Territorial Expansion and Primary State Formation INAUGURAL ARTICLE
Territorial expansion and primary state formation INAUGURAL ARTICLE Charles S. Spencer1 Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024-5192 Contributed by Charles S. Spencer, February 26, 2010 (sent for review January 12, 2010) This contribution is part of the special series of Inaugural Articles by members of the National Academy of Sciences elected in 2007 A major research problem in anthropology is the origin of the state munal feasts, dance societies, village festivals, war parties, ritual and its bureaucratic form of governance. Of particular importance fraternities, and the like (16, 17). for evaluating theories of state origins are cases of primary state In rank societies or chiefdoms, authority is permanently cen- formation, whereby a first-generation state evolves without con- tralized in the office of chief, which exists apart from the person tact with any preexisting states. A general model of this process, who occupies it and upon his death must be filled by someone the territorial-expansion model, is presented and assessed with of similarly elite descent (15); high status is largely inherited, as archaeological data from six areas where primary states emerged in Weber’s traditional form of authority. Decisions can be made in antiquity: Mesoamerica, Peru, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus more quickly in a chiefdom than they can in uncentralized Valley, and China. In each case, the evidence shows a close societies, although chiefly authority is usually much more correspondence in time between the first appearance of state expensive to maintain. Chiefs support themselves and their ret- institutions and the earliest expansion of the state’s political- inues through the mobilization of surplus resources within their economic control to regions lying more than a day’s round-trip domain and the management of this political economy is a key from the capital.
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