Social Integration and Architecture - 2

Architectural remains delineate prehistoric communities, and architectural spaces and boundaries - the built environment - help to create the social order that maintains living communities. This chapter examines the role of architecture in the social integration of non-hierarchical societies. Group rituals are essential to that integration, and architecture provides both shelter and symbolic content for the rituals. Social groups are often united or divided by the construction and use of shared structures. In ethnographically known Pueblo societies architecture is closely tied to ritual and ritual societies, though many social groupings are not differentiated architecturally. Pueblo architecture thus discourages extreme social segmentation and contributes to social integration.