Norman Yoffee

The Decline and Rise of Mesopotamian Civilization: an Ethnoarchaeological Perspective on the Evolution of Social Complexity

The typological schemes constructed by many archaeologists to explain the rise and fall of civilizations have neither accounted for the processual changes involved in the evolution of social complexity nor contributed to the development of a comparative method for considering regularities and variation in social behavior. This paper begins with a review of the foundations on which archaeologists have based their conceptions of social evolution. A critical test of the assumptions of “evolutionism” is then provided by case studies in Mesopotamian civilization in which materials from both preliterate and literate times are examined. Using ancient, emic documentation that is recovered as part of the archaeological record, such studies may logically be termed ethnoarchaeological. It is suggested that the customary analogy between social change and biological evolution is inappropriate and that a new problem orientation will facilitate more productive research into the dynamics of social evolution. You would be surprised at the number of years it took me to see clearly what some of the problems were which had to be solved. . . . Looking back, I think it was more difficult to see what the problems were than to solve them, as far as I have succeeded in doing, and this seems to me rather curious. Charles Darwin When we define a word we are merely inviting others to use it as we would like it to be used . . . the purpose of definition is to focus argument upon fact and . . . the proper result of good definition is to transform argument over terms into disagreements about fact, and thus open arguments to further inquiry. C. Wright Mills

Archaeological theory : who sets the agenda?

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Making Ancient Cities Plausible

The state of archaeological research on ancient cities is presented in three edited volumes, and our understanding of ancient urbanism is undoubtedly advanced. Some venerable questions are renewed, including how and whether ancient cities differ from modern ones. However, the chapters consist mainly of narrowly focused aspects of ancient cities, and there are few interconnecting themes running through each volume. Future investigations of ancient cities will depend on an engagement with modern urban and social theory and from new kinds of comparative studies.

The Evolution of Simplicity

“Dear Norm” (wrote the editor of CA), “I see several reasons for inviting an archaeologist, and more specifically you, to review this book. Scott addresses some basic questions about the relations of state to local populations, economic activities, and related matters such as record-keeping, systems of naming and measurement, etc. His claims extend quite broadly to states in general, but the examples that he draws from are from the last few centuries, rather than the longer record of states. Moreover, much of the evidence that he cites has to do with buildings, roads, field patterns, etc.—topics that archaeologists research as well. So it seems to me that an archaeologist familiar with early states could see whether Scott’s arguments apply to [them] . . . This book, by a major social scientist, . . . could either have yet another review by a sociocultural anthropologist, or one of the very few reviews by an archaeologist.” “Dear Ben” (I replied), “I’ll try to do the book justice, which will be challenging.” Little did I know. Modern states, according to Scott, attempt “to make a society legible,” that is, to take ineffably complex and “illegible” local social practices and to create a standard grid so that leaders and bureaucrats can record, monitor, and control them. “Legibility” is effected by the state, which mandates the formation of permanent last names, standardization of weights and measures, implementation of cadastral surveys, uniformity in legal discourse, and, not least, the promotion of a single official language. The environment is similarly rationalized and simplified by planners, engineers, and architects who implement a “high-modernist ideology” of scientific and technological progress for a utopian goal. Scott exemplifies this ideology by showing historically how states transformed forests from nature to natural resource, reducing a complex of habitats for the sake of economic productivity. This was accomplished by minimizing the diversity of species, creating straight rows in large tracts, eliminating weeds and varmints, and in

Robert McCormick Adams: An Archaeological Biography

Robert Adams celebrated his 70th birthday on July 23, 1996. Forty years ago American Antiquity published his first journal article, which helped launch a remarkable career. Adams has influenced not only fundamental aspects of social evolutionary theory and archaeological reconnaissance surveys but also the structure of support for science in the United States and abroad. At the 1996 meetings of the Society for American Archaeology, Adams was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. This essay traces the intellectual influences on Adams, the progress of his fieldwork, and the exposition and development of his ideas in his monographs and major essays. The significance of his work is assessed, and a bibliography of his principal archaeological writings is included.

Early Stages in the Evolution of Mesopotamian Civilization: Soviet Excavations in Northern Iraq

Between 1969 and 1980, Soviet archaeologists conducted excavations of Mesopotamian villages occupied from pre-agricultural times through the beginnings of early civilization. This volume brings together translations of Russian articles along with new work.

Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations , by Norman Yoffee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-81837-0 hardback £45 & US

1. Evolution of a factoid 2. Dimensions of power in the earliest states 3. The meaning of cities in the earliest states and civilizations 4. When complexity was simplified 5. Identity and agency in early states: case studies 6. The collapse of ancient states and civilizations 7. Social evolutionary trajectories 8. New rules of the game 9. Altered states: the evolution of history.

75; ISBN 0-521-52156-4 paperback £19.99 & US

White, Leslie 1960 Panel five: social and cultural evolution. In Issues in evolution, edited by S. Tax. Evolution After Darwin 3:207-243. White, M. I. D. 1968 Models of speciation. Science 159:1065-1070. 1978 Modes of speciation. Freeman, San Francisco. Yoffee, Norman 1979 The decline and rise of Mesopotamiam civilization: an ethnoarchaeological perspective on the evolution of social complexity. American Antiquity 44:5-35.

34.99, 291 pp.

A small archive of economic documents from the city of Kish in the late Old Babylonian period records amounts of money owed to the “supervisor of kezertu women” from the kezertu account. The employment of kezertu women in ritual performance is investigated as well as the managerial activities of the “supervisor of kezertu women.” The historical reasons for the migration of the cult of Istar of Uruk to Kish and the economics of ritual performance are considered.

Do You See Yonder Cloud That's Almost in the Shape of a Camel? Reply to Peters

Pat Culberts scholarship and teaching are marked by both an insistence on rigorous attention to data and a gentleness and humaneness in which scholarly inquiry should flourish. I discuss in this paper one aspect of his research—the size and degree of political integration of Maya polities—by means of a comparison with Mesopotamian examples.