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138 Krause Discussion As currently understood, a seriously reduced carrying capacity during the Altithermal period seems to have forced the Archaic stage inhabitants of the Great Plains into oasis areas or peripheral regions where they developed a diversified lifestyle (Wedel 1964: 88-94). It was from this diversified lifestyle that post-Altithermal differences in fauna and flora shaped a mosaic of adjustments. Among the elements of this mosaic were the following: (1) a highly mobile herd animal-hunting and High Plains foraging pattern in the Western shortgrass plains; (2) a less mobile, mixed woodland/tallgrass plains form of hunting and harvesting along the creeks and river courses in the Central Plains; and (3) a yet more sedentary, woodland-adapted pattern of hunting and gathering that focused on the broad, forested bottomlands of the major river valleys and feeder streams that edged the Plains on the east (Wedel 1964: 88-94). Mound building became bonded to the second and third elements of this pattern during Middle Woodland or Kansas City Hopewell times (Wedel 1986: 81-91). Before this bonding, however, and perhaps as early as 5000 B.C., the Archaic stage populations in the river valleys of the Eastern and Central Plains had achieved a productive balance in using locally available resources (Wedel 1986: 72-80). To the best of our knowledge, hunting and harvesting groups used portable tools, weapons, implements, and containers (Schmits 1987: 153-173). We may reasonably argue for a division of labor by age and sex structured by and through a kin-based system of task allocation in which, theoretically at least, all held equal shares in the mode of production. Such groups are usually consensus governed, with the role of leader falling to the adult male most capable of shaping and expressing that consensus. A kind of balanced reciprocity is typically the dominant form of economic integration. In historic native NorthAmerica this kind of economic integration was achieved through the custom ofhonoring by gift giving (Holder 1970). With communities of the size and mobility posited for Plains Archaic groups, the exchange of gifts could indeed have moved goods and services through coresident domestic groups with relative ease and efficiency. Insofar as the goods moved by way of gift exchange were consumable (such as deer or buffalo meat, hides, and baskets), and insofar as a return in service or kind was demanded by local custom, gift giving could have formed the basis for political action in Archaic stage groups. Presents of meat and other consumables, if not immediately returned, put the receiver in the donor's debt. Hence, these exchanges could be manipulated by experienced and ambitious hunters to place consanguineal and affinal Great Plains Mound Building 139 kinsmen in their debt and render them more amenable to consensusbuilding efforts. When decision making by consensus was focused on a daily and annual round of economic practices (i.e., when one man's interpretation of plant and animal behavior was valued above his competitors ), political success could be measured by the number of domestic groups a man could attract and hold from season to season and year to year as he moved himself and his followers to food. Although our knowledge of Archaic stage burial practices is scanty, individual mortuary rituals may have served to strengthen claims to leadership by providing the context for the disbursement or destruction of durable and consumable wealth, as limited as it seems to have been (Finnegan 1981; Fisher et al. 1985; Schmits 1987; Turpin, Hennenberg, and Risking 1986). In other words, burial rites provided intense, if periodic, opportunities for extensive gift giving. In theory, we suppose that all men had access to the means of production and distribution necessary for wealth manipulation and its investment in personalized mortuary ritual. In fact, we suspect that some men were more successful than others. We further suspect that such success was heritable in the sense that successful fathers tended to confer greater advantage to their offspring than unsuccessful ones. Even a temporary and consensual command of community resources and benefits may thus have taken the first tentative steps toward becoming focused on family lines. Leadership by consensus is, however, ephemeral. By its very nature it can only serve a population of limited size and permanence. To build and maintain a consensus-based following greater than a few domestic groups would require extraordinary skill and effort. Thus, in consensus-based groups, authority tends to be impermanent. The strong leader of a season might, through a series...

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