INDEPENDENT OR ATTACHED SPECIALIZATION - THE ORGANIZATION OF SHELL BEAD PRODUCTION IN CALIFORNIA

Shell bead manufacturing on California's northern Channel Islands apparently played a critical role in the rise of a simple chiefdom and the operation of a lively regional exchange economy. Recent research has focused on expanding our understanding of the economic and sociopolitical context of this rich tradition of shell bead production and the means by which bead makers articulated with other specialists, elites, and consumers. Analyses suggest that bead makers were specialists, yet we find that widely used concepts of independent and attached specialization are difficult to apply to the Channel Islands case for a number of reasons. We explore these reasons and suggest a simplification of definitions of specialization so they better accommodate variability in the archaeological record. Analysis of several dimensions of bead production data from the region illustrates a dramatic increase in intensity of bead production and a shift from the manufacture of simpler to more labor-intensive bead types at ca. A.C. 1150-1300. These changes appear linked to the emergence of elites approximately seven or eight centuries ago in this region.