Chiefdoms
Chiefdoms
£46.00
GBPThe study of chiefdoms has moved from a preoccupation with their formal characteristics to a concern with their dynamics as political institutions. The contributors to this volume are interested in how ruling elites retain power through control over production and exchange, and then legitimize that control through an elaborate ideology. The eleven case studies look at particular chiefdoms, originating in specific historical conditions. Despite obvious differences between the chiefdoms, certain common underlying processes are revealed. The collection recognizes how complex and interdependent the sources of power in society are, as well as the forces of instability that constantly threaten to tear the society apart. Chiefdoms offers a rich and varied interpretation of sociopolitical power.
- A controversial and exciting reconsideration of the notion of chiefdoms
- Contributors are well known in a variety of fields including anthropology, archaeology, history
- Well written and accessible, encouraging appeal to students
Product details
April 1993Paperback
9780521448963
356 pages
232 × 154 × 22 mm
0.52kg
21 b/w illus. 10 tables
Available
Table of Contents
- l. The evolution of chiefdoms Timothy Earle
- 2. Chiefdoms, states, and systems of social evolution Kristian Kristiansen
- 3. The pattern of change in British prehistory Richard Bradley
- 4. Property rights and the evolution of chiefdoms Timothy Earle
- 5. Lords of the waste: predation, pastoral production, and the process of stratification among the Eastern Tuaregs Candelario Saenz
- 6. Chiefship and competitive involution: the Marquesas Islands of eastern Polynesia Patrick Kirch
- 7. Trajectories towards social complexity in the later prehistory of the Mediterranean Antonio Gilman
- 8. Chiefdoms to city-states: the Greek experience Yale Ferguson
- 9. Contrasting patterns of Mississippian development Vincas Steponaitis
- l0. Demography, surplus, and inequality: early political formations in highland Mesoamerica Gary Feinman
- 11. Pre-Hispanic chiefdom trajectories in Mesoamerica, Central America, and northern South America Robert Drennan.
