Early State Societies Research Articles

Вооруженные дети: погребения мальчиков с парадным вооружением в Причерноморье и на Рейне (конец IV — первая половина VI в.) и первый бой князя Святослава

Burials of children with weapons in the pre-state and early state societies of the era of the Great Migration Period — the beginning of the Middle Ages are rare. Still rarer are children’s burials, where archaeologists come across the burials of boys with prestigious weapons. These graves reflect the burial customs of the nobility. For the end of the 4 th — the first half of the 6 th centuries, two burials are distinguished — Tsibilium 1, burial 61 in Abkhazia and burial 809 in St. Severin’s Cathedral in Cologne. They are distinguished by a particularly rich and complete set of weapons. Undoubtedly, they belong to individuals who occupied the highest position in these societies. There are cases when armed children appeared on the battlefield, where they did not participate in the battle, but had to perform some ritual actions or symbolically replace their dead fathers (946, Prince Svyatoslav).

A Simple Model of the Rise and Fall of Civilizations.

The literature on the fall of civilizations spans from the archaeology of early state societies to the history of the 20th century. Explanations for the fall of civilizations abound, from general extrinsic causes (drought, warfare) to general intrinsic causes (intergroup competition, socioeconomic inequality, collapse of trade networks) and combinations of these, to case-specific explanations for the specific demise of early state societies. Here, we focus on ancient civilizations, which archaeologists typically define by a set of characteristics including hierarchical organization, standardization of specialized knowledge, occupation and technologies, and hierarchical exchange networks and settlements. We take a general approach, with a model suggesting that state societies arise and dissolve through the same processes of innovation. Drawing on the field of cumulative cultural evolution, we demonstrate a model that replicates the essence of a civilization's rise and fall, in which agents at various scales-individuals, households, specialist communities, polities-copy each other in an unbiased manner but with varying degrees of institutional memory, invention rate, and propensity to copy locally versus globally. The results, which produce an increasingly extreme hierarchy of success among agents, suggest that civilizations become increasingly vulnerable to even small increases in propensity to copy locally.

Thinking like a State : Embodied intelligence in the deep history of our collective mind

This article aims to show how the deep history of early State societies entails the development of a collective form of cognitive agency. It relates classical works in the anthropology of States (in particular Scott’s Seeing like a State) with the enactive account of biological and cognitive organisation, thanks to the unified ontology for self-organisation dynamics across scales offered by the Active Inference framework.Active Inference conceives of cognition as synchronisation across individuated sensorimotor states. It entails that biological or sociocultural constraints display a minimal form of cognition by shaping the behaviour of faster dynamics in a certain way. When such constraints collectively define a basic life form (an integrated, operationally closed system), they can therefore be said to embody adaptive knowledge properly speaking.The (en)Active Inference account I articulate here strongly motivates and methodologically grounds a holist approach in the social sciences. Indeed, it grounds the study of human societies in the role of structural constraints, whose “meaning” depends both on the broader system’s activity and in the historical context of their emergence. The present account of the dynamics of early urbanisation and State genesis aims to illustrate this approach.

…Возложил на голову его венец из чистого золота

The study focuses on metal details of headdresses of the Early Metals period (V—III mill. BC) from the Middle Eastern sites of the Late Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. The paper aims at clarifying the place and role of this group of material in development of social relations in the epochs of late prehistory and formation of early urban and early state societies. The author applies the comparative typological method and presents an overview of metal headdresses. Special attention is paid to the context of finds, which originate mostly from burial sites. The classification of diadems is based on the morphological principle. The earliest T-shaped diadems are known from the Balkan Chalcolithic, where they represent strictly local phenomenon. Long headbands appear in the Near East at the turn of V and IV mill. BC. In III mill. BC other types of head ornaments are worked out, such as oval and rhomboid frontlets and complex constructions. Some stable traditions in their construction and symbolism are traced. The finds are considered as markers of prestige and elevated social position, which is related to formation of elite groups. The ceremonial headdresses of local leaders demonstrated the hierarchical structure of the society. The religious symbolism of headdresses, in particular floral motifs, is considered in association with the idea of importance of the elite and its ritual activities aimed at preserving stability of the universe, community well-being and stimulating production.

Погребальные комплексы и обрядовая практика культуры яёй, Японский архипелаг

In the 1st millennium BC in Western Japan, emergency a new cultural tradition, which was different from the Jōmon Period. If in an early stage (approx. 10th — 8th centuries BC), during the transitional phase, was peaceful coexistence between the Jomon and Yayoi populations, then during the period from the 7th century BC to the 3rd century AD we can see a change from the economy of hunter–gathering to the producing one (agriculture, animal husbandry); the emergence of new technologies (metallurgy), innovation in the funeral rite and the social structure of Yayoi society. As a result of the gradual expansion of settlers from the Korean Peninsula, the Jōmon cultural tradition practically ceases to exist in most of the archipelago, with the exception of local variants on Hokkaido and Ryukyu Islands. In a number of popular science publications, we can read that these events and their significance for the territory of the Japanese archipelago are to a certain extent comparable with the discovery of the New World by Europeans and the subsequent dramatic destinies of the aborigines. The only difference is in the scale of the territories and in the fact that the Europeans actually interrupted the evolution of state and early state societies in pre–Columbian America, and on the territory of the Japanese islands, migrants from the continent, on the contrary, stimulated the emergence of proto–state formations. However, the process of introducing a new culture and accompanying technologies in reality was much more complicated, differed in different regions of the archipelago in its dynamics and degree of continuity with the previous Jōmon culture.

Resource utilisation and regional interaction in protohistoric Cambodia – The evidence from Angkor Borei

Angkor Borei is a protohistoric (ca. 500 BCE − 500 CE) site in southern Cambodia (Takeo Province), on the western edge of the Mekong Delta. Cambodia’s protohistoric period, concurrent with the Iron Age elsewhere in mainland Southeast Asia, is a period characterised by major socio-political transformation: early state formation, incorporation into the South China Sea network, and urbanisation. First occupied in the mid-first millennium BCE, Angkor Borei became the delta’s largest regional centre during the Funan period (c. 1st-6th century CE). This study builds on previous skeletal chemistry research, increasing the sample set by additional 15 individuals, to refine our understanding of the residential behaviour and exploitation strategies of the Angkor Borei mortuary sample. Using strontium, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen isotope measurements from tooth enamel and bone, and incorporating bioavailable baseline strontium isotope data, we find that the majority of individuals have a childhood 87Sr/86Sr signature consistent with locally acquired food resources. For those individuals with outlier 87Sr/86Sr values, utilisation of the broader regional environment is suggested without the need to infer long-distance migration. The evidence for population stability at Angkor Borei during this dynamic period of increasing regional societal complexity indicates that the catalysts for change are manifold. Many factors are likely to have contributed to the genesis of early state society including social differentiation, cultural exchange, mercantile activity, residential mobility, and settlement growth, rather than one ‘external’ prime causative factor.

Throwing their weights around? Anthropological perspectives on commodity and gift exchange at the dawn of the Early Bronze Age in western Anatolia

The growing body of literature concerning cultural transformations associated with longdistance trade networks between western Anatolia, the Aegean, and Cilicia in the third millennium BC still lacks synthesis regarding social processes and types of exchange involved between trading groups. This paper addresses the issue of longdistance transactions of metals in western Anatolia during the Early Bronze Age. The argument seeks to demonstrate that contact between a predominantly decentralized non-state and an early state society does not necessarily lead to immediate political centralization of the former but rather to a new spectrum of co-existing transactions and socio-political forms. The following contribution derives from empirical evidence of Near Eastern balance weights from the Early Bronze Age 1 (2950–2750 calBC) settlement of Çukuriçi Höyük, a coastal site in western Anatolia. This article is based on previously published archaeological material and addresses wider social implications that weighing and metrology may trigger in a nonscriptural society. The paper draws extensively on ethnographic records of metal trading societies and economic anthropology, in which assiduous attention is given to exchanges conducted outside of the ‘cultural sphere’.

Mohenjo-Daro's Small Public Structures: Heterarchy, Collective Action and a Re-visitation of Old Interpretations with GIS and 3D Modelling

Together, the concepts of heterarchy and collective action offer potential explanations for how early state societies may have established high degrees of civic coordination and sophisticated craft industries in the absence of exclusionary political strategies or dominant centralized political hierarchies. The Indus civilization (c. 2600–1900 bc) appears to have been heterarchical, which raises critical questions about how its infrastructure facilitated collective action. Digital re-visitation of early excavation reports provides a powerful means of re-examining the nuances of the resulting datasets and the old interpretations offered to explain them. In an early report on excavations at Mohenjo-daro, the Indus civilization's largest city, Ernest Mackay described a pair of small non-residential structures at a major street intersection as a ‘hostel’ and ‘office’ for the ‘city fathers’. In this article, Mackay's interpretation that these structures had a public orientation is tested using a geographical information systems approach (GIS) and 3D models derived from plans and descriptions in his report. In addition to supporting aspects of Mackay's interpretation, the resulting analysis indicates that Mohenjo-daro's architecture changed through time, increasingly favouring smaller houses and public structures. Close examination of these small public structures also suggests that they may at times have been part of a single complex.

Omride Palatial Architecture as Symbol in Action: Between State Formation, Obliteration, and Heritage

Omride Palatial Architecture as Symbol in Action: Between State Formation, Obliteration, and Heritage

Statecraft and expansionary dynamics: A Virú outpost at Huaca Prieta, Chicama Valley, Peru

Interpolity interaction and regional control were central features of all early state societies, taking the form of trade-embedded in political processes to varying degrees-or interregional conquest strategies meant to expand the polity's control or influence over neighboring territories. Cross-cultural analyses of early statecraft suggest that territorial expansion was an integral part of the process of primary state formation, closely associated with the delegation of authority to subordinate administrators and the construction of core outposts of the state in foreign territories. We report here on a potential case of a core outpost, associated with the early Virú state, at the site of Huaca Prieta in the Chicama Valley, located 75 km north of the Virú state heartland on the north coast of Peru. This site is discussed in the context of other possible Virú outposts in the Moche Valley, Pampa La Cruz, and Huaca Las Estrellas, and as part of a broader reflection on expansionary dynamics and statecraft.

Phum Lovea: A moated precursor to the pura of Cambodia? Sociopolitical transformation from Iron Age settlements to early state society

The understanding of Angkorian pre-state society has been greatly enhanced by an increase in archaeological investigation in recent years. From excavations conducted at Cambodian Iron Age sites we have evidence that attests to a transformative period characterised by increasing sociopolitical complexity, intensified inter- and trans-regional mercantile activity, differential access to resources, social conflict, technological transfer and developments in site morphology. Among the growing corpus of Iron Age sites excavated, Phum Lovea, on the periphery of Angkor, is uniquely placed to provide insight into increasing sociopolitical complexity in this area. The site is one of the few prehistoric moated settlements known in Cambodia and the only one to date to have been excavated. Excavation of the site has revealed an Iron Age agrarian settlement whose occupants engaged in trade and exchange networks, craft specialisation, metal production, and emergent water management strategies. These attributes can be seen as antecedent to the profound developments that characterise the first millennium CE polity centred on Angkor.

At the dawn of history: From Iron Age aggrandisers to Zhenla kings

The transition from Late Iron Age to early state societies in the riverine lowlands of the Mun Valley and northern Cambodia took place rapidly in the fifth and sixth centuries CE. Defining the former involves archaeological excavation, whereas the latter is best known from surviving temple structures and inscriptions in addition to the results of archaeological fieldwork. Several common threads link the two phases of cultural development. From the late fifth century BCE, Iron Age communities participated in the growing maritime exchange network linking Southeast Asia with China and India, bringing exotic ideas and goods into the hinterland. Iron itself had a major impact on agriculture and warfare. Salt, a vital commodity that is abundantly available in the Mun Valley, was exploited on an industrial scale. By the fifth century CE, an agricultural revolution involving permanent, probably irrigated, rice fields and ploughing underwrote a rapid rise of social elites. These leaders in society, named in the early historic inscriptions, maintained and elaborated prehistoric innovations.

No Country for Old People: A Paleodemographic Analysis of Migration Dynamics in Early Andean States

AbstractIn this paper, we present a paleodemographic interpretation of a complete mortuary population from the site of Rio Muerto (southern Peru) affiliated with the early Andean Tiwanaku state (A.D.500–1000). Although advances in biogeochemical paleomobility studies have revolutionized bioarchaeological approaches to certain aspects of migration, paleodemography continues to offer a valuable complementary perspective on migration and population dynamics. Notably, paleodemography, through reference to Uniformitarian age‐at‐death profiles, is uniquely equipped to identify age‐specific subgroups that are missing from the mortuary population. We argue that the marked absence of adult individuals in the M70B cemetery population is the result of the socially regulated movement of older adults or their remains from the state provinces back to the homeland. We suggest that the particular demographic composition of the Rio Muerto M70 cemetery population, when considered within its cultural context and compared to other available paleodemographic data, reveals potential patterns of adult return migration, and carries important implications for the political and social dynamics of early Andean state society. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Flint Knapping in the Late Bronze Age: A Dying Technology? A Perspective from the Lower City of Hazor

Expedient production constitutes a significant aspect of the lithic assemblages of the Bronze and Iron Ages, particularly of those postdating the Early Bronze Age. The study of this simple flint technology is usually neglected, framed under ‘opportunistic production’. The excavations at the Late Bronze Age Lower City of Hazor Area S, where flint items were collected systematically and sediments sieved, enabled a more detailed study of this relatively unexplored realm of material culture. We demonstrate through our analysis that although the reduction was simple, it was not opportunistic but rather composed of its own goals and logic. We further identify a new tool type — the ‘reverse lunate’ — and show that many of the tools are in fact small and could easily be overlooked without sieving. These findings not only demonstrate that flint knapping was still an integral part of domestic life in the Late Bronze Age, but also illustrate the potential of using this relatively common archaeological find to enrich our study of early state societies in the Ancient Near East.

The Earliest States in China: A Long-term Trajectory Approach

The origins, development, and makeup of early state societies in China have long been a favorite topic of research, though there has recently been an upsurge of attention among archaeologists in China and abroad. Research has been dominated by the identification of the Erlitou site from the early second millennium BC as the center of the earliest state in China, sometimes identified with the Xia Dynasty. Recently, several scholars have employed neo-evolutionary criteria for the identification of Erlitou society as China’s earliest state in an attempt to provide objective criteria for the traditional historiographical narrative. Overarching social and ecological models of cultural change have been severely criticized by anthropological archaeologists, and many archaeologists studying the development of ancient societies prefer to focus on individual case studies or specific institutions rather than on the state. In contrast to recent archaeological scholarship that has called for its total abandonment, we find the “state” a useful concept for understanding local trajectories as well as cross-cultural comparisons. In this article we suggest a way of incorporating the warnings against simplistic overarching models while maintaining the notion of rapid sociopolitical change associated with state formation. Based on an analysis of the long-term trajectory, we identify, in north China, two phases of rapid transformations: the first, starting around 2500 BC, when several unstable regional states evolved and declined, and the second, around 1600 BC, when an intraregional state, usually identified with the historical Shang, rapidly evolved.

Through the rearview mirror: Rethinking the Classic Maya Collapse in the light of Postclassic rural social transformation

Recent studies of post-collapse regeneration of early state societies have explained the renewed growth of social complexity using the concepts of template regeneration and stimulus regeneration. While such terms are useful generalized concepts, the discussion around them in practice inhibits an understanding of the various social processes implicated in the renewed growth of states, particularly due to the primary focus on elite urban populations. Rather than emphasizing types of regeneration, my approach analyzes how agents transformed rural communities during collapse and subsequent restructuring. Utilizing a case study from the Petén Lakes region, Guatemala, the article makes the point that rural commoners must be considered active to adequately characterize regeneration. An examination of the base of society focuses on intentional choices made to change settlement patterns, architecture and stone tool procurement and usage in order to better understand heterogeneity in the Classic-Postclassic transformation of Maya society (AD 750–1200).

Handaxes, Concepts, and Teaching

ABSTRACTThis paper argues that teaching of concepts is deeply rooted in human phylogeny. The basis of this argument is a consideration of the type of knowledge used to make handaxes, a tool that is found in the archaeological record beginning around 1.8 million years ago. A distinction is made between the human capacity for teaching concepts, which has a deep evolutionary history, and the types of learning that take place in classrooms that can be related to the social context of early state societies.

The Ultimate Sacrifice

Seeking to impress both gods and humans, early state societies across the globe displayed their power by ritually killing human victims.

Landscape Monuments and Political Competition in Late Bronze Age Anatolia: An Investigation of Costly Signaling Theory

Stone monuments as instruments for the display of political and ideological power are a well-established cross-cultural tradition in early state societies and empires. In this paper, we take another look at the question, why build monuments? or, more precisely, why build monuments in the landscape, away from urban centers that form the main foci for sociopolitical display, competition, and negotiation in these societies? We do so with reference to the landscape monuments of Late Bronze Age Anatolia and the power-political dynamics of the Hittite Empire to which they bear witness. Contrary to previous interpretations, we argue that these monuments are not commemorative of Hittite hegemony, but are a medium through which ongoing territorial contests are moderated. Using costly signaling theory as a theoretical framework, we formulate a simple, but explicit, model of landscape monument construction, which generates a series of temporal and spatial expectations to aid in the interpretation of landscape monuments in Anatolia and elsewhere.

Ancient bronze technology and nomadic communities of the Middle Gobi Desert, Mongolia

The Xiongnu period of Mongolian prehistory (ca. 3rd century BC–AD 2nd century) is notable for the emergence of an expansive nomadic state and major changes in metallurgical and ceramic technologies. A number of Xiongnu period and pre-Xiongnu period bronze and bronze-related artifacts from the site at Baga Gazaryn Chuluu in the Middle Gobi province of Mongolia were examined for their chemical compositions and microstructures. They include finished objects, leftovers from casting, and pieces of slag from copper smelting and the assemblage likely represents a combination of local and regional production as well as long-distance exchange items. Results show that the entire bronze manufacturing process, from smelting to fabrication, is represented at BGC sites and bronze working may have been technologically self-sufficient, though ore sources are still uncertain. Our evidence suggests that this bronze assemblage was the result of two different technological traditions characterized by either the dominant use of arsenic, enforced apparently by restriction in tin supply, or the profuse use of both tin and lead. The arsenic-based tradition was observed in the majority of pre-Xiongnu period objects while the tin and lead recipes were verified in most objects dating to the Xiongnu period. This shift in bronze tradition may reflect changes in inter-regional interaction with frontier groups beyond the Gobi Desert and with the early state societies of China.