TRANSITIONS IN SOCIAL-ORGANIZATION - A PREDICTIVE MODEL FROM SOUTHWESTERN ARCHAEOLOGY

A number of studies from experimental psychology suggest the existence of information-processing constraints that place limits on the number of people with which an individual may simultaneously interact. The e xistence of such constraints means that increases in the size of a hum an group will push that population toward ''scalar thresholds,'' at wh ich point a transformation of the social order must take place to reor ganize patterns of group interaction. The model developed here incorpo rates ethnographic data into the scalar theory of social change in an attempt to refine the precision with which scalar thresholds may be pr edicted. This scalar model contributes to an understanding of social c hange in small- to midsized sedentary populations and provides insight into processes by which social differentiation can emerge in these so cieties. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.