Cognitive archaeology: a symmetry/symmetry-breaking model for the analysis of societies

Abstract

This paper explores the role of symmetry in social relationships. Research from experimental psychology and neuroscience suggests that symmetry is a conceptual property that mediates between structures of the mind and its manifestation in structures of social behavior. Fiske (1991), Bolender (2010) and others have shown that sets of symmetrical social structures organize social relationships in all societies from simple, egalitarian communities to complex, hierarchical state systems. I propose that the symmetrical ordering systems of social relationships can be seen in material culture, especially in lengthy trajectories in the archaeological record. I invoke Bolender’s symmetry/symmetry-breaking model to illustrate the continuities and changes in the symmetrical structure of ceramic design from the prehistoric to the contemporary period in Southwestern Pueblo society.

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