WHAT I BELIEVE: STRUCTURE AND THE PROBLEM OF MACROSOCIALITY

The recent turn in archaeology and other social sciences to the microscale analysis of agency, personhood, and identity has led to a neglect of analysis at the macroscale. With older frameworks such as neoevolution discredited or rejected, there has been relatively little emphasis on patterns of social change at larger geographical and temporal scales. Proceeding from the work of sociologist William Sewell Jr., I suggest that a focus on structures, events, and processes offers Southeastern archaeology a useful and theoretically flexible perspective on such patterns of incremental and exponential social change.