ARCH 2295
STATE FORMATION IN THE PREHISTORIC AEGEAN
SPRING SEMESTER 2014
SYLLABUS
Seminar: Thursday 4 – 6:20 pm, Room 008 Rhode Island Hall
Instructor: Professor John F. Cherry
Phone: 508-838-8872; e-mail: john_cherry@brown.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 2-4 pm, Room 105, Rhode Island Hall, but also other times
Class wiki site: http://proteus.brown.edu/aegean2014/home
Brief Course Description:
Outside the Near East and Egypt, Crete and mainland Greece were arguably the first
areas within the Mediterranean to witness the appearance in the early second
millennium BC of state-level societies. This kseminar will critique some classic
archaeological and anthropological texts on state formation, before turning to
examine the available data on emerging complexity in the Minoan and Mycenaean
worlds and theories to account for it.
Readings
Many of the required readings will be made available as pdf files in a password-protected
forum on the Joukowsky Institute wiki site established in association with this seminar; some
you will be able to download directly from JSTOR. Average length of readings per week will be
ca. 100-125 pages. The password to access the readings will be provided at the first meeting
of the seminar.
Grading
• Active and regular contribution to the discussions in class (35%).
• In specific assigned weeks, taking responsibility for summarizing and leading a discussion
of particular articles and/or issues (20%).
• A research project (discussed in advance with the instructor) presented to the class, with
a powerpoint (15%).
• A final paper of ca. 20-25 pages based on the oral presentation, due on Monday 12 May
(30%).
SCHEDULE OF SEMINAR MEETINGS
Week 1 (Jan. 23).
Introduction to the seminar; organizational matters; allocation of student duties.
Approaches to states, older and newer
Week 2 (Jan. 30).
How do archaeologists study the state? Definitions, categories, origins.
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Scheidel, W (2013). ‘Studying the state,’ in P.F.Bang and W. Scheidel (eds.), The Oxford
Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean (Oxford: Oxford U.P.),
pp. 5-57. [Available as an e-book via Josiah]
Routledge, B. (2014). Archaeology and State Theory: Subjects and Objects of Power (London:
Bloomsbury), pp. 1-26.
Lull and Micó (2011). ‘Archaeology and research on the state,’ in V. Lull and R. Micó,
Archaeology and the Origin of the State: The Theories (Oxford: Oxford U.P.), pp. 175-226
[to be read alongside review by N. Yoffee, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 22.3 (2012)
423-25].
Week 3 (Feb. 6).
Golden Oldies: some classics of the archeological state formation literature
Carneiro, R. (1970) ‘A theory of the origin of the state.’ Science 169: 733-38. [Read along with
R. Carneiro (1988), ‘The circumscription theory: challenge and response.’ American
Behavioral Scientist 31.4: 497-511].
Flannery, K.V. (1972). ‘The cultural evolution of civilization.’ Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics 3: 399-426.
Webster, D. (1975). ‘Warfare and the evolution of the state: a reconsideration.’ American
Antiquity 40.4: 464-70.
Wright, H.T. (1977). ‘Recent research on the origin of the state.’ Annual Review of
Anthropology 6: 379-97.
Service, E.R. (1978). ‘Classical and modern theories of the origins of government,’ in R. Cohen
and E.R. Service (eds.), Origins of the State: The Anthropology of Political Evolution
(Philadelphia), pp. 21-34.
Fried, M. (1978). ‘The state, the chicken, and the egg: what came first?’, in R. Cohen and E.R.
Service (eds.), Origins of the State: The Anthropology of Political Evolution (Philadelphia),
pp. 35-47.
Week 4 (Feb. 13).
More recent approaches to studying origins of states and early complex polities
Baines, J., and N. Yoffee (1998). ‘Order, legitimacy, and wealth in ancient Egypt and
Mesopotamia,’ in G.M. Feinman and J. Marcus (eds.), Archaic States (Santa Fe: SAR Press),
pp. 199-260.
Yoffee, N. (2005). Myths of the Archaic State (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.), pp. 4-41.
Smith, M.E. (2006). ‘How do archaeologists compare early states?’ Reviews in Anthropology
35: 5-35.
Chapman, R. (2007). ‘Evolution, complexity and the state,’ in S. Kohring and S. Wynne-Jones
(eds.), Socialising Complexity: Structure, Interaction and Power in Archaeological Discourse
(Oxford: Oxbow), pp. 13-28.
Chapman, R. (2008). ‘Alternative states,’ in J.Habu, C. Fawcett, and J.M. Matsunaga (eds.),
Evaluating Multiple Narrativs: Beyond Nationalist, Colonialist, Imperialist Archaeologies
(New York: Springer), pp. 144-65.
Abrutyn, S., and K. Lawrence (2010). ‘From chiefdom to state: toward an integrative theory of
the evolution of polity.’ Sociological Perspectives 53.3: 419-42.
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Smith, A.T. (2011). ‘Archaeologies of sovereignty.’ Annual Review of Anthropology 40: 415-32.
Minoan states and their emergence
Week 5 (Feb. 20).
Some general overviews
Parkinson, W.A., and M.L. Galaty (2007). ‘Secondary states in perspective: an integrated
approach to state formation in the prehistoric Aegean.’ American Anthropologist 109:
113-29.
Bennet, J. (2012). ‘Bronze Age Greece,’ in P.F.Bang and W. Scheidel (eds.), The Oxford
Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean (Oxford: Oxford U.P.),
pp. 235-58. [Available as an e-book via Josiah]
Nakassis, D., M.L. Galaty, and W.A. Parkinson (2010). ‘State and society,’ in E.H. Cline (ed.),
The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (Oxford: Oxford U.P.), pp. 239-50.
Cherry, J.F. (1986). ‘Polities and palaces: some problems in Minoan state formation,’ in C.
Renfrew and J.F. Cherry (eds.), Peer Polity Interaction and Sociio-political Change
(Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.), pp. 19-45.
Manning, S.W. (2008). ‘Protopalatial Crete: formation of the palaces,’ in C.W. Shelmerdine
(ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.),
pp. 105-120, and notes pp. 130-37.
Schoep, I. (2012). ‘Bridging the divide between the “Prepalatial” and and the “Proto[alatial”
periods,’ in I. Schoep, P. Tomkins, and J. Driessen (eds.), Back to the Beginning:
Reassessing Social and Political Complexity on Crete during the Early and Middle Bronze
Age (Oxford: Oxbow), pp. 403-428.
Week 6 (Feb. 27).
Evolutionary gradualism vs. rapid transformation, or, how far back must we go?
Cherry, J.F. (1983). ‘Evolution, revolution, and the origins of complex society in Minoan Crete,’
in O. Krzyszkowska and L. Nixon (eds.), Minoan Society: Proceedings of the Cambridge
Colloquium 1981 (Bristol: Bristol Classical Press), pp. 33-45.
Warren, P.M. (1987). ‘The genesis of the Minoan palace,’ in R. Hägg and N. Marinatos (eds.),
The Function of the Minoan Palaces (Stockholm: Swedish Institute in Athens), pp. 47-56.
Branigan, K. (1995). ‘Social transformation and the rise of the state in Crete,’ in R. Laffineur
and W.-D. Niemeier (eds.), Politeia: Society and State in the Aegean Bronze Age (Liège:
Aegaeum), pp. 33-42.
Manning, S.W. (1997) ‘Cultural change in the Aegean c. 2200 BC,’ in H. Dalfes, G. Kukla, and
H. Weiss (eds.), Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse (Berlin:
Springer), pp. 149-71.
Watrous, L.V. (2004). ‘State formation (Middle Minoan IA),’ in L.V. Watrous, D. HadziVallianou, and H. Blitzer (eds.), The Plain of Phaistos: Cycles of Complexity in the Mesara
Region of Crete (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology), pp. 253-76.
Schoep, I., and P. Tomkins (2012). ‘Back to the beginning for the Early and Middle Bronze Age
on Crete,’ in I. Schoep, P. Tomkins, and J. Driessen (eds.), Back to the Beginning:
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Reassessing Social and Political Complexity on Crete during the Early and Middle Bronze
Age (Oxford: Oxbow), pp. 1-31.
Week 7 (Mar. 6).
What can regional survey data tell us about Cretan state emergence?
Whitelaw, T. (2012). ‘The urbanization of prehistoric Crete: settlement perspectives on
Minoan state formation,’ in I. Schoep, P. Tomkins, and J. Driessen (eds.), Back to the
Beginning: Reassessing Social and Political Complexity on Crete during the Early and
Middle Bronze Age (Oxford: Oxbow), pp. 114-76.
Driessen, J. (2001). ‘History and hierarchy: preliminary observations on the settlement
pattern in Minoan Crete,’ in K. Branigan (ed.), Urbanism in the Aegean Bronze Age
(London: Sheffield Academic Press), pp. 51-71.
Whitelaw, T.M., M. Bredaki, and A. Vasilakis (2008). ‘The Knossos Urban Landscape Project:
investigating the long-term dynamics of an urban landscape.’ Archaeology International
10: 28-31. [JSTOR]
Day, P.M., and D.E. Wilson (2002). ‘Landscapes of memory, craft and power in Prepalatial and
Protopalatial Knossos,’ in Y. Hamilakis (ed.), Labyrinth Revisited: Rethinking ‘Minoan’
Archaeology (Oxford: Oxbow), pp. 143-66.
Haggis, D.C. (2002). ‘Integration and complexity in the Late Prepalatial period: a view from the
countryside in eastern Crete,’ in Y. Hamilakis (ed.), Labyrinth Revisited: Rethinking
‘Minoan’ Archaeology (Oxford: Oxbow), pp. 120-42.
Watrous, L.V. (ed.) (2012). An Archaeological Survey of the Gournia Landscape: A Regional
History of the Mirabello Bay, Crete, in Antiquity (Philadelphia: INSTAP Academic Press), pp.
21-40, 97-101.
Week 8 (Mar. 13).
The role of foreign prestige goods in elite transformation: when, how, why?
Cherry, J.F. (2010). ‘Sorting out Crete’s off-island Prepalatial interactions,’ in M. Galaty and
W. Parkinson (eds.), Archaic State Interaction: The Eastern Mediterranean in the Bronze
Age (Santa Fe: SAR Press), pp. 107-140.
Colburn, C.S. (2008). ‘Exotica and the Early Minoan elite: eastern imports in Prepalatial
Crete.’ American Journal of Archaeology 112: 203-224. [JSTOR]
Phillips, J. (2005). ‘A question of reception,’ in J. Clarke (ed.), Archaeological Perspectives on
the Transmission and Transformation of Culture in the Eastern Mediterranean (Oxford:
Oxbow), pp. 39-47.
Phillips, J. (2006). ‘Why?... And why not? Minoan reception and perceptions of Egyptian
influence,’ in E. Czerny, I. Hein, H. Hunger, D. Melman, and A. Schwab (eds.), Timelines:
Studies in Honour of Manfried Bietack, Vol. 2 (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters en Departement
Oosterse Studies), pp. 293-300.
Warren, P.M. (1995). ‘Minoan Crete and Pharaonic Egypt,’ in W.V. Davies and L. Schofield
(eds.), Egypt, the Aegean, and the Levant: Interactions in the Second Millennium BC
(London: British Museum Press), pp. 1-18.
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Watrous, L.V. (1987). ‘The role of the Near East in the rise of the Cretan palaces,’ in R. Hägg
and N. Marinatos (eds.), The Function of the Minoan Palaces (Stockholm: Swedish
Institute in Athens), pp. 65-70.
Watrous, L.V. (1998). ‘Egypt and Crete in the early Middle Bronze Age: a case of trade and
cultural diffusion,’ in E.H. Cline and D. Harris-Cline (eds.), The Aegean and the Orient in the
Second Millennium (Liège: Université de Liège), pp. 19-28.
Legarra Herrero, B. (2011). ‘New kid on the block: the nature of the first systemic contacts
between Crete and the eastern Mediterranean around 2000 BC,’ in T.C. Wilkinson, S.
Sherratt, and J. Bennett (eds.), Interweaving Worlds: Systemic Interactions in Eurasia, 7th
to 1st Millennia BC (Oxford: Oxbow), pp. 266-81.
Week 9 (Mar. 20).
Speed-dating: Quick glimpses of other special topics
Seals. K. Sbonias (2012), ‘Regional elite-groups and the production and consumption of seals
in the Prepalatial period: a case-study of the Asterousia region,’ in I. Schoep, P. Tomkins,
and J. Driessen (eds.), Back to the Beginning: Reassessing Social and Political Complexity
on Crete during the Early and Middle Bronze Age (Oxford: Oxbow), pp. 273-89.
Sealings and administrative practices. M. Relaki (2009). ‘Rethinking administration and seal
use in third millennium BC Crete.’ Creta Antica 10.2: 353-72.
First scripts. H. Thomas (2010). ‘Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A,’ in E.H. Cline (ed.), The
Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (Oxford: Oxford U.P.), pp. 340-55.
The interpretation of the EM settlement of Myrtos Fournou Koriphi. T.M. Whitelaw (2007).
‘House, households and community at Early Minoan Fournou Korofi: methods and models
for interpretation,’ in R. Westgate, N. Fisher and J. Whitley (eds.), Building Communities:
House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond (London: British School at
Athens), pp. 65-76.
Mortuary practices. Legarra Herrero, B. (2012). ‘The construction, deconstruction and nonconstruction of hierarchies in the funerary record of Pre-palatial Crete,’ in I. Schoep, P.
Tomkins, and J. Driessen (eds.), Back to the Beginning: Reassessing Social and Political
Complexity on Crete during the Early and Middle Bronze Age (Oxford: Oxbow), pp. 325-57.
Ships in the third and early second millennium BC. C. Broodbank, ‘ “Ships a-sail from
over the rim of the sea”: voyaging, sailing and the making of Mediterranean societies
c. 3500–800 bc,’ in A. Anderson and G. Barker (eds.), The Global Origins of Seafaring
(Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research), pp. 249-63.
The Cypriot state formation parallel. A.B. Knapp (2013). ‘Revolution within evolution: the
emergence of a “secondary state” on Protohistoric Bronze Age Cyprus.’ Levant 45.1: 1944.
Week 10 (Mar. 27). No class: Brown Spring Break
Mycenaean states and their emergence
Week 11 (Apr. 3).
Topic: Rulership, palaces, and state emergence in the Mycenaean world
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Wright, J.C. (2008). ‘Early Mycenaean Greece,’ in C.W. Shelmerdine (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.), pp. 230-57.
Shelmerdine, C.W. (2001). ‘Development of Mycenaean states,’ pp. 349-55 of ‘Review of
Aegean Prehistory VI: the Palatial Bronze Age of the southern and central Greek
mainland,’ in T. Cullen (ed.), Aegean Prehistory: A Review (Boston: AIA), pp. 329-77.
Voutsaki, S. (1995). ‘Social and political processes in the Mycenaean Argolid: the evidence
from the mortuary practices,’ in R. Laffineur and W.-D. Niemeier (eds.), Politeia: Society
and State in the Aegean Bronze Age (Liège: Aegaeum), pp.55-65.
Dickinson, O.T.P.K. (1983). Cretan contacts with the Mainland during the period of the
Shaft Graves,’ in R. Hägg and N. Marinatos (eds.), The Minoan Thalassocracy: Myth
and Reality ( Göteborg: Paul Åströms Förlag), pp. 115-18.
Wright, J.C. (1987). ‘Death and power at Mycenae: changing symbols in mortuary
practice,’ in R. Laffineur (ed.), Thanatos: les coutumes funéraires en egée à l'âge du
bronze. (Liège: Université de l'Etat à Liège), pp. 171-84.
Wright, J.C. (1995). ‘From chief to king in Mycenaean Greece,’ in P. Rehak (ed.), The
Role of the Ruler in the Prehistoric Aegean (Liège: Université de Liège Histoire de l'art
et archéologie de la Grèce antique), pp. 63-80.
Dabney, M.K., and J.C. Wright (1990). ‘Mortuary customs, palatial society and state
formation in the Aegean area: a comparative study,’ in R. Hägg and G.C. Nordquist
(eds.), Celebrations of Death and Divinity in the Bronze Age Argolid (Stockholm:
Swedish Institute at Athens), pp. 45-53.
Kilian, K. (1988). ‘The emergence of the wanax ideology in the Mycenaean palaces.’
Oxford Journal of Archaeology 7.3: 291-302. [JSTOR]
Week 12 (Apr. 10).
Topic: Some regional perspectives on state emergence and palatial organization
Wright, J.C. (2006). ‘The formation of the Mycenaean palace,’ in S. Deger-Jalkotzy and I.S.
Lemos (eds.), Ancient Greece: From the Mycenaean Palaces to the Age of Homer
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 7-52.
Bennet, J. (1995). ‘Space through time: diachronic perspectives on the spatial organization of
the Pylian state,’ in R. Laffineur and W.-D. Niemeier (eds.), Politeia: Society and State in
the Aegean Bronze Age (Liège: Aegaeum), pp. 587-602.
Cherry, J.F., and J.L. Davis (2001). ‘ “Under the sceptre of Agamemnon”: the view from
the hinterlands of Mycenae,’ in K. Branigan (ed.), Urbanism in the Aegean Bronze
Age (London: Sheffield Academic Press), pp. 141-59.
Mee, C.B., and W.G. Cavanagh (1984). ‘Mycenaean tombs as evidence for social and
political organisation.’ Oxford Journal of Archaeology 3.3: 45-64. [JSTOR]
Cavanagh, W.G. (1995). ‘Development of the Mycenaean state in Laconia: evidence
from the Laconia survey,’ in R. Laffineur and W.-D. Niemeier (eds.), Politeia: Society
and State in the Aegean Bronze Age (Liège: Aegaeum), pp.81-88.
Bennet, J. (1999). ‘Pylos: the expansion of a Mycenaean palatial center,’ in M.L. Galaty
and W.A. Parkinson (eds.), Rethinking Mycenaean Palaces: New Interpretations of an
Old Idea (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology), pp. 9-18.
Stocker, S.R., and J.L. Davis (2004). ‘Animal sacrifice, archives, and feasting at the Palace
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of Nestor.’ Hesperia 73.2: 179-95.
Week 13 (Apr. 17).
Topic: Class visit by Prof. Bill Parkinson (Field Museum, Chicago; AIA Lecturer, Providence).
Reread (from Week 5): Parkinson, W.A., and M.L. Galaty (2007). ‘Secondary states in
perspective: an integrated approach to state formation in the prehistoric Aegean.’
American Anthropologist 109: 113-29.
Galaty, M.L., and W.A. Parkinson (2007). ‘1999 Introduction: putting Mycenaean palaces in
their place,’ and ‘2007 Introduction: Mycenaean palaces rethought,’ in M.L. Galaty and
W.A. Parkinson (eds.), Rethinking Mycenaean Palaces II: Revised and Expanded Second
Edition (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology), pp. 21-28 and 1-17.
Week 14 (Apr. 24). No class (Cherry at SAA meetings in Austin, TX). Time to work on your
term papers.
Term paper presentations
Week 15 (May 1)
Oral presentation of term papers. An additional class will need to be scheduled during
the Reading Period (25 April – 6 May), to accommodate all student presentations.
Written term paper due Monday 12 May
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