Beyond hierarchy: the archaeology of collective governance

Abstract

The question interrogated here, through the case study of agricultural resources, is whether the governance of collective rights of property in past non-literate communities can be explored through archaeological methods. Property rights and the structures for their governance are an expression of social relations. According to Alchian and Demsetz (1973, 16), the ‘techniques, rules, or customs to resolve conflicts that arise in the use of scarce resources’ that underlie property rights and their governance are likely to be consonant with each community’s perceptions of individual and collective relationships, rights and obligations in relation to others both within and beyond their own territory. This paper explores through seven brief illustrative exemplars the development of a methodology for inferring the practical details of collective governance of agricultural property in the non-literate past.

Keywords:

• Common property regime
• common rights
• property rights
• governance
• pasture
• arable

Acknowledgements

Although the title of this paper alludes indirectly to that by Dr John Robb (2010), there is no connection between the two, nor is Dr Robb responsible for any of the views expressed here.

I am grateful to Dr Peter Topping and Mike Middleton for corresponding with me about cord rig, and to the anonymous referees for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper; its errors and misconceptions remain incorrigibly my own. The following generously gave permission for reproduction of figures: Dr Stephen Upex and the Royal Archaeological Institute, English Heritage, Dr Peter Topping and the Prehistoric Society, RCAHMS and Mike Middleton, and the University of Cambridge Committee for Aerial Photography.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susan Oosthuizen

Susan Oosthuizen is University Senior Lecturer in Historic Environment at the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, and is affiliated to the University of Cambridge Department of Archaeology, where she is a Member of the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research. She is the author of several books and numerous papers on the origins and development of early medieval agricultural landscapes and settlement, and her most recent book, Tradition and Transformation in Anglo-Saxon England: Archaeology, Common Rights and Landscape, was published by Bloomsbury in 2013.