsistence and settlement strategies, and access to resources, trade, and warfare.Bingham and Souza provide a general conceptual model for the relationship between complexity and the bow and arrow, arguing that this compound weapon system, whereby smaller projectiles travel at higher speed and are capable of hitting targets more accurately and at greater distances than hand-thrown darts, fundamentally favors the formation of larger groups because it allows for cost-effective means of dealing with conflicts of interest through social coercion, thereby dramatically transforming kin-based social relations. Here we consider the impacts the introduction of the bow and arrow had on sociopolitical complexity in the North American Southwest.

Theory Testing in Prehistoric North America: Fruits of One of the World's Great Archeological Natural Laboratories

“…The details of these cases are consistent with the most straightforward predictions of social coercion theory. Specifically, each reflects a high complexity ratio environment (high dependence on intensifiable maize cultivation) and displays the predicted strong archeological signal of increased complexity following local arrival of the bow.…”

“…Thus, the strong local capacity to generate front‐loaded storable resources is expected to maximize the enhancement of social complexity resulting from an increase in the scale of social cooperation. The massive field agriculture of the Ancestral Pueblo and Mississippians and large‐scale production of dried salmon in several localities apparently reflect examples of such production intensification.…”

“…Several of the sophisticated treatments in this issue strongly support a powerful social effect following local introduction of the bow (Table ). These include the articles by Blitz and Porth, Milner, Chaplin, and Zavodny, Reed and Geib, and VanPool and O'Brien (the Chaco/Aztec segment, corresponding to Anasazi/Ancestral Pueblo) . For example, the scale of the post‐bow Mississippian and Anasazi subsistence intensification and architectural building was substantially larger than predecessor Middle Woodlands and Basketmaker cultures .…”

Introduction: Social Complexity and the Bow in the Prehistoric North American Record

“…There are various reasons not to favor foraging models for bow‐driven increases in social complexity. For example, many of the increases in social complexity in the North American Neolithic concern local agricultural revolutions, creating societies in which farming rather than hunting is the central food‐related adaptive strategy . New efficiency in hunting is an unlikely cause of such change.…”

Flaked-stone projectile point serration: A controlled experimental study of blade margin design

“…Hoffman (1997) is one of the researchers who have considered this variable, and he concluded that the prehistoric inhabitants of southern Arizona used projectile point blade margin treatment including serration to intentionally signal group affiliations. Hoffman (1997:95) recognized that the shaft and fletching were the most visible portions of arrows, and therefore these elements "were commonly decorated or designed to reflect individual ownership or tribal affiliation" (see also Mason, 1894:662;VanPool and O'Brien, 2013). He, however, focused on points because data from the shafts are not available.…”