Development Of Complex Societies Research Articles

Energy Consumption of Termite Colonies of Nasutitermes ephratae (Isoptera: Termitidae)

Measurements of CO 2 production of whole termite colonies showed that respiration intensity varies slightly during the daily cycle, that the relation between standard metabolism and colony size is best described with a negative exponential, taking into account the proportion of the various castes. Larger colonies were more efficient in their energy use, suggesting that energetic considerations may contribute in explaining the maintenance in evolution of complex societies.

Floodplains and the Development of Complex Society: Comparative Perspectives from the West African Semi‐arid Tropics

The diverse nature of iron‐using societies in the semi‐arid tropics of West Africa is illustrated by the very different sequences of growth and change in the floodplains of the Middle Senegal Valley and the Inland Niger Delta during the first millennium A.D. The Inland Delta is characterized by a pattern of rapid population growth over the course of centuries‐long occupation in very large, high‐density settlement mound clusters. The Middle Senegal Valley has low‐density occupation in fairly regularly spaced small villages. These differences are due, in part, to differences in the size, distribution of critical resources, and nature of subsistence scheduling conflicts and opportunities in the two floodplains. Faced with similar risks to agriculture posed by chaotic variation in the timing and extent of annual flooding, societies on both floodplains have responded in broadly similar ways historically by developing subsistence specializations that are integrated through exchange. Despite the large scale and considerable integration of first millennium societies in the Inland Niger Delta, the clustered settlement pattern that persisted even through the period of maximum population density at around A.D. 1000 indicates that centralizing pressures did not succeed in producing an effective administrative hierarchy at that time. Rather, various models of heterarchical organization provide a better “fit” for the archaeological data currently available. In the Middle Senegal Valley, on the other hand, the small and relatively dispersed nature of settlement around A.D. 900 should not immediately be assumed to indicate simple, autonomous, village‐level organization. Here, the possibility that complex territorial units composed of overlapping territories of subsistence specialists had already emerged in the first millennium deserves consideration. As archaeology works to counterbalance its long‐standing focus on vertical hierarchies as the primary modality of complexity, the archaeological sequences in these two African floodplains offer insights into the various ways that specialization, trade, population heterogeneity, and even urban growth may have emerged and flourished relatively unconnected to the development of social stratification and centralized power.

La ciudad y el origen de la civilización en los Andes. Sobre el imperativo y los límites de la comparación en la prehistoria.

Abstract/short description by Editorial Team:
 This article discusses the presence of urbanism in the Andean region. The author revisits numerous models of development of complex societies that have been proposed and are still in use. Much of them relates to the concepts of city and urbanism and such manifestations of complex society are often regarded as a universal and important element of societal evolution. Makowski's article stresses that Mediterranean urbanism includes a number of very characteristic ideas that do not find any equivalent in the Andean region. He suggests that Andean settlements may not be comparable to Old World cities.
 

Political economy and archaeology: Perspectives on exchange and production

Traditional approaches to the study of political economy are flawed in two respects. First, traditional approaches have submerged political economy within a discussion of political development and the evolution of complex society. Second, they have emphasized single dimensions of the economy such as production or distribution of resources as being the basis for political power. Current research has demonstrated that political economies are a mix of many different resource mobilization strategies that crosscut the production, service, and distribution sectors of the society. Archaeologists must attempt to identify this mix of strategies as a first step in reconstructing the structure of prehistoric political economy. Elites strive to control and mobilize resources from as many different sources as possible and invoke a common set of principles in doing so. These principles or components of the political economy are the accumulation, context, matrix control, and ideology principles. They are identified here as common mechanisms of resource creation, manipulation, and expropriation that can be applied to societies at different times and at different levels of organization.

Settlement Patterns, Chiefdom Variability, and the Development of Early States in North China

In the third millennium B.C., the Longshan culture in the Central Plains of northern China was the crucial matrix in which the first states evolved from the basis of earlier Neolithic societies. By adopting the theoretical concept of the chiefdom and by employing the methods of settlement archaeology, especially regional settlement hierarchy and rank-size analysis, this paper introduces a new approach to research on the Longshan culture and to inquiring about the development of the early states in China. Three models of regional settlement pattern correlating to different types of chiefdom systems are identified. These are: (1) the centripetal regional system in circumscribed regions representing the most complex chiefdom organizations, (2) the centrifugal regional system in semi-circumscribed regions indicating less integrated chiefdom organization, and (3) the decentralized regional system in noncircumscribed regions implying competing and the least complex chiefdom organizations. Both external and internal factors, including geographical condition, climatic fluctuation, Yellow River's changing course, population movement, and intergroup conflict, played important roles in the development of complex societies in the Longshan culture. As in many cultures in other parts of the world, the early states in China emerged from a system of competing chiefdoms, which was characterized by intensive intergroup conflict and frequent shifting of political centers. However, what is unusual about the Chinese case is the fact that the earliest states did not develop from the most complex of the chiefdom organizations, but from the least complex chiefdom systems then existing there.

Überfluß und Überleben - Risiko, Ruin und Luxus in primitiven Gesellschaften

In their search for "primitive man" anthropologists of the seventies have constructed an "original affluent society" in the Stone Age, when people leda life in leisure and relative superabundance embedded in the harmonies of nature. These early subsistence economies have been reconstructed as basing on the principles of risk minimization and leisure preference. The present article shows that risk minimization is just one element ofa wider spectrum of coping with risks and the danger of ruin. In subsistence economies long- term survival requiresa broad spectrum of different behavioral patterns. In situations of scarcity or danger, the acceptance of calculated risks can increase the chances of survival per saltum. Under less extreme conditions, risk prevention by portfolio formation is generally more effective. as a strategy to reduce f1uctuations. Risk prevention can finally be made more profitable by suitable technological management of f1uctuations. Thusa risk spiral as a dynamizing principle in the development of complex societies is genera ted: The reduction ofa particular risk leads to new types of uncertainty which in turn require further (risky) innovations. This mechanism createsa permanent innovation pressure responsible for the restJess transformations in complex societies. Beyond surplus and luxury, the article presents elements of alternative risk strategies and cost-benefit conditions which come into play with the evolution of alternative modes of subsistence. This may be interesting for future developments.

Uruk Colonies and Anatolian Communities: An Interim Report on the 1992-1993 Excavations at Hacinebi, Turkey

The first Mesopotamian city-states in the Uruk period (ca. 3800-3100 B. C.) pursued a strategy of commercial expansion into neighboring areas of the Zagros Mountains, Syria, and southeastern Anatolia. Recent research in these areas has located several Uruk outposts, in what is apparently the world's earliest-known colonial system. Although some Uruk "colonies" have been excavated, virtually nothing is known about either the operation of this system or its role in the development of local polities in Anatolia. Excavations at the site of Hacinebi, on the Euphrates River trade route, investigate the effects of the "Uruk Expansion" on the social, economic, and political organization of southeastern Anatolia during the fourth millennium B. C. Hacinebi has two main Late Chalcolithic occupations—a pre-contact phase A and a later contact phase B with high concentrations of Uruk ceramics, administrative artifacts, and other Mesopotamian forms of material culture. The Hacinebi excavations thus provide a rare opportunity to investigate the relationship between the Uruk colonies and the local populations with whom they traded, while clarifying the role of long-distance exchange in the development of complex societies in Anatolia. Several lines of evidence suggest that the period of contact with Mesopotamia began in the Middle Uruk period, earlier than the larger colonies at sites such as Habuba Kabira-South and Jebel Aruda in Syria. The concentrations of Uruk material culture and the patterns of food consumption in the northeastern corner of the Local Late Chalcolithic settlement are consistent with the interpretation that a small group of Mesopotamian colonists lived as a socially distinct enclave among the local inhabitants of Hacinebi. There is no evidence for either Uruk colonial domination or warfare between the colonists and the native inhabitants of Hacinebi. Instead, the presence of both Anatolian and Mesopotamian seal impressions at the site best fits a pattern of peaceful exchange between the two groups. The evidence for an essential parity in long-term social and economic relations between the Mesopotamian merchants and local inhabitants of Hacinebi suggests that the organization of prehistoric Mesopotamian colonies differed markedly from that of the better-known 16th-20th century European colonial systems in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Tuxtla Mountains, Southern Veracruz, Mexico

Recent surveys in the Tuxtla Mountains of southern Veracruz, Mexico, indicate that the region had a long history of occupation, beginning around 1400 B.C. and lasting until the Spanish Conquest. Settlement patterns during the Formative Period were largely unsegregated, with only nominal development of social complexity toward the end of the period, whereas those during the Classic Period were much more complex, with a well-developed settlement hierarchy, the growth of urban centers, a differentiated craft economy, and major contacts with highland Mesoamerica. Comparisons with surveys of comparable size from other parts of the south Gulf Coast show significant variability in population history, settlement patterns, and development of complex society. The settlement history of the south Gulf Coast was, therefore, not a homogeneous phenomenon, although resemblances in ceramic assemblage content and population history between the Tuxtlas and the Coatzacoalcos River valley suggest a closer relationship than with other areas of the Gulf Coast.

The Pivot: Comparative Perspectives from the Four Quarters

The fixity of urban centers has been deeply implicated in models of political development from chiefdom to the state and early empire. For this reason, both Western and Chinese scholars have neglected the importance of non-permanent or shifting ceremonial centers or capitals like China's in the evolution of complex society. A brief examination of the touchstone cultures of early Mespotamia and Classical Greece, to which China is compared, demonstrates how narrowly conceived and exclusive the Euro-American view of complex society constructed by archeologists and historians has been on the issue of mobility and the relation of ruler and polity to territory. The Chinese case, like those of India and South Asia, suggests that the moving center should be recognized as a common variant in the process of socio-political development and change. The integration of the Asian state and early empires into the comparatist project seeks to analyze the formative relations between religious and cosmological conceptions and social, political and economic development.

A Second-Terrace Perspective on Monks Mound

Monks Mound is a premier example of monumental architecture occupying the center of Cahokia, the largest prehistoric Indian site north of Mexico. A massive slump on the so-called "second terrace" of the mound prompted geoarchaeological testing resulting in new data concerning the age and function of this enigmatic structure. These data support theory suggesting that construction of monumental architecture is most likely to occur early in the development of complex societies, in this case the Cahokia polity. It is concluded that Monks Mound was a purposeful political tool for the manipulation of mass psychology.

The Mycenaean palatial economy: Making the most of the gaps in the evidence

It has long been recognised that the Linear B archives from the Mycenaean palaces of Late Bronze Age Greece document ‘a massive redistributive operation, in which all personnel and all activities, all movements of both persons and goods … were administratively fixed’. Goods, land and services were transferred within the extensive territory of each palace without the equivalences of value between commodities which are a prerequisite of market exchange. The transactions recorded in the Linear B archives are thus unambiguously ‘redistributive’, an Aegean variant of a form of exchange widespread in the ancient civilisations, and as such have attracted the interest both of economic historians and of prehistorians concerned with the development of complex society. The term ‘redistribution’ embraces a range of possible forms, however, and in the case of the Mycenaean palaces poses a number of questions.

Toward an interpretation of the role of ideology in the evolution of complex society in Egypt

Toward an interpretation of the role of ideology in the evolution of complex society in Egypt

Central Gaul at the Roman Conquest: conceptions and misconceptions

Several recent reconstructions of the social and economic development of non-Mediterranean Gaul afterc. 200 BC have argued for the development of complex societies, characterized by the appearance of centralized political entities with urban – or at least urbanizing – communities. The emergence of such ‘Archaic States’ is often considered as having been restricted to a broad zone running eastward from the Atlantic façade through the northern Massif Central to the Swiss plateau. Five certain such states are usually claimed: Bituriges cubi, Aedui, Arverni, Sequani, Helvetii; and three probable: Pictones, Lemovices and Lingones. The constitutents of this zone were originally recognized by Dr Daphne Nash (1976; 1978a; 1978b; 1981), and her view has since been adopted in Britain by Champion and his collaborators (1984), Bintliff (1984) and, most recently, Cunliffe (1988: figure 38). Essential to the formulation of this hypothesis was a wide-ranging consideration of three domains of protohistoric evidence on Gaul: literary, most conspicuously Julius Caesar’s deBello Gallico; numismatics; and the settlement record of the late La Tène and its more shadowy antecedents. Among more recent commentators, a primary interest in the ‘core–periphery’ relationship (Cunliffe 1988; Rowlands et al. 1987) which existed between the Mediterranean world and Central Gaul is manifest. In a minimal view, this interaction may be envisaged in terms of the consequences of long-distance trade and subsequent military conquest spurring socio-political change. The unspoken by-product of this perspective is that differential development within non-Mediterranean Gaul is simplistically presented in terms of distance-decay from the Mediterranean littoral, with little attention being paid to the effects of physiographic diversity across this landmass.

Trade and the Origins of Agriculture in the Eastern Mediterranean

Trade and social stratification appeared more or less simultaneously in different parts of the Eastern Mediterranean prior to the advent of agriculture-based village economies. This formulation places trade at the head of a list of factors that favored the adoption and dispersal of agriculture, and contrasts with previous views that regarded the development of complex societies as the consequence of the chance innovation or evolution of agriculture. The evolution of complex societies was instead the cause of agricultural origins. Trade among Eastern Mediterranean societies provided the incentives for experimentation with domesticates to produce surplus wealth for trade or to support craftsmen who produced commodities for trade.

The Ninevite V Period and the Development of Complex Society in Northern Mesopotamia

L''existence de grandes villes fortifiées et d'états au milieu du 3e millénaire dans le nord de la Mésopotamie et en Syrie a été récemment mise en évidence grâce aux fouilles de Tell Mardikh (Ebla) et à l'identification de villes contemporaines à Leilan, Mozan, Chuera, Khoshi et Tara. Les processus qui ont mené, à la période précédente Ninive V. à l'urbanisation et à la naissance de l'état sont passés ici en revue. Ce développement au milieu du 3e millénaire représente, semble-t-il, un phénomène relativement soudain. Aucun indice ne permet actuellement de reconnaître des états ou des villes à la période Ninive V. Les sites connus sont relativement petits; l'architecture monumentale et l'écriture ne sont pas attestées, la stratification sociale n 'est pas très développée si l'on en juge par les rites funéraires, et l'artisanat spécialisé à plein temps n 'atteint pas le même degré de développement qu 'au milieu du 3e millénaire ou à la même période en Mésopotamie méridionale. Cependant, des indices du pouvoir croissant des élites, tant politique que social, apparaissent. Le grenier du Tell V de Telul eth-Thalathat et des structures analogues à Karrana 3 démontrent l'existence d'un stockage centralisé des denrées à cette période. De telles concentrations des biens peuvent être mises en relation avec l'accroissement du pouvoir économique de l'élite dans des chefferies complexes ou dans les premiers états dont l'économie est fondée sur le paiement du tribut et où les biens sont rassemblés et stockés par l'autorité centrale pour assurer le paiement des senices assurés par cette autorité. La technologie administrative mise en œuvre pour gérer le stockage et la distribution des biens à la période Ninive V est également mise en lumière par les sceaux-cylindres et les cachets. Les sceaux-cylindres Ninive V sont presque toujours de style géométrique, type « Jemdet Nasr du Piémont »; de tels sceaux se trouvent aussi dans le Hamrin ou ils sont toujours associés à des greniers, dans la Diyala et, au-delà du plateau iranien, sur des sites proto-élamites. A Suse où l'écriture était connue, les sceaux à motifs naturalistes et les sceaux à motifs géométriques n'avaient pas la même fonction, ce qui indiquerait une administration plus complexe qu'en Mésopotamie du Nord, où l'on utilisait uniquement des sceaux géométriques et où l'on ignorait l'écriture. Le stockage centralisé à grande échelle allant de pair avec l'administration nécessaire pour su gestion suggère l'existence d'élites au pouvoir économique et politique considérable à la période Ninive V en Mésopotamie du Nord, et ce, peut-être dans le cadre de chefferies complexes.

An Attempt to Build a Model for Long Distance Trade and the Development of Complex Societies in Prehistoric Southeast Asia

An Attempt to Build a Model for Long Distance Trade and the Development of Complex Societies in Prehistoric Southeast Asia

Sampling problems in regional interpretation in Hawaiian archaeology

Interpretations in Hawaiian archaeology over the last 15 years have been concerned with settlement, agriculture, population size, and social organization. Several multiyear projects in the late 1960s and early 1970s yielded data leading to the first major interpretations on these topics. The best known of these projects were at Makaha on Oahu (Green 1969, 1970, 1980; Ladd and Yen 1972; Ladd 1973), Halawa on Molokai (Kirch 1970, 1971; Kirch and Kelly 1975) and Lapakahi on Hawaii (Pearson 1969; Newman 1970; Rosendahl 1972; Tuggle and Griffin 1973). Lesser known, but equally important projects occurred at PololuHonokane on Hawaii (Tuggle 1973, 1976, 1979; Tuggle and Tomonari-Tuggle 1980), Kaloko on Hawaii (Renger 1970, 1973; Cordy et al 1975; Tainter 1973, 1976; Cordy 1976, 1978a, 1981; Tainter and Cordy 1977), and in the valleys of Halelea District on Kauai (Earle 1973, 1978a). The data from these projects not only stimulated interpretations on local (ahupua'a) histories; they also stimulated discussions of more general problems island-wide settlement changes (Cordy 1974a), the development of irrigated agriculture (Earle 1973; Riley 1975), the development of complex societies (Cordy 1974a, 1974b, 1978a, 1981; Hommon 1976; Earle 1973, 1978a), and the relations between intensified agriculture, the development of complex societies and population growth (Tuggle 1973; Cordy 1974b; Hommon 1976; Earle 1973, 1978a).

: A Study of Prehistoric Social Change: The Development of Complex Societies in the Hawaiian Islands . Ross H. Cordy.

American AnthropologistVolume 85, Issue 1 p. 174-176 Free Access A Study of Prehistoric Social Change: The Development of Complex Societies in the Hawaiian Islands. Ross H. Cordy. Roger C. Green, Roger C. Green University of AucklandSearch for more papers by this author Roger C. Green, Roger C. Green University of AucklandSearch for more papers by this author First published: March 1983 https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1983.85.1.02a00390AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume85, Issue1March 1983Pages 174-176 RelatedInformation

The Hawaiian case

Ross H. Cordy. A Study of Prehistoric Social Change: The Development of Complex Societies in the Hawaiian Islands. New York: Academic Press, 1981. xii + 274 pp. $29.00

Archaeological research on the development of complex societies in the Hawaiian Islands

Archaeological research on the development of complex societies in the Hawaiian Islands