Implications For Social Organization Research Articles

Economic Understanding of Society: A Comparison of Marx and Weber

This paper explores the economic understanding of society through a comparative analysis of Karl Marx and Max Weber, two foundational figures in sociology. Marx’s theory of historical materialism posits that economic structures, comprising the forces and relations of production, fundamentally determine societal organization and development. His model emphasizes the primacy of the economic base in shaping the superstructure, which includes culture, politics, and ideology. Marx's perspective on capitalism focuses on class struggle, exploitation, and the transformative potential of revolutionary change. In contrast, Weber offers a multidimensional approach that incorporates cultural and ideological factors into the analysis of capitalism. His concept of the "Protestant Ethic" illustrates how religious values influenced the development of capitalist economic systems, while his broader framework of rationalization and bureaucracy highlights the complex interplay between economic and non-economic elements in modern society. Weber’s view of social stratification as a combination of class, status, and party further contrasts with Marx’s more economically centered analysis. This comparative study reveals the distinct methodologies and conceptual frameworks of Marx and Weber, enriching the understanding of economic structures and their implications for social organization and change.

Speech Communities and the implications for social organizations as in human speech markers and others

Speech Communities and the implications for social organizations as in human speech markers and others

Hyoid Bone Size and Its Implications for Social Organization and Sexual Selection in Alouatta pigra and the Elusive Alouatta macconnelli

The purpose of this research paper is focusing on the hyoid bone in Alouatta pigra and Alouatta macconnelli and determine its role in affecting the social organization and sexual selection of the individuals in these species. This includes the discussion on the dimensions of the hyoid between the males and females as well as an analysis of observed social behaviour patterns and the sexual selection process. It was found that female Alouatta pigra had a larger hyoid than males of the species and that Alouatta macconnelli males had a hyoid nearly twice the size of females. The hyoids were measured from the Mammal Biodiversity collection at the Royal Ontario Museum. The bones dimensions were taken using plastic calipers and their circumference measured using a soft tape measure. Based on the sexual selection and social organisation of Alouatta pigra which is multi-male/multi-female with the occasional unimale with multiple females, the null hypothesis must be accepted as the larger hyoid is not found in males but in females and the size of the hyoid does not affect the social organization in this species. In Alouatta macconnelli, there is little information on this species but the null hypothesis is rejected as males have much larger hyoids than females and the social organization is that of a uni-male with multiple females.

Agriculture in Sasanian Persis: ideology and practice

Data for the political economy in the highlands of Sasanian Persis[1] is relatively limited, leading researchers to suggest that agricultural development and the level of urbanism in the region was limited. This article will present new survey data for settlements and agriculture in the Kur River Basin, the largest internal basin in the southern Zagros. It will also discuss the implications of this data for understanding Sasanian agricultural practices, the growing industrialization of the agricultural economy, the implications for social organization, and potential reasons why Sasanian agriculture was organized using weirs, rather than reservoir dams.

On the Role of Coastal Landscape Evolution in Detecting Fish Weirs: A Pacific Northwest Coast Example From Washington State

ABSTRACT In North America's Pacific Northwest, archaeologists have extensively researched coastal fish weirs—one of several types of mass fish capture technologies used by precontact peoples—and their role in the development of delayed return economies and implications for social organization. Fish weirs, however, are typically situated in areas that are susceptible to a range of geomorphic and anthropogenic factors that affect their preservation and visibility. Given the importance of these capture facilities to understanding the histories of coastal peoples, a better understanding of these factors, and how they affect the archaeological record, is needed. Using the recently augmented coastal fish weir record in Washington State as a case study, we explore these factors by compiling an expanded database of 22 sites and 36 radiocarbon dates and systematically consider how coastal geomorphological processes operating along the Northwest Coast affect the age and distribution of fish weirs. Through this analysis, we argue that regional patterns in cultural use and taphonomy of the construction of fish weirs, as well as human responses to coastal dynamism, must be considered through the lens of geomorphic and anthropogenic factors that affect the coastal margin on a local and regional scale.

Paleoeskimo Demography on Western Victoria Island, Arctic Canada: Implications for Social Organization and Longhouse Development

Paleoeskimo populations on western Victoria Island reached maximum levels in Early Pre-Dorset time and declined abruptly shortly after 3800 14C years BP. The largest subsequent recovery occurred during Dorset time, particularly during Late Dorset, about 1500 to 600 BP. Early Pre-Dorset settlement patterns were similar to those documented for the same period and culture elsewhere in Arctic Canada, with dispersed nuclear families and small extended families occupying the region for most of the year, but with annual aggregations producing sites with 15 or more dwellings. After 3800 BP, large Pre-Dorset aggregation sites are absent. Dorset settlement patterns are dominated by multi-family longhouse – hearth row aggregation sites and by sites with two to four dwellings. Possibly the Dorset were living mainly in snow dwellings on the sea ice during cold seasons, with longhouses and hearth-row sets representing coming-ashore aggregations. Architectural aspects of longhouses and hearth rows indicate a common purpose behind their construction and use throughout the region and apparently throughout Arctic Canada, but their place and time of origin remain obscure. Radiocarbon dates place most longhouses and hearth rows on western Victoria Island in Late Dorset time, as elsewhere, but some dates indicate that these structures were being used in the western Canadian Arctic by Middle Dorset time. The latest Dorset radiocarbon dates from the region overlap with the earliest of the more reliable dates on Thule houses.

Housing immature domestic pigs in large social groups: implications for social organisation in a hierarchical society

Immature domestic pigs are increasingly housed in large social groups (>50 pigs) without an understanding of how they adapt to these conditions. At a conventional group size (typically 10–30 animals), pigs exhibit dominance relationships which are frequently established using physical assessments of strength and fighting ability and may include the use of aggressive behaviour. The relationships also rely on individual identification of group members and the recall and reinforcement of previous fight outcomes. This paper reviews the implications of a large group size for the establishment and long-term maintenance of dominance relationships in immature pigs. Evidence suggests that, in large groups, less reliance is placed on aggression during the immediate post-mixing phase than would be expected if the same proportion of dominance relationships are established using aggression in both large and small groups. This occurred despite an ability to distinguish between pen mates and non-pen mates. The energetic costs to a pig of establishing dominance relationships with a given proportion of group members is likely to increase with group size. It is considered whether these elevated costs place a ceiling on the number of fights a pig can engage in or whether they are able to assess dominance ability using passive means and thereby reduce the proportion of group members with which they fight. It is probable that a combination of these two routes is responsible for the limitation of aggression observed. Sub-grouping behaviour, investigated in large poultry groups, appears not to be adopted by pigs in response to a large group size. There is a need for further fundamental research to investigate the way in which pigs adapt behaviourally to a large group size at the level of the individual pig and several potentially fruitful investigations are suggested.

Land, water and symbolic aspects of the Mesolithic in southern Scandinavia

This paper presents a preliminary model of the occupational history of the valley bottoms at the edges of the bed of the Quequen Grande River (Argentina) during the late Holocene. The ultimate goal of the research is to situate some aspects of technology, mobility, land-use patterns and settlement systems as a proximal consequence of a long-term process of 'lithification', that is, the positioning of lithic raw material across otherwise lithic-free areas of the landscape. In order to address this issue, distributions of lithic artefacts are used to discuss features of the regional technological organisation and settlement systems and the relationships between people and the landscape. In that sense, lithification, a variant of a 'provisioning places' strategy, has implications for other aspects of a human adaptive system. The lithification process has influenced the organisation of technology, in particular the degree of planning and anticipation necessary, which in turn affects the degree to which technological strategies (eg, curation and expediency) were employed. Lithification also has implications for the organisation of logistical and residential mobility strategies by encouraging reoccupations, changing periodicity of reoccupation, altering landscape use patterns, and making for longer seasonal or task-specific stays. One end result is an artificial conflation of resources, and a lessening of resource heterogeneity. For example, there will be more places where critical resources, such as water, fauna, and flora, co-occur with the lithic resources needed to exploit them. The lithic raw material distribution is only partially dependant on natural occurrence because the environment has been reorganised and (intentionally or otherwise) built by human activity. We propose that in the Pampas the late Holocene witnesses a process of 'building a landscape' which had implications for social organisation and hence played an important role in regional human adaptation and cultural evolution. (Less)

Spatial distribution and population composition of the brown mouse lemur (Microcebus rufus) in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar, and its implications for social organization.

Through a 16-mo mark-recapture trap study, I examined aspects of spatial distribution and population composition in the brown mouse lemur, Microcebus rufus, a 42 g nocturnal strepsirhine. The study took place in the rainforest of Ranomafana National Park in southeastern Madagascar. Sherman live traps were set monthly for a variable number of nights in a quasi-grid 50 m apart. Captured individuals were marked for future identification and released at site of capture. More males than females were captured overall (102 versus 72) and at 83% of trap sites. Trap sex ratio fluctuated significantly over the course of the study. It was particularly male-biased between June and August (3.9:1), when more previously uncaptured males than females (14 versus 6) entered the trap population. Some of these males remained in the trap population. Although the average number of individuals captured was not significantly different between the first four and last four months of the study, the composition of the population changed. The female population, however, changed less: 28.9% of all females captured in the first four months of the study were recaptured in the last four months, compared to 9.7% of males. It is suggested that the pattern of appearance of new individuals and disappearance of others, both predominantly male, may indicate migratory activity. Furthermore, an average of eight individuals were captured at each trap site (approximately 70% of traps captured more than five), suggesting a high degree of spatial overlap. The average number of male and female individuals captured in each trap (5.5 males versus 2.5 females), the average number of trap sites at which males and females were captured (3.6 versus 2.4), and the average number of captures for males and females (9.8 versus 5.7) all differed significantly between the sexes.

Sex and Gender in Paleopathological Perspective. By Anne L. Grauer and Patricia Stuart-Macadam.

Acknowledgements 1. Introduction: sex, gender and health status in prehistoric and contemporary populations George J. Armelagos 2. Sex-related patterns of trauma in humans and African apes Robert Jurmain and Lynn Kilgore 3. Osteoporosis in the bioarchaeology of women David S. Weaver 4. Iron deficiency anaemia: exploring the difference Patricia Stuart-Macadam 5. Sex differences in trace elements: status or self-selection? Della Collins Cook and Kevin D. Hunt 6. Male/female immune reactivity and its implications for interpreting evidence in human skeletal paleopathology Donald J. Ortner 7. Infectious disease, sex and gender: the complexity of it all Charlotte A. Roberts, Mary E. Lewis and Philip Boocock 8. Gender differences in health and illness among rural populations in Latin America Thomas L. Leatherman 9. The mothers and daughters of a patrilineal civilization: the health of females among the Late Classic Maya of Copan, Honduras Rebecca Storey 10. A history of their own: patterns of death in a nineteenth-century poorhouse Anne L. Grauer, Elizabeth M. McNamara and Diane V. Houdek 11. Gender, health and activity in foragers and farmers in the American southeast: implications for social organization in the Georgia Bight Clark S. Larsen Index.

Sex and gender in paleopathological perspective

Acknowledgements 1. Introduction: sex, gender and health status in prehistoric and contemporary populations George J. Armelagos 2. Sex-related patterns of trauma in humans and African apes Robert Jurmain and Lynn Kilgore 3. Osteoporosis in the bioarchaeology of women David S. Weaver 4. Iron deficiency anaemia: exploring the difference Patricia Stuart-Macadam 5. Sex differences in trace elements: status or self-selection? Della Collins Cook and Kevin D. Hunt 6. Male/female immune reactivity and its implications for interpreting evidence in human skeletal paleopathology Donald J. Ortner 7. Infectious disease, sex and gender: the complexity of it all Charlotte A. Roberts, Mary E. Lewis and Philip Boocock 8. Gender differences in health and illness among rural populations in Latin America Thomas L. Leatherman 9. The mothers and daughters of a patrilineal civilization: the health of females among the Late Classic Maya of Copan, Honduras Rebecca Storey 10. A history of their own: patterns of death in a nineteenth-century poorhouse Anne L. Grauer, Elizabeth M. McNamara and Diane V. Houdek 11. Gender, health and activity in foragers and farmers in the American southeast: implications for social organization in the Georgia Bight Clark S. Larsen Index.

Another Look at Lerna: An EH IIB Trading Post?

The Early Helladic IIB sealings from Lerna have rarely been considered as functional documents even though they are often called as evidence for EH II economic complexity, for elite control of resources or even for ‘central place’ redistribution. Close analysis of the sealings, however, casts doubt on whether the documents support these economic or social interpretations, seeming rather to point to the grafting of a foreign system of resource management onto a less developed society. After examining the specific functions of the sealings —‘who did what?’— we consider their implications for social organization. This evidence is then linked to the wider picture: a whole range of new sealing practices as well as the striking innovations in architecture and construction which appear at much the same time. We conclude that these developments are largely due to the arrival of foreign (probably Anatolian) traders at Lerna early in EH IIB.

The subsidiary woman

Abstract This article examines the divergence between the approach of the European Court of Justice to sex discrimination in employment and its recent decisions on similar discrimination in social welfare provision. An explanation may be found through the application of the distinction between the market or public sphere, which is the province of European integration, and the domestic or private sphere, which is still considered to be primarily a matter of Member State competence. This divide contains echoes of the current debate over the principle of subsidiarity within the European Union. Subsidiarity therefore does not simply concern the respective competences of the European Union and the Member States, but also has implications for social organisation and women's access to welfare and employment

King and People in Provincial Massachusetts

The American revolutionaries themselves believed the change from monarchy to republic was the essence of the Revolution. King and People in Provincial Massachusetts explores what monarchy meant to Massachusetts under its second charter and why the momentous change to republican government came about. Richard L. Bushman argues that monarchy entailed more than having a king as head of state: it was an elaborate political culture with implications for social organization as well. Massachusetts, moreover, was entirely loyal to the king and thoroughly imbued with that culture. Why then did the colonies become republican in 1776? The change cannot be attributed to a single thinker such as John Locke or to a strain of political thought such as English country party rhetoric. Instead, it was the result of tensions ingrained in the colonial political system that surfaced with the invasion of parliamentary power into colonial affairs after 1763. The underlying weakness of monarchical government in Massachusetts was the absence of monarchical society -- the intricate web of patronage and dependence that existed in England. But the conflict came from the colonists' conception of rulers as an alien class of exploiters whose was the plundering of the colonies. In large part, colonial politics was the effort to restrain official avarice. The author explicates the meaning of interest in political discourse to show how that conception was central in the thinking of both the popular party and the British ministry. Management of the of royal officials was a problem that continually bedeviled both the colonists and the crown. Conflict was perennial because the colonists and the ministry pursued diverging objectives in regulating colonial officialdom. Ultimately the colonists came to see that safety against exploitation by self-interested rulers would be assured only by republican government.

Teaching Sex Roles: Four Experiences

Belief in appropriate sex role behavior is so embedded in culture that it becomes an unconscious ideology. Understanding the gender/sex-role differences, how they emerge, and their implications for social organization is a key component in contemporary courses in Sociology of the Family. Four techniques have been useful in exposing students to content and direction of sex-role socialization, its impact on shaping aspirations, and how discrimination operates to inhibit deviance from traditional role expectations. (1) Socialization Content: Children's Television (see also Levinson, 1976). Students learned about content analysis, collectively developed a code system, and analyzed 60 hours of Saturday morning network television programs. The proportion of males and females, their roles in the plot, and the adult male/female occupational roles were examined. (2) Direction of Content: Toy Salesperson (see also Kutner and Levinson, 1978). Students were directed to enter toy stores, toy sections of department stores, and the like and ask salespersons to suggest birthday presents for their 5-year-old twin nephew and niece. If initial suggestions were sex stereotyped, students asked for something a bit more creative or a toy their nephew and niece could share. Suggestions were recorded and experiences shared in class.