Archaeology of Power:
Authority, Prestige, and Inequality in the Past
ANTH 136a
Fall 2015
Tuesday/Thursday 3:00 – 4:50
Lown Center for Judaic Studies, Rm. 203
Dr. Charles Golden, cgolden@brandeis.edu
Brown 206, x62217
Office Hours: Tuesday/Thursday 2:00 – 3:00 pm, or by appointment
What is a “failed state?” A “rogue state?” When did “nation states” come to dominate world politics?
How do the rulers of states exercise and maintain power? How and when did egalitarian communities
give rise to hierarchical societies, and how is inequality maintained and encouraged? These questions
are more important than ever in understanding world politics. Questions about what states are, what
they should do, and how they should do it define international accords, debates and conflicts.
Archaeological theory and research provide a unique perspective on these issues, allowing us to
examine the nature of states through 5000 years of human history.
This class is meant, at a basic level, to provide a broad background in the archaeology of ancient
complex polities (a.k.a., chiefdoms and states) from around the world. More importantly, however, this
class is focused on the questions of why people participate in such societies, and how the ostensibly
egalitarian social organizations of our early humans gave rise to hierarchical political structures. As such,
the study of ancient civilizations is meant to provide new insights into modern political life.
This course is also intended as a forum for discussion about states, the exercise of power and authority,
and the maintenance of social hierarchies. Participation accounts for 25% of the final course grade.
Beyond learning any specific information about ancient civilizations, it is expected that you will build on
your ability to synthesize, summarize, and debate the arguments put forward in assigned readings and
put forward by your instructor and peers in class. Proper preparation and engaged class participation
are therefore required. Readings should be completed before class on the day for which they are
assigned. Brief 1 -2 page writings for individuals or groups may occasionally be assigned.
Any more than two unexcused absences during the course of the semester will result in the loss of a
letter grade from class participation for each additional absence. Note: Success in this 4 credit hour
course is based on the expectation that students will spend a minimum of 9 hours of study time per
week in preparation for class (readings, papers, discussion sections, preparation for exams, etc.).
A midterm paper (20%), an in-class presentation (20%), and a final paper (35%) account for the
remainder of the grade.
First Paper, due 10/27
The first paper is a review of the current interpretations of political organization, authority, and power in
an ancient civilization chosen by you in consultation with the professor, with a provisional list of capital
centers listed at the end of this syllabus (you may, in discussion with me, select a capital/civilization not
on this list). Ideally, this will serve as the background and basis for your final paper. No fewer than 10
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peer-reviewed sources must be appropriately cited and serve as sources for your paper. At least 5 of
these sources must not be assigned class readings. This will be a 5-7 page paper.
In Class Presentations 10/29, 11/10, 11/17, 12/8 (specific dates for each student chosen in discussion
with me based on the content and student schedule)
In these brief presentations students will present an overview of the civilization that was the focus of
their midterm paper, introducing the class to the basics of the culture and its capital center (where,
when, what) as well as offering insight into the nature of power and authority in that society. A visual
component – a presentation made using a program like Powerpoint or Prezi – is required.
Final Paper, Due 12/11
The final paper is a more extensive analysis of power and authority in pre-modern societies that reflects
your interests in the subject. The subject matter can be drawn from the readings covered in class, but
students are encouraged to explore aspects of state formation not otherwise addressed during the
semester. This might include issues such as the nature of gender and power, the transition from nonstate to state political organization, the nature of state borders, the archaeology of ethnicity in ancient
states, and many more topics. This paper may not be shorter than 8, and should not exceed 10 pages in
length. No fewer than 10 peer reviewed sources must be appropriately cited and serve as sources for
your paper. All 10 sources must be external to the class, although appropriate class readings should also
be cited.
Required Texts and Readings:
All readings will be available on LATTE. The readings are subject to change – if there is a change all
members of the class will be notified by e-mail and an updated syllabus will be posted to LATTE.
* This class counts toward a major or minor in Latin American Studies if your final paper is written on
a subject based in Latin America*
DOCUMENTED DISABILITIES
If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and wish to have a
reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me immediately. Accommodations
cannot be granted retroactively. If you have questions about documenting a disability or requesting
academic accommodations you should contact Kim Godsoe, Dean of Academic Services in
Undergraduate Academic Affairs at 6-3470.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
You are expected to be familiar with and to follow the University’s policies on academic integrity (see
http://www.brandeis.edu/studentlife/sdc/ai). Faculty may refer any suspected instances of alleged
dishonesty to the Office of Student Development and Conduct. Instances of academic dishonesty may
result in sanctions including but not limited to, failing grades being issued, educational programs, and
other consequences.
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Th 8/27
T 9/1
Intro Class
Thinking on the Nature of the State and Power
Excerpts from the Epic of Gilgamesh (Tablets 1, 2, & 7)
Excerpts from the Popul Vuh (p. 193-219, 253-259)
Th 9/3
The Code of Hammurabi
Thinking on the Nature of the State and Power
Plato, The Republic, Book 2.
Machiavelli – The Prince, Chapters XV – XX (pp. 111 – 145 on Latte).
T 9/8
Magna Carta
Thinking on the Nature of the State and Power
Locke, John
1690 Second Treatise of Government, Chapters 1 – 4.
The Declaration of Independence
Preamble to the US Constitution
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1789
Th 9/10
T 9/15
Th 9/17
T 9/22
Th 9/24
Shapiro, Ian
2003 The Moral Foundations of Politics, Chapt. 1, pp. 7 – 17. Yale University Pres, New
Haven.
NO CLASS, BRANDEIS MONDAY
NO CLASS, HOLIDAY
Thinking on the Nature of the State and Power
Fried, Morton H.
1960 On the Evolution of Social Stratification and the State. In Culture in History,
edited by S. Diamond, pp. 713-731. Columbia University Press, New York.
Cancian, Frank
1976 Social Stratification. Annual Review of Anthropology 5:227-248.
Social Hierarchy
Clark, John E.
2000 Toward a Better Explanation of Hereditary Inequality: A Critical Assessment of
Natural and Historic Human Agents. In Agency in Archaeology, edited by Marcia-Anne
Dobres and John Robb, pp. 92-112. Routledge, London.
Crumley, Carole L.
2001 Communication, Holism, and the Evolution of Sociopolitical Complexity.
In From Leaders to Rulers, ed. by Jonathan Haas, pp. 19-33. Kulwer
Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.
Theories of the Origin of the State
Service, Elman R
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1978 Classical and Modern Theories of the Origins of Government. In Origins of the
State: The Anthropology of Political Evolution, edited by R. Cohen and E. R. Service, pp.
21-33. Institute for the Study of Human Issues, Philadelphia.
T 9/29
Th 10/1
Wittfogel, Karl August
1968 The Theory of Oriental Society. In Readings in Anthropology Vol. II: Cultural
Anthropology, edited by M. H. Fried, pp. 179-198. Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New
York.
NO CLASS, BRANDEIS MONDAY
Theories of the Origin of the State
Carneiro, Robert L.
1970 A Theory of the Origin of the State. Science 169:733-738.
Cohen, Ronald
1984 Warfare and State Formation: Wars Make States and States Make Wars. In
Warfare, Culture, and Environment, edited by R. B. Ferguson, pp. 329 - 358. Academic
Press, New York.
T 10/6
Deflem, Mathieu
1999 Warfare, Political Leadership, and State Formation: The Case of the Zulu
Kingdom, 1808-1879. Ethnology 38 (4): 371-391.
Theories of the Origin of the State
Algaze, Guillermo
1993 Expansionary Dynamics of Some Early Pristine States. American Anthropologist
95(2):304-333.
Th 10/8
Wright, Henry T.
1977 Toward an Explanation of the Origin of the State. In Explanation of Prehistoric
Change, edited by J. N. Hill. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Ideology and the State
Conrad, G. W. and Arthur A. Demarest
1984 “Ideology and Cultural Evolution,” from Religion and Empire: The Dynamics of
Aztec and Inca Expansionism. Cambridge University Press.
Joyce, A. A. and M. Winter
1996 Ideology, Power, and Urban Society in Pre-Hispanic Oaxaca. Current
Anthropology 37(1):33-47.
T 10/13
Kus, S. and V. Raharijaona
2000 House to Palace, Village to State: Scaling Up Architecture and Ideology.
American Anthropologist 102(1):98-113.
Ideology and the State
DeMarrais, E., L. J. Castillo and T. Earle
1996 Ideology, Materialization, and Power Strategies. Current Anthropology
37(1):15-31.
Bloch, Maurice
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Th 10/15
T 10/20
1987 The Ritual of the Royal Bath in Madagascar: The Dissolution of Death,
Birth and Fertility into Authority. In Rituals of Royalty: Power and
Cermonial in Traditional Societies, edited by D. Cannadine and S. Price,
pp. 271-297. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Ideology and the State
Tambiah, Stanley J.
1977 The Galactic Polity: The Structure of Traditional Kingdoms in Southeast
Asia. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 293:69-97.
Flad, Rowan K.
2008 Divination and Power: A Multiregional View of the Development of Oracle Bone
Divination in Early China. Current Anthropology 49(3): 403-437.
Collective Action and the State
Carballo, David M., Paul Roscoe, and Gary M. Feinman
2012 Cooperation and Collective Action in the Cultural Evolution of Complex Societies.
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 21:98–133.
Fargher, Lane F., Verenice Y. Heredia Espinoza, Richard E. Blanton
2011 Alternative pathways to power in late Postclassic Highland Mesoamerica.
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 30 (2011) 306–326.
Th 10/22
T 10/27
Th 10/29
T 11/3
Fogelin, Lars
2011 Ignoring the problem: Spatial strategies for ameliorating social contradictions in
early South Asian Buddhism. Journal of Social Archaeology 11: 194.
Power at the Edges of the State: Borders, Boundaries and Frontiers
Hutson, Scott R.
2002 Built space and bad subjects Domination and resistance at Monte Albán,Oaxaca,
Mexico. Journal of Social Archaeology 2(1): 53-80.
Brumfiel, Elizabeth
2006 Provincial Elites and the Limits of Dominant Ideology in the Aztec Empire. In
Intermediate Elites in Pre-Columbian States and Empires, pp. 166 – 174. University of
Arizona Press, Tucson.
Power, Polity and Architecture (1st Paper Due)
Moore, Jerry D.
1996 The Archaeology of Plazas and the Proxemics of Ritual: Three Andean Traditions.
American Anthropologist 98(4): 789-802.
Joyce, Rosemary A.
2004 Unintended Consequences? Monumentality as a Novel Experience in Formative
Mesoamerica. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 11(1): 5-29.
PRESENTATIONS
Mesopotamia
Porter, Benjamin
2004 Authority, polity, and tenuous elites in Iron Age Edom (Jordan). Oxford Journal
of Archaeology 23(4): 373-395.
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Falconer, Steven E. and Stephen H. Savage
1995 Heartlands and Hinterlands: Alternative Trajectories of Urbanization in
Mesopotamia and the Southern Levant. American Antiquity 60(1):37-58.
Stein, Gil
2001 “Who Was King? Who Was Not King?” Social Group Composition and
Competition in Early Mesopotamian State Societies. In From Leaders to Rulers,
Ed. by Jonathan Haas, pp. 205-231. Kulwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New
York.
Th 11/5
T 11/10
Th 11/12
Mycenaean Greece
Shelmerdine, Cynthia W.
2011 The Individual and the State in Mycenaean Greece. Bulletin of the
Institute of Classical Studies 54(1):19-28.
Parkinson, William A., and Michael L. Galaty
2007 Secondary States in Perspective: An Integrated Approach to State Formation in
the Prehistoric Aegean. American Anthropologist 109(1):113-129.
PRESENTATIONS
Mesoamerica
McAnany, Patricia A.
2001 Cosmology and the Institutionalization of Hierarchy in the Maya Region.
In From Leaders to Rulers, ed by Jonathan Haas, pp. 125-148. Kulwer
Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.
Feinman, Gary
2001 Mesoamerican Political Complexity: The Corporate-Network Dimension.
In From Leaders to Rulers, ed. by Jonathan Haas, pp. 151-175. Kulwer
Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.
T 11/17
Th 11/19
Hill, Warren D. and John E. Clark
2001 Sports, Gambling, and Government: America's First Social Compact? American
Anthropologist 103(2):331-345.
PRESENTATIONS
South America
Kolata, Alan L.
1986 The Agricultural Foundations of the Tiwanaku State: A View from the Heartland.
American Antiquity 51(4): 748-762.
Erickson, Clark L.
1993 The Social Organization of Prehispanic Raised Field Agriculture in the Lake Titicaca
Basin. In Economic Aspects of Water Managemenet in the Prehispanic New World, eds.
V. L. Scarborough and B. L. Isaac, pp. 369-426 JAI Press, Greenwich, CT.
Stanish, Charles
1994 The Hydraulic Hypothesis Revisited: Lake Titicaca Basin Raised Fields in
Theoretical Perspective. Latin American Antiquity 5(4): 312-332.
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T 11/24
Th 11/26
T 12/1
South America
Morris, Craig
1998 Inka Strategies of Incorporation and Governance. In Archaic States, ed. by
Gary M. Feinman and Joyce Marcus, pp. 293-309. School of American Research
Press, Santa Fe.
D’altroy, Terence M.
2001 Politics, Resources, and Blood in the Inca Empire. In
Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History, ed. S.E. Alcock, T. N.
D’altroy, K. D. Morrison, C. M. Sinopoli, Pp. 201-226. Cambridge University
Press, New York.
NO CLASS, THANKSGIVING BREAK
India
Miller, Daniel
1985 Ideology and the Harrappan Civilization. Journal of Anthropological
Archaeology 4:34-71.
Possehl, Gregory L.
1998. Sociocultural Complexity Without the State. In Archaic States, ed. by Gary M.
Feinman and Joyce Marcus, Joyce, pp. 261-291. School of American Research, Santa Fe.
Th 12/3
T 12/8
Kenoyer, J. Mark
2000 Wealth and Socioeconomic Hierarchies of the Indus Valley Civilization. In Order,
Legitimacy, and Wealth in Ancient States, edited by Janet Richards and Mary Van
Buren, pp. 88-109. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Egypt
Baines, John and Norman Yoffee
1998 Order, Legitimacy, and Wealth in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. In Archaic
States, ed. by Gary M. Feinman and Joyce Marcus, Joyce, pp. 199-260. School of
American Research, Santa Fe.
Bard, Kathryn A.
1992 Toward an Interpretation of the Role of Ideology in the Evolution of Complex
Society in Egypt. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 11(1):1-24.
PRESENTATIONS
PRELIMINARY LIST OF SITES FOR PRESENTATIONS:
INKA CUSCO
TIWANAKU
TEOTIHUACAN
MONTE ALBAN
COPAN
MOCHE
CHAVIN
CAHOKIA
TENOCHTITLAN
HIEROKONPOLIS
AMARNA
STONEHENGE
KNOSSOS
MYCENAE
ANYANG
ANGKOR
VIJAYANAGARA
MOHENJO
DARO/HARRAPA
URUK
BABYLON
HATTUSA (HATTUSHA)
JENNE-JENNO (DJENNEDJENNO)
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