Past research has made it clear that technology is never an isolated variable in sociocultural systems.  On the contrary, it tends to be linked fairly closely with a whole series of other variables which evidently stand in a dependent relationship to it.  Thus it is especially true of many social organizational variables which are linked with distributive systems and tend to define their limits of possible variations, e.g., nature and extend of division of labor, maximum community size, etc.  Hence, by classifying societies on the basis of technology, we are, in effect, simultaneously controlling, wholly or in part, many other relevant variables (1966, pp.47-48).