How Chiefs Come to Power

How Chiefs Come to Power
Author: Timothy K. Earle
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 1997
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780804728560

This book is basically about power-how people came to acquire it and the implications that contrasting paths to power had for the development of societies. Earle argues that chiefdoms, being a regional polity with governance over a population of a few thousand to tens of thousands of people, and with some social stratification, possessed the same fundamental dynamics as those of states, and that the origin of states is to be understood in the emergence and development of chiefdoms. His arguments are developed by three case studies-Denmark during the Neolithic and early Bronze Age (2300-1300) BC, the high Andes of Peru from the early chiefdoms through the Inka conquest (AD 500-1534), and Hawai'i from early settlement to its incorporation in the world economy (AD 800-1824). After summarizing the cultural history of the three societies over a thousand years, he considers the sources of chiefly power-the economy, military power and ideology-and how these sources were linked together.

A Primer on Chiefs and Chiefdoms

A Primer on Chiefs and Chiefdoms
Author: Timothy Earle
Publisher: Eliot Werner Publications
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2021-12-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1734281847

Chiefs are political operatives who hold titles of leadership over groups larger than intimate kin-based communities. Although they rule with the consent of their group, they are all about building personal power and respect. Many scholars have viewed chiefs as problem solvers--defending groups against aggressors, resolving disputes, providing support under hardship, organizing labor for community projects, and redistributing goods among those in need. Chiefs do these things, but much of what chiefs do is accumulate benefits for themselves, staying in power and legitimizing control. Anthropological archaeology is well suited to pursue the study of chiefs, their leadership institutions (chiefdoms), and long-term historical processes. The author argues that studying chiefdoms is essential to understanding the role of elemental powers in social evolution. As an illustration, he studies chiefs and their power strategies in historically independent prehistoric and traditional societies and discusses how they continue to exist as powerful actors within modern states.

A Primer on Chiefs and Chiefdoms

A Primer on Chiefs and Chiefdoms
Author: Timothy Earle
Publisher: Eliot Werner Publications
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2021-12-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1734281855

Chiefs are political operatives who hold titles of leadership over groups larger than intimate kin-based communities. Although they rule with the consent of their group, they are all about building personal power and respect. Many scholars have viewed chiefs as problem solvers--defending groups against aggressors, resolving disputes, providing support under hardship, organizing labor for community projects, and redistributing goods among those in need. Chiefs do these things, but much of what chiefs do is accumulate benefits for themselves, staying in power and legitimizing control. Anthropological archaeology is well suited to pursue the study of chiefs, their leadership institutions (chiefdoms), and long-term historical processes. The author argues that studying chiefdoms is essential to understanding the role of elemental powers in social evolution. As an illustration, he studies chiefs and their power strategies in historically independent prehistoric and traditional societies and discusses how they continue to exist as powerful actors within modern states.

Ancient Panama

Ancient Panama
Author: Mary W. Helms
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2014-03-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0292766742

Ancient Panama adds depth to our understanding of the political and religious elite ruling in Panama at the time of the European conquest. Mary W. Helms's research greatly expands knowledge of the distribution, extent, and structural nature of these pre-Columbian chiefdoms. In addition, Helms delves more deeply into select aspects of ancient Panamanian political systems, including the relationship between elite competition and chiefly status, the use of sumptuary goods in the expression of elite power, and the role of elites in regional and long-distance exchange networks. In a significant departure from traditional thinking, she proposes that the search for esoteric knowledge was more important than economic trade in developing long-distance contact among chiefdoms. The primary data for the study are derived from sixteenth-century Spanish records by Oviedo y Valdés, Andagoya, Balboa, and others. The author also turns to ethnographic data from contemporary native people of Panama, Colombia, tropical America, and Polynesia for analogy and comparison. The result is a highly innovative study which illuminates not only pre-Columbian Panamanian elites but also the nature of chiefdoms as a distinctive cultural type.

The Evolution of Human Societies

The Evolution of Human Societies
Author: Allen W. Johnson
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 460
Release: 2000
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780804740326

Combining original theoretical ideas and interpretation with ethnographic evidence, Johnson and Earle seek to describe and account for the development of complex human societies. A wealth of case studies are referred to throughout and these are used to support arguments for the proposed causes, mechanisms and patterns of change and for the factors involved, such as technological change, population growth, warfare, the exchange of goods. This second edition sees a complete re-writing of the theoretical chapters, taking account of recent research, plus a new chapter on changes since the Industrial Revolution and the globalisation of society.

The Politics of Custom

The Politics of Custom
Author: John L. Comaroff
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2018-03-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 022651093X

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chiefdoms

Chiefdoms
Author: Robert L. Carneiro
Publisher: Eliot Werner Publications
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2017-12-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 173337695X

What many anthropologists regard as the major step in political development occurred when, for the first time in history, previously autonomous villages gave up their individual sovereignties and were brought together into a multi-village political unit--the chiefdom. Though long neglected as a major stage in history, recent years have seen the chiefdom come in for increased attention. As its importance has been more fully recognized, it has become the object of serious scholarly analysis and interpretation. In this volume specialists in political evolution draw on data from ethnography, archaeology, and history and apply fresh insights to enhance the study of the chiefdom. The papers present penetrating analyses of many aspects of the chiefdom, from how this form of political organization first arose to the role it played in giving rise to the next major stage in the development of human society--the state.

Archaeology: The Key Concepts

Archaeology: The Key Concepts
Author: Colin Renfrew
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2013-09-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134370415

An invaluable resource, providing an up-to-date and comprehensive survey of the key terms used in this discipline today.

The Emotional Politics of Research Collaboration

The Emotional Politics of Research Collaboration
Author: Gabriele Griffin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2013-07-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1135055343

Research collaboration in the form of networks, projects and centers has become one of the dominant modes of engaging in research, especially funded research, across all academic domains. However, there has been little research on the processes of such collaborations, particularly their affective dimensions. These, as this volume demonstrates and as researchers know well, are highly important, yet mostly not directly engaged with when scientists work together, even though they are experienced by everybody involved. This volume is the first to consider questions such as how the naming of projects impacts on their accompanying "affect-scapes," the policing or disciplining of emotions in research collaborations, their accompanying tensions and how these might be managed, and the challenges to trust between scientists that such collaborations present. Drawing on theories of affect and literature on collaboration, as well as on the contributors’ experiences of being involved in large-scale research projects, the volume also importantly deals directly with some of the key emotions that occur during research collaborations such as blame, elation, frustration, alienation and belonging, and suggests some ways in which one might engage productively with the affective dimensions of research collaboration.

Ancient Maya Political Dynamics

Ancient Maya Political Dynamics
Author: Antonia E. Foias
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2013-07-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 081304832X

Foias argues that there is no single Maya political history, but multiple histories, no single Maya state, but multiple polities that need to be understood at the level of the lived experience of individuals. She explores the ways in which the dynamics of political power shaped the lives and landscape of the Maya and how this information can be used to look at other complex societies.