Cooperation and Collective Action: Archaeological Perspectives

8: Cooperation and Competition among Late Woodland Households at Kolomoki, Georgia

175 How do collective social groups form and persist in light of the obstacles posed by the pursuit of individual self-interests? The dynamic between competition and cooperation has emerged as a major topic of concern, as evidenced by its inclusion on a list of the “big questions” in contemporary science compiled by contributors to the journal Science (Pennisi 2005). It is one of only a few topics on that list that pertain specifically to the social sciences (Steckel 2007; see also Feinman, chapter 13). Given the attention archaeologists have devoted to the development of complex societies, one might imagine that the tension between competition and cooperation would form a topic of concerted research; yet this has not been the case. As Pauketat (2009: xvi–xiii) recently noted, archaeologists have paid surprisingly little attention to conflict, particularly among the native prehistoric societies of North America. On the opposite side of the coin, as Blanton and Fargher (2008: 1) observe, anthropologists have largely abdicated the study of cooperation and collective action to scholars in other disciplines. Nevertheless, the dynamic between cooperation and competition has been implicit in anthropological treatments of social complexity almost since their inception (see contributions to this volume by Carballo, chapter 1; Feinman, chapter 2; Roscoe, chapter 3). In the mid-twentieth century, neoevolutionist archaeologists searched for the triggers that stimulated evolutionary progression from one type or stage to the next, looking mainly to stimuli external to 8 Cooperation and Competition among Late Woodland Households at Kolomoki, Georgia Thomas J. Pluckhahn 176 Thomas J. Pluckhahn society (e.g., Sahlins 1958; Service 1958, 1962). Frequently, those external stimuli were framed in terms of intersocietal conflict (Carneiro 1970, 1978, 1981; Dye 2009). Archaeologists prescribing to stricter evolutionary approaches (i.e., Darwinian archaeologists and behavioral ecologists) have modeled the dynamic between competition and cooperation in greater detail (e.g., Bonhage-Freund and Kurland 1994; Kantner 1996; Kohler 2004; Kohler, VanBuskirk, and RuscavageBarz 2004; Kohler, Van Pelt, and Yap 2000; Kohler and Van West 1996; Stanish 2004; Stanish and Haley 2005). Drawing insights from evolutionary ecology (e.g., Richerson, Boyd, and Henrich 2003; Smith 2003; Smith and Bird 2005) and game theory (e.g., Axelrod 1984, 1997), they assume—based on natural selection— that individuals act according to their self-interests (see extended discussion by Blanton and Farger, chapter 5). This presents an impediment to the development of larger and more complex social formations, in that individuals can reap the benefits of collective action without participating (thus negating the selective advantages of cooperation). External competition (Kohler 2004: 4) and internal communal ritual (Stanish and Haley 2005: 64–65) foster greater cooperation and the development of larger, more complex societies. Another, more diverse group of archaeologists assert that decisions regarding cooperation are complex and historically contingent rather than determined by natural selection. Many of these are rooted in Marxist theories of internal relations (Gramsci 1971; Ollman 1976), looking to conflicts within societies as the sources of change (e.g., Bender 1990; Gilman 1981; McGuire 1992; Nassaney 1992, 2001; Sassaman 1993). Some also draw from theories of agency and practice (Bourdieu 1977, 1980; Giddens 1979; Saitta, chapter 6). In contrast with evolutionary models, Marxists generally see communal ritual and cooperative labor as features already well established in small-scale societies; inherent contradictions in these are manipulated by individuals and factions to suit their own interests, giving rise to greater complexity (Bender 1990; Gilman 1981; Lee 1990; Nassaney 1992, 2000; Pauketat 2000; Saitta and Keene 1990). Thus, in these works internal competition is generally assumed to become more pronounced as societies become more complex, although divisions may be masked by ideologies promoting a more egalitarian vision. Dual-processualists (Blanton et al. 1996; see also Feinman, chapter 2) strike something of a balance between evolutionary and Marxist perspectives. Like the latter, they often draw from practice theory and emphasize strategic political action, albeit within the constraints imposed by culture (Blanton et al. 1996: 2). Like evolutionary archaeologists, they also emphasize regularities across cultures , positing a distinction between two categories of political economic strategies : network, wherein actors strive for prominence through the maintenance of exclusionary ties to people and groups outside their area, as manifested in patrimonial rhetoric and prestige goods exchange; and corporate, in which power is shared across subgroups and emphasis is placed on cooperative labor projects and rituals reinforcing broad themes such as fertility and renewal (Blanton et al. cooPeraTion and comPeTiTion...