Ritual, Labor Mobilization, and Monumental Construction in Small-Scale Societies

Abstract

Issues of labor mobilization for monumental construction are central to inquiries based in anthropological archaeology in particular as well as collective action theory in general. Societies at all scales built monumental constructions, yet the mechanisms of labor mobilization in small-scale societies remain poorly understood. Many scholars point to kin networks as sources of labor and ritual as a means of attracting laborers. These explanations fail to point to specific mechanisms that encourage cooperative labor among large groups. In this paper, I address this issue by outlining the importance of ritualized monument construction for creating and maintaining cooperative labor parties in small-scale societies. Theoretical and ethnographic evidence illustrates the importance of the four Rs of reciprocity, reputation, retribution, and reward in ritual cooperation. This in turn provides the backdrop for interpreting the scale of ritual and monumental construction during the Woodland period (500 BCE–600 CE) in the Middle Ohio River Valley to illustrate the importance of ritualized monumental construction in small-scale societies.

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