Building a New Biocultural Synthesis: Political-Economic Perspectives on Human Biology

5. Linking Political Economy and Human Biology: Lessons from North American Archaeology

Chapter 5 Linking Political Economy and Human Biology: Lessonsfrom North American Archaeology Dean 1. Saitta Archaeologists, with a unique view ofrelationships between environment, society, and human biology over large units of space and time, like to emphasize the importance of their discipline for understanding the human condition. Archaeology thus can provide a long-term, historical perspective on human survival problems and the relative costs and benefits ofdifferent strategies (e.g., technoeconomic, organizational) for coping with those problems. The study of health in prehistory has amply demonstrated its relevance to archaeology's goal of understanding the biocultural consequences of different survival strategies. The study of human remains is perhaps the best means available for identifying patterns ofresource deprivation and differential activity within and between human groups, and hence relative social inequality. Because many important stressors leave indelible marks on human bone, bioarchaeology can potentially circumvent some of the difficult problems with inferring social inequality from other lines of archaeological evidence such as house size variation, interhousehold wealth differentials, settlement hierarchies, and so on (e.g., see White 1985; Reid and Whittlesey 1990). As with any set of archaeological observations, however, the social meaning ofdocumented variation (or lack thereof) in biological well-being for any given case is not transparent. Biological markers could be the product of many different processes, and we cannot always read straightforwardly from observable patterns in bioarchaeological data to politicaleconomic reality. A variety of historically specific "contextual" factorsecological , biological, political, economic, and cultural-affect human 127 128 Building a New Biocultura1 Synthesis health and thereby complicate bioarchaeological interpretation. Bioarchaeologists have long been aware of this multiplicity of causes and have recently engaged in stimulating debate about it (e.g., Wood et al. 1992; Goodman 1993). From the perspective of this chapter, the recognition of complexity is as exciting as it is sobering. It is exciting because it is in the complications of real-world archaeological and bioarchaeological data---especially the incongruities between expected and observed patterns, or what Binford (1987) and Leone (1988) term ambiguity-that clues to novel organizational arrangements and alternative causal dynamics are to be found. The challenge in dealing with ambiguity so as to recognize novelty of process and cause, as bioarchaeologists have also pointed out, is to develop theory sensitive to the myriad contextual forces that shape human social life and biology, and to use multiple lines of evidence to evaluate that theory (see especially Goodman 1993). This paper takes up the theoretical challenge from a Marxist, classanalytical perspective. This perspective takes human labor as the entry point to analysis of the social lives and biological well-being of humans. More pointedly, it sees the production and distribution ofsocial labor as a useful entry point for integrating political economy and human biology. The first part of the paper outlines the basic structure and organizing assumptions of a class-analytical Marxist theory. It specifies the kinds of social differences created by labor flows, the relationships between labor flows and other social processes, and the implications for understanding human health and nutritional patterns. The second part examines case material from North American archaeology as a way to further develop theory and open new research directions. Material from the Mississippian Southeast and the Anasazi Southwesttwo areas abundant in empirical ambiguity and interpretive uncertaintyis especially useful in this regard. The conclusion summarizes the theoretical and methodological challenges facing bioarchaeological research in North America and beyond. Human Labor and Biology in Marxist Theory The distinctiveness of Marxist theory lies in its focus on the varied forms and conditions under which surplus labor is appropriated and distributed in society. By surplus labor, I mean the time and energy expended beyond the amount required (termed necessary labor) to meet the subsistence Linking Political Economy and Human Biology 129 needs of individuals. That all societies produce surplus labor was one of Marx's key insights, and this basic idea has been developed in anthropology by, among others, Harris (1959), Wolf (1966), and Cook (1977). Surplus labor or its fruit (surplus product) is required to replace tools and other items used up in the production process; provide insurance against productive shortfalls; care for the sick, infirm, and other nonproducers; fund administrative positions; and satisfy common social and cultural needs (Cook 1977, 372). Arrangements for mobilizing social labor vary widely in form. A vast literature examines these variations (e.g., Marx 1964; Hindess and Hirst 1975; Wessman 1981; Wolf 1982; contributors...