Practical and prestige technologies: The evolution of material systems

Design theory provides a useful means for analyzing both practical and prestige technologies, although the goals and constraints of each are very different. The aggrandizer model of prestige technology postulates that prestige items were essential elements in aggrandizer strategies and that prestige items emerged only under conditions of sustainable food surpluses and included the most important innovations of the last 30,000 years such as metal working, pottery, sophisticated art, and domesticated plants and animals. The aggrandizer model also accounts for the transformation of some prestige technologies into practical technologies.     

Self-Citation in Archaeology: Age, Gender, Prestige, and the Self

Citation analyses in archaeology have detected prestige tactics, shifts in research agendas, and patterns of gender differentiation. This paper focuses on self-citation in archaeology and systematically analyzes the factors that affect rates of self-citation. Self-citation rates in archaeology are significantly higher than in socio-cultural anthropology but are average for a social science with interdisciplinary ties to the physical sciences. Self-citation correlates weakly with the gender of the citing author and the geographic and thematic focus of research, but correlates strongly with the age of the author. Additional analyses reveal partial evidence for the use of self-citation as a prestige tactic. The paper concludes with a discussion of citations to writers close to the author (mentors, friends).     

The Production and Exchange of Marine Shell Prestige Goods

Marine shell ornaments have several characteristics that make them significant for archaeological analysis. Made from a raw material valued by cultures throughout the world and imbued with water, life, health, and fertility symbolism, shell objects have functioned as prestige goods. Shell prestige goods circulated between individuals, groups, and societies and materialized interpersonal relationships, making them valuable for archaeologists shifting focus from objects to the people in past societies. Shell ornaments had multiple roles, including ornamentation, wealth, marking status, and as ritual paraphernalia, and had varying symbolic associations even within a society. The rich ethnographic literature on shell use provides a source for archaeological model building. Marine shell artifacts often moved between societies and across long distances, offering a way for archaeologists to explore regional relationships and the interactions between ancient societies. To do this requires using several scales of analysis to investigate archaeological residues of a system that includes marine shell ornaments, the social organization of their production and exchange, and the people who made, displayed, and circulated them.     

Valuing Reputation and Prestige: Canadian Foreign Policy and the International Criminal Court

How do we explain the behavior of states when they appear to be engaged in normative international actions that carry some cost in terms of their material interests? This essay examines the relevance of reputation and prestige for Canadian foreign policy and, in particular, the role of these concepts in relation to Canada's leadership over the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC). It argues that Canadians and Canadian policymakers care about their country's international reputation and are motivated by the desire to gain prestige. Ottawa's decision to support enthusiastically the creation of an international criminal court demonstrates how the interaction of the Canadian self-identity as a good international citizen and the desire to be recognized as such translates into foreign policy.     

Hohokam Craft Economies and the Materialization of Power

The Prestige Goods Economy Model invoked by archaeologists to explain the development of power in middle-range societies generally fails to discriminate the varied roles of social valuables. This study illustrates a multi-faceted approach for identifying the symbolic utility of craft economies among the Hohokam in North America. Contextual analyses of marine shell artifacts disclose their functions as material symbols of group membership and identity, ritual performance paraphernalia, instruments of power, and insignia of office. These valuables were imbued with ideological meanings that legitimized the emergence of corporate modes of power from individualized networks. Applications of the Prestige Goods Economy Model in other world regions would also be enriched by more detailed examination of the meanings of social valuables.