Timothy Earle

The evolution of human societies : from foraging group to agrarian state

1. Introdution Part I. The Family-Level Group: 2. The family level 3. Family-level foragers 4. Families with domestication Part II. The Local Group: 5. The local group 6. The family and the village 7. The village and the clan 8. The corporate group and the big man collectivity Part III. The Regional Polity: 9. The regional polity 10. The simple chiefdom 11. The complex chiefdom 12. The archaic state 13. The peasant economy 14. The evolution of global society.

Ideology, Materialization, and Power Strategies

Ideology, as part of culture, is an integral component of human interactions and the power strategies that configure sociopolitical systems. We argue that ideology is materialized, or given concrete form, in order to be a part of the human culture that is broadly shared by members of a society. This process of materialization makes it possible to control, manipulate, and extend ideology beyond the local group. Ideology becomes an important source of social power when it can be given material form and controlled by a dominant group. We illustrate this process using three archaeological case studies: Neolithic and Bronze Age chiefdoms of Denmark, the Moche states of northern Peru, and the Inka empire of the Andes.

Exchange Systems in Prehistory

Thirty years ago today (and then some), Exchange Systems in Prehistory (Earle and Ericson 1977) was published. The editors of the present volume offered me the chance to consider how exchange studies have grown over the last generation and what major challenges lie ahead. My plan is to summarize briefly the state of the field in the 1970s and then trace briefly major forward movements leading to this first decade of the twenty-first century. Rather than review the countless studies and stream of useful books and articles on the topic, I offer thoughts on where we have come from and where we must go (Earle 1994, 1999). We have solved many analytical problems with source identification and have learned to view exchange as a means to form and maintain social and power relationships, but challenges remain ahead. We are just beginning to model the complex and conflicting ways in which elites and commoners in opposition and in collaboration used exchange in their daily lives and on special occasions. The present volume points directions in our path toward a more integrated view of economy and society.

Specialization, exchange, and complex societies

1. Specialisation, exchange, and complex societies: an introduction Elizabeth M. Brumfiel and Timothy K. Earle 2. Salt, chert, and shell: Mississippian exchange and economy Jon Muller 3. Unequal development in Copper Age Iberia Antonio Gilman 4. From stone to bronze: the evolution of social complexity in Northern Europe, 2300-1200 BC Kristian Kristiansen 5. Power and moral order in precolonial West-Central Africa Michael Rowlands 6. Specialisation and the production of wealth: Hawaiian chiefdoms and the Inka empire Timothy K. Earle 7. Economic change in the lowland Maya Late Classic period Prudence M. Rice 8. The role of the be in the formation of the Yamato State Gina L. Barnes 9. Elite and utilitarian crafts in the Aztec state Elizabeth M. Brumfiel 10. Forms of finance and forms of production: the evolution of specialised livestock production in the ancient Near East Kathleen F. Galvin.

Staple Finance, Wealth Finance, and Storage in the Inka Political Economy [and Comments and Reply]

The development of the regionally integrated institutions of an expanding state society is predicated on the growth of systems of economic support. Both expansion of existing systems of finance and the development of alternative systems of revenue, such as tribute, administered exchange, and centralized taxation, may be of central importance to the state political economy. This paper examines the reorganization of the economic systems of the Inka state and the development of new forms of finance. State finance is dichotomized as staple finance, the direct or indirect mobilization of subsistence and utilitarian goods, and wealth finance, the manufacture and procurement of valuables, primitive money, and currency. It is argued that the requirements of production and management of goods were as important as the social relations of labor and exchange that are the focus of current discussions of the state political economy. The organization of the massive state storage system, specifically in the Upper Mantaro Valley of the central highlands of Peru, and the states mobilization and control of valuable commodities and special-purpose moneys are examined.

The Development of Social Stratification in Bronze Age Europe [and Comments and Reply]

The emergence of a hereditary elite class in Bronze Age Europe is now widely interpreted in terms of the redistributive activities of a managerial ruling class. This fuctionalist account of elite origins goes against a uniformitarian understanding of what ruling classes do in complex societies. It also is poorly suited to the concrete evidence for Bronze Age cultures in Europe. The rise of hereditary, superordinate social strata in prehistoric Europe is better understood as a consequence of the development of capital-intensive subsistence techniques. Plow agriculture, Mediterranean polyculture, irrigation, and offshore fishing limited the possibility of group fission and thereby gave leaders the opportunity to exploit basic producers over the long term. The observations that capital-intensification preceded elite emergence and that areas with greater intensification exhibited greater social inequalities confirm this nonfuctionalist account of the development of stratification in later prehistoric Europe.

A REAPPRAISAL OF REDISTRIBUTION: COMPLEX HAWAIIAN CHIEFDOMS

Publisher Summary This chapter presents the definition of redistribution and explores the complex Hawaiian chiefdoms, focusing on its evolutionary significance. Redistribution, a term familiar to most anthropologists, is still not well understood. Although it is commonly used in economic and evolutionary studies, its meaning remains imprecise. For Karl Polanyi (1957:254), redistribution describes a wide range of activities including the massive collecting and storage of goods in the archaic states of Egypt and Babylonia, the householding activities of a medieval manor and African kraal, and distribution of meat in a band society. Several separate institutional forms have been lumped together under the single cover term redistribution that needs deconstruction and separation from each other. A four-part typology of redistribution institutions may be possible: (1) leveling mechanisms, (2) householding, (3) share-out, and (4) mobilization. The latter three can be thought of being under the rubric of institutional mechanisms. In chiefdoms and primitive states, there is an elite stratum physically removed from most production such that these elites depend on goods and service mobilized from the commoner population to finance their public and private activities.

Status Distinction and Legitimation of Power As Reflected in Changing Patterns of Consumption In Late Prehispanic Peru

Patterns in household consumption reflect changing strategies of control, finance, and legitimation used by the Inka empire after their conquest ofthe northern Wanka of Central Peru. Changes in consumption reflect differential access to goods. In pre-Inka Wanka II, the evidence of social stratification was relatively marked; in Wanka Ill-under Inka domination-this difference continued but narrowed significantly. The symbolic referents of prestige wares that distinguished elites from commoners changed from local styles to those conforming to Inka stylistic canons. We also recognize changing participation in activities associated with economic control and legitimation. In Wanka II, elite households yielded evidence of greater involvement in storage and feasting. In Wanka III, the overall quantities of items associated with these activities fell and the difference between elites and commoners was diminished as the state co-opted local elite prerogatives of status and power.

Eventful Archaeology : The Place of Space in Structural Transformation

Unexpected ruptures in material culture patterning present interpretive challenges for archaeological narratives of social change. The concept of the event, as proposed by William Sewell Jr., offers a robust theoretical vocabulary for understanding the sudden appearance of novel patterning. Sewell defines historical events as sequences of happenings or occurrences that transform social structures by creating durable ruptures between material resources and their associated virtual schemas. Thus conceived, events occur in three phases: (1) a sequence of contingent happenings produces (2) ruptures in the articulation of resources and schemas, creating (3) an opportunity for rearticulation within new frames of reference. This perspective has much to recommend it for archaeology because it explicitly and uniquely grounds the concepts of structure, structural change, and agency in materiality. The implications of this approach are apparent in the cases of Iceland’s conversion to Christianity (AD 1000–1050), barrow construction during Denmark’s Bronze Age (1700–1500 BC), platform construction at Formative Chiripa, Bolivia (450–400 BC), and the planning and layout of Mississippian Cahokia, Illinois (AD 1050–1100).

Monumentality and the Rise of Religious Authority in Precontact Hawai'i [and Comments and Reply]

Changes in temple labor investment and sacrificial offerings indicate that the rise in religious authority of the Hawaiian chiefly hierarchy correlates with an increase in political centralization and the intensifying role of the chief as divine intermediary through time. Initially, temples were small public courts akin to traditional Polynesian shrines used to reaffirm genealogical ties. During a period of internecine warfare and political instability and conflict in the I5th century A.D., temples became extremely large, a practical symbol of the burgeoning power of elites as they used ritual labor obligations to reaffirm chiefly genealogical relationships and enhance class cooperation. After island unification in the i6th century, chiefly religious activity shifted to sacrificial ceremonies and the consumption of surplus goods and foodstuffs as a result of status competition. By the time of European contact in the igth century, divinely sanctified rituals associated with war and levying taxes were instituted to enhance the status and power of the paramount chief through personal displays of material wealth. The Hawaiian case appears to follow a common trajectory among complex societies, where religious authority is increasingly expressed through the political economy, and serves as a contextual model of a complex chiefdom undergoing rapid political stratification.