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Social identity is difficult to see archaeologically. Finding those differences in material culture that signify social differences, as language often does, has proven a formidable task. Most efforts in this area have looked for material differences in peoples of the recent past (Croes 1987; Grosball 1987; Patterson 1987; Rogers 1995) or even in the present (David et al. 1991), when we know ethnographically that differences existed. How much more difficult, then, is it to ask this question outside of the period when text can inform us? We figuratively shrug our shoulders and give up when the people being studied are far enough in the past. When we look at the Archaic or Paleoindian periods, archaeologists use terminology that equates projectile points with culture, as when we blithely speak of the “Clovis people” or the “Cochise Culture” (see LeTourneau 1998:67–71 for a discussion on the applicability of the use of Folsom points to define an analytic unit). But when pressed, few of us would claim that we know how or when projectile points indicate social or cultural differences, and there is no theory that explains such a linkage. When “stones and bones” are what remain, we have no recourse but to use what we have. Additionally, there are no systematic models to explain the social organization of mobile hunters and gatherers beyond the band, although we recognize Maxine E. McBrinn Networking the Old-Fashioned Way Social and Economic Networks among Archaic Hunters and Gatherers in Southern New Mexico 11 209 Maxine E. McBrinn 210 that modern hunter-gatherers have many social contacts outside their residential group. I propose here that there are two interband social groups that may be seen archaeologically and that while it may be possible to see these groups by examining a single artifact class, they are easier to identify when artifacts from multiple classes are used in the analysis. As suggested, social identity is inherently difficult to define and apply. Cultural anthropologists, who can ask their informants to identify themselves, have found that the answer to “Who are you?” varies depending on the context (Barth 1969; Jones 1997; Wolf 1982). Every individual has a number of identities that minimally reflect his or her varying roles as a family member, friend, neighbor, business partner , or stranger. Each of these roles contributes only a part of that person’s identity, and which role dominates at any time depends on the context, including where that person is at that time, to whom he or she is speaking, what he or she is doing, and the people nearby. Because social identity is inherently multidimensional (Barth 1969; Jones 1997; Wolf 1982), it is difficult to recognize and parse in contemporary societies or to decode which material markers identify any given aspect of identity. Identifying social identity solely through material culture is even more difficult . Archaeologically, social identity not only consists of entangled layers, such as kinship and language, and discrete values, such as sex, but also rests on material markers that we may not recognize as having the same significance or value as in the past. Before starting on any quest to discover identity through material culture or to examine distributions of social identity, archaeologists must be careful to acknowledge the intrinsic social richness present in each society and to consider and clearly define what kinds of social identity we hope to find. No single artifact class should or could be expected to reflect the full diversity of social identity that exists in every society (Croes 1987; David et al. 1991; Grosball 1987; Patterson 1987; Rogers 1995). I suggest that by examining different classes of material culture, particularly artifacts made and used in varying social contexts, it may be possible to tease out some of the multiple social identities that existed in the past. This chapter examines social identity among mobile hunters and gatherers during the Late Archaic period in southern New Mexico (McBrinn 2002, 2005). It builds on the geographic distribution of different style categories to suggest that craft-training networks existed within a larger economic sphere. Three kinds of artifacts were used in this study: projectile points, cordage, and sandals. These were chosen in part for the sample sizes available from sites of the appropriate period but also because they represent objects I assume were made and used in different contexts . Projectile points were used to hunt and were often carried outside residential sites. Cordage is ubiquitous, since it is used in composite objects as well as by...

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