Monica L. Smith (1999) develops an argument based on a dichotomy between "luxury goods" and "ordinary goods", where some of the ordinary items used in household activities and moved through kin-based exchange networks form an important, material component of group identity. This essay could also be used to support an argument for an intermediate category of cultural goods. Smith notes that the circulation and consumption of such ordinary but visually distinct household goods serve to maintain cultural links and symbolize status markers that probably precede, and indeed form the structure for, later social ranking. She observes that archaeological discussions of exchange often falsely imply that exchange links were established by an exclusive elite population and these links eventually become established and expand to ordinary goods.

Brumfiel and Earle (1987: 6) find the distinction between luxury and utilitarian goods setting the stage for the organization of economic activity in early complex societies, citing "... the lack of importance of subsistence goods specialization for political development." The sequence in which different types of goods are incorporated into exchange patterns is explained as an evolutionary sequence paralleling developments in sociopolitical complexity, so that "as trading routes and trading relationships became more firmly established, everyday goods were added to the merchants' repertoire...and came to supply not only valuable items for elites but also food staples and utilitarian wares for people in the society generally" (Berdan 1989: 113; cited in Smith 1999: 113).

Some scholars have historically placed a priority on the influence of status or luxury goods by elites in some centralized political sphere in stimulating and maintaining long distance trade links (Brumfiel and Earle 1987;Smith 1976), arguing that the political objectives of elites and aspiring elites were the impetus for long-distance links. Yet as M. L. Smith (1999) applies the socio-semiotics of Gottdiener (1995), the consumption of particular materials can have social significance and can convey information content at a variety of levels. Thus the capacity for kin-based reciprocal exchange networks to distribute household items over distance, or household level caravans to emphasize relatively mundane products, should not be underestimated.

The intent of many archaeologists focusing on the role of status goods exchange seems to be not necessarily to deny the capacity and symbolism of household-level exchange as much as it is to emphasize the political and economic significance of exchange in status goods controlled by elites. Goods that circulate widely within a particular community may serve to express community participation or corporate affiliation (Blanton, et al. 1996). Hayden's distinction of practical and prestige technologies focuses instead on effectiveness, for the first group, and high labor inputs for the second. Thus, to reconcile this with M. L. Smith's argument, the third group that includes "cultural goods" conveys important social and ideological information beyond the satisficing "effectiveness" stipulation, but simultaneously is widely available and cross-cuts social hierarchy.