A lineage-bonded society is a type of
acephalous society predicated on claims of a common
ancestor
An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder or a forebear, is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from whom ...
.
A lineage-bonded society is by population, the smallest classification of acephalous society. Beyond a certain size threshold, claims of common lineage become untenable, and the social ties resulting from those claims destabilize. A lineage-bonded society that outgrows its limits may break apart into subgroups. Such branches would then either become separate lineage-bonded societies, or would merge with a neighboring society. When two lineage-bonded societies merge in such a way, the outcome is a
land-bonded society
Land-Bonded Societies are acephalous societies that fall in between lineage-bonded societies and village-bonded societies.
Land-bonded societies are strictly agrarian, excluding inherently nomadic pastoralists from society. They form from th ...
A lineage-bonded society may harbor a
secret society
A secret society is a club or an organization whose activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence a ...
or may be large enough to support
age sets but can't sustain both secret societies and age sets, and cannot make the
transition to statehood
Transition or transitional may refer to:
Mathematics, science, and technology Biology
* Transition (genetics), a point mutation that changes a purine nucleotide to another purine (A ↔ G) or a pyrimidine nucleotide to another pyrimidine (C ↔ ...
.
This society is similar to a
band society
A band society, sometimes called a camp, or in older usage, a horde, is the simplest form of human society. A band generally consists of a small kin group, no larger than an extended family or clan. The general consensus of modern anthropology ...
.
See also
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Ethnic group
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
*
Tribe
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English language, English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in p ...
*
Blood quantum laws
Blood quantum laws or Indian blood laws are laws in the United States that define Native American status by fractions of Native American ancestry. These laws were enacted by the federal government and state governments as a way to establ ...
*
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act of 1887 (also known as the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887) regulated land rights on tribal territories within the United States. Named after Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, it authorized the Pre ...
*
Dawes Rolls
The Dawes Rolls (or Final Rolls of Citizens and Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes, or Dawes Commission of Final Rolls) were created by the United States Dawes Commission. The commission was authorized by United States Congress in 1893 to exec ...
References
* Based on material presented by
Joseph C. Dorsey at
Purdue University
Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...
Anthropological categories of peoples
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