Fragmenting Trypillian Megasites

doi:10.1017/9781009042826.003

Two - Fragmenting Trypillian Megasites

A Bottom-Up Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2021

Bisserka Gaydarska

Edited by

T. L. Thurston and

Manuel Fernández-Götz

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T. L. Thurston: Affiliation:
University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Manuel Fernández-Götz: Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh

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Summary

This volume is like déjà vu – here we are again trying to break away from hierarchy. In 2009, a major conference on social formations set an ambitious dual agenda: to summarize the research on that subject up to this point with a strong critique of the favored but not always justified hierarchical approach, and to offer a range of alternatives to studying and understanding human organization (Kienlin, 2012). This conference came after years of excellent scholarship on the development of contrary models (e.g. Crumley, 1987; Friedman & Rowlands, 1977) to the study and proliferation of hierarchical societies (or what are assumed to be hierarchical societies) that dominate our discipline. The contributions to this volume are part of the same cycle of the utter predominance of approaches equating power with hierarchy and centralization that are periodically challenged by the increasing number of archaeological case studies for which such approaches simply do not work.

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Type: Chapter
Information: Power from Below in Premodern Societies
The Dynamics of Political Complexity in the Archaeological Record
, pp. 40 - 60

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009042826.003 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2021

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