Class conflict, state formation and archaism

Abstract

During the last decade, archaeologists have written with steadily increasing frequency about processes of class and state formation that occurred in various precapitalist societies. While some have focused on the origins of states, others have considered the reorganizations that took place in the wake of the expansion of territorially based states. Many acknowledge a causal connection between social stratification and the state, even though they disagree about the nature of the state, social hierarchies and their linkages. While this article adopts an explicitly Marxist interpretation of the interconnections between the processes of class and state formation, on the one hand, and class conflict, on the other, it is also concerned with archaism as a related phenomenon. Its thesis is that archaism - those attempts to imitate or revive past symbols, styles, institutions and practices, to incorporate the old into new contexts - is often an integral feature of class and state formation and the struggles that ensue in such contexts.