D. Blair Gibson
Department of Anthropology
El Camino College USA
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Population: Tens of thousands to millions.
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Administrative levels: 3
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Settlement tiers: 4
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External boundaries and internal districts
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King.
Royal family – is a caste or possesses castelike characteristics (marriage restrictions).
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Aristocracy.
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Commoners.
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State finance: taxation – full-time tax
collectors.
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Royal court.
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Ritual homicide (Eli Sagan).
Trend towards:
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Full-time appointed administrators.
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Professionalization of the military.
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Ecclesiastical cult institutions (Wallace 1966).
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Society is composed of lineages each headed
by a chieftain.
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One lineage, the Atyak, dominates the others
and its leader is the “king.”
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The “royal family” spins off sons of the
paramount chieftain to lead neighboring
acephalous peoples. “Chieflets”
Chieftains are politically autonomous.
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“King” has influence, not power.
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Non-Alur accept Alur domination voluntarily.
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No military specialists.
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No administrators beyond chiefs.
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No taxation.
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Capital punishment is absent.
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Caste distinctions are absent.
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The Island was divided up among 10 negara
polities.
The house of the negara at Klungkung was
ritually superordinate, but lacked any power.
The negara at Tabanan was 300 sq. mi in
extent and had a population of 80,00090,000
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Senior and junior leaders.
Multiple aristocratic houses – Tabanan had
100.
Each noble house was politically, jurally, and
economically autonomous.
Noble houses collected water taxes through
functionaries.
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Ecclesiastical cult institutions
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They lacked a professional military.
Monarchs lacked high level administrative
staff.
Monarchs had no power to intervene in the
local economy. No power to dispossess.
Local peasants were politically autonomous.
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Galactic polity model proposed to
characterize the organization of the 13th
century Sukhothai kingdom.
Capital at Sukhothai and central territory is
ruled by the monarch.
Subsidiary capitals ruled by sons surround
the central territory (like a Buddhist mandala).
Subsidiary capital of Si Sachanalai was 90 km
to the north. Kamphaeng Phet was 58 km to
the southwest.
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Territories of capitals may have averaged
2,000 sq. km. (750 sq. mi.).
Size of territories, arrangement of territories,
and regal-ritual capitals is not incompatible
with a complex chiefdom or chiefdom
confederacy.
Kingdom was
16,138 sq. mi. in
extent and had a
population of
3,000,000.
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Sanders likens Classical Maya polities to historic
kingdom of Buganda.
Buganda capital Lubiri was a large compound.
Lubiri in
1875
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Owns all the land.
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Collects taxes and imposes a labor tax.
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Appoints all administrators.
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Royal family has caste-like features.
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Undertakes war with levies and appointed
generals.
The 8th century
AD Irish
composite
chiefdom of
Corcu MoDruad
900 sq. km.
1562 sq. km (603 sq. mi.).
Chiefdom confederacy of the Dál Cais 10th century AD
10,360 sq. km. in extent. (4,000 sq. mi.)
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He moved his capital from his home territory
to Luimneach (Limerick). He was detached
from his conical clan.
He dispossessed the Éoganacht Caisel.
He appointed high status administrators,
called mórmaor “great stewards.”
Strong resemblance to a “patron-client” state.
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Increasingly, arguments have been put forward in
diverse localities of the world for early states
preceded by chiefdom confederacies. E.g. Oaxaca
(Blanton 1983), Korea, Japan, Egypt, and Greece.
From "Theory of a chiefdom and state
formation in Japan" Ken’ichi Sasaki
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Most important qualitative change is the
acquisition of greater power by the emergent
king, resulting in tangible changes in the
organization, administrative structure, and
institutions of the state (as previously
enumerated).
States emerging from chiefdom confederacies will
have…
 Regal-ritual centers.
 Territorially contiguous tributary polities.
 Embedded local administrators.
 And be riven by factional conflict due to royal
polygyny.
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Polities alleged to have been states such as
the segmentary state of the Alur and theater
states of Bali were not states. They were
complex chiefdoms.
The “galactic state” of Sukhothai may have
been a state on account of its size, but in
organization it resembled a complex
chiefdom.
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Abrupt exponential increases in scale may be the
most reliable indicator of a transformation into a
state e.g. the Monte Alban polity was treble the
size of its constituent chiefdoms.
Transformation of ceremonial centers into ritualregal centers with full-time royal occupation.
Establishing the ritual-regal center in a new,
geographically central location (e.g. Luimneach
and Monte Alban.)
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This is a conflict-alliance model of social
evolution , or “managed violence”.
Thank You!