Objects of Memory: The Ethnography and Archaeology of Heirlooms

With the emergence of chiefdoms, a new ideology of inherited social difference had to be created and sustained over time. One way that inherited social inequalities may have been constructed, legitimated, and maintained is through the transmission of heirlooms or artifacts that objectified a collective ancestral past. Archaeologists have generally viewed heirlooms as anomalies or complications in the archaeological record. In this paper, however, I argue that, if identified, heirlooms have the potential to provide a richer and finer-grained understanding of the human past, in general, and to aid in the determination of hereditary rank, in particular. I discuss and compare the ethnographic evidence for heirloom use in bands, tribes, and chiefdoms, and, based on this evidence, I suggest criteria by which heirlooms might be identified in the archaeological record. Some examples of possible heirlooms from the archaeological literature are also presented. Finally, an evolutionary model for the circulation and disposal of heirlooms is proposed.