ABSTRACT
The notion of social organization refers to the form, structure and pattern of relationships of people within society, which can include the interweaving of institutions, economic structures, familial or kin organization and position of a local group within the world system existing at the time. One of the most contentious questions asked by archaeologists has been ‘what sorts of social forms existed in the past?’ This question has been linked to the more pessimistic query ‘can we understand past societies on the basis of archaeological evidence?’ The fact that no convincing answers exist for either of these questions provides this chapter with a structure. My aim here is to provide an outline of the debates that are taking place at present within archaeology as to our understanding of past social forms and to sketch their historical genesis. I shall divide approaches into four: culture history; functionalist/evolutionary approaches (also known as processual archaeology); Marxist views; and the post-processual/hermeneutic stance (hermeneutics being the study of meaning or interpretation). This division necessitates an exaggeration of the differences between views which overlap on some points, but it will serve to give the flavour of present disagreements.
