Social Organization

A sociocultural system presents itself under two aspects: structure and function.
Systems have only two significant kinds of parts: the local territorial group and the family. There is a corresponding minimum of specialization, limited, with but few exceptions, to division of function or labour, along sex lines and to division between children and adults. The exceptions are headmen and shamans, they are special organs, so to speak, in the body politic. The headman is a mechanism of social integration, direction and control expressing the consensus of the band. The shaman is also an instrument of society; he may be regarded as the first specialist in the history of human society.
All human societies are divided into classes and segments.

Class: indefinite number of groupings each of which differ in composition from the other or others, such as men and women: married, widowed and divorced; children and adults.

Segment: indefinite number of groupings all of which are alike in structure and fuction: families,lineages, clans and so on.

On more advanced levels of development there are occupational classes such as farmers,pastoralists, artisans, metalworkers and scribes and territorial segments such as wards, barrios, counties and states.

Segmentation: is a cultural process essential to the evolution of culture, it is a means of increasing the size of a society or a grouping within a sociocultural system, such as an army. Segmentation is a means of maintaining solidarity and at the same time it enlarges the social grouping. A tribe for example could not increase in size beyond a certain point without resorting to segmentation: the formation of lineages, class, and the like.