McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 1 11 The First Cities and States Anthropology: The Exploration of Human Diversity 11 th Edition Conrad

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

111

The First Cities and States

Anthropology:The Exploration of Human Diversity

11th Edition

Conrad Phillip Kottak


2 The First Cities and StatesThe First Cities and States

• The Origin of the State

• Attributes of States

• State Formation in the Middle East

• Other Early States

• State Formation in Mesoamerica

• Why States Collapse


3 The Origin of the StateThe Origin of the State

– First states developed in Mesopotamia by 5500 B.P. and in Mesoamerica some 3,000 years later

• State is a form of social and political organization that has formal central government and division of society into classes



– System of political authority and control typically develop to handle regulatory problems

– State formation may take centuries, and people experiencing the process at any time rarely perceive the significance of the long-term changes

• Complexity of division of social and economic labor tended to grow as food production spread and intensified


5 The Origin of the State The Origin of the State

– Wittfogel suggested one cause of state formation is need to regulate hydraulic (water-based) agricultural economies

• Not a sufficient or necessary condition for rise of state

• Does have certain implications for state formation

Water control increases production, but it demands labor and organization

• Hydraulic Systems



• Life-and-death functions enhance authority of state officials

• In certain arid areas, states have emerged to manage systems of irrigation, drainage, and flood control

– Hydraulic agriculture is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for the rise of states

• Hydraulic Systems– Large hydraulic works sustain towns and

cities and become essential to subsistence



– Some believe states emerged at strategic locations in regional trade networks

Long-distance trade is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for the rise of states

• Long-Distance Trade Routes in State Formation



– Multivariate theory for state formation that incorporates three factors

According to Carneiro, wherever and whenever environmental circumscription (or resource concentration), increasing population, and warfare exist, state formation will begin

• Population, War, and Circumscription



– Circumscription• Physically circumscribed environments include

small islands, river plains, oases, and valleys• Social circumscription exists when neighboring

societies block expansion, emigration, or access to resources

• Population, War, and Circumscription



– Highland New Guinea has environmental circumscription, warfare, and increasing population, but region never hosted a state

• Circumscription– Theory explains many, but not all, cases of

state formation



• Carneiro’s Multivariate Approach to the Origin of the State as Applied to Coastal Peru– Insert Figure 11.1


12 Attributes of StatesAttributes of States

• Early states had productive farming economies– Supported dense populations– Often in cities– Agricultural economies usually involved

some form of water control or irrigation

• A state controls specific regional territory



• Early states used tribute and taxation to accumulate, at a central place, resources needed to support hundreds, or thousands, of specialists



• Early states had imposing public buildings and architecture

• Early states developed some form of record-keeping system

• States stratified into social classes (e.g., elites, commoners, and slaves)


15State Formation in the Middle State Formation in the Middle EastEast

• By 6000 B.P., Population increasing most rapidly in alluvial plain in southern Mesopotamia (area between Tigris and Euphrates rivers)

• Food production arose around 10,000 years ago in the Middle East



– Sumer with its capital at Uruk (southern Iraq)

– Elam with its capital at Susa (southwestern Iran)

• By 5500 B.P. Towns grew into cities



– Earliest known town is Jericho• Located in modern Israel• Settled by the Natufians around 11,000 years

ago• Around 9,000 B.P., town was destroyed• Rebuilt later with square houses with finished

plaster floors– Buried dead beneath floors

• Pottery reached Jericho around 8000 B.P.

• Urban Life



• Located in the central part of modern Turkey• Possibly largest settlement of Neolithic• Flourished between 8000 and 7000 B.P. with up

to 10,000 people living at the site• Individual mud-brick dwellings, rarely larger

than a suburban American bedroom, had separate areas for secular and ritual activities

• Urban Life– Çatal Hüyük


19State Formation in the Middle State Formation in the Middle EastEast• Urban Life

– Çatal Hüyük• Ritual spaces decorated with paintings,

sculpted ox heads, bull horns, and relief models of bulls and rams

– Images and motifs place on walls facing north, east, or west, never on walls facing south

• Burials were placed beneath the house floors• Çatal Hüyük shows no signs of state-level

sociopolitical organization



• First found at Tell Halaf in mountains of northern Syria

• Delicate pottery associated with elites• Indicates one of the first chiefdoms in the

northern part of the Middle East

• The Elite Level– Halafian pottery (7500-6500 B.P.)



• First found and identified at the site of Tell el-Ubaid located in the southern part of modern Iraq

• Associated with advanced chiefdoms and perhaps the first states in southern Mesopotamia

• The Elite Level– Ubaid pottery (7000-6000 B.P.)



– Egalitarian societies• Most typically found among foragers and tribes• Lack status distinctions except for those based

on age, gender, and individual qualities, talents, and achievements

• Everybody born equal, but during the course of their lives achieve different statuses

• Social Ranking and Chiefdoms



• Hereditary inequality, but lack social stratification

• Continuum of status as individuals are ranked in terms of their genealogical distance from the chief

• Not all ranked societies are chiefdoms; only those in which there is a loss of village autonomy are called chiefdoms

• Social Ranking and Chiefdoms– Ranked societies



• Ranked society in which relations among villages as well as individuals are unequal

• Primary states emerge from competition among chiefdoms, as one chiefdom managed to conquer its neighbors and integrate them into a larger political unit

• Chiefdoms first appear in the Middle East around 7300 B.P. and in Mesoamerica around 3000 B.P.

• Social Ranking and Chiefdoms– Chiefdoms



• Archaeological markers of chiefdoms are presence of wealthy burials of children too young to have achieved or earned prestige of their own, but were born into elite families

Chiefdoms precursors to primary states—states that arose on their own and not through contact with other state societies

• Social Ranking and Chiefdoms– Chiefdoms


26State Formation in the Middle State Formation in the Middle East East • Egalitarian Ranked and Stratified

Societies– Insert Table 11.1


27State Formation in the Middle State Formation in the Middle East East • Archaeological Periods in Middle

Eastern State Formation– Insert Table 11.2



– Archaeologists use ethnographic case studies to help interpret the archaeological record

• Through ethnographic analogy, archaeologists generate hypotheses that can be tested through fieldwork

• How Ethnography Helps in Interpreting the Archaeological Record

Archaeology is to ethnography as paleontology is to zoology



– Excavations at Tell Hamoukar suggest advanced chiefdoms arose in northern areas of the Middle East independently of developments in southern Mesopotamia

– Site covers 32 acres and was surrounded by a defensive wall

• Advanced Chiefdoms



– Excavators also recovered seals used too mark storage containers

• Advanced Chiefdoms– Evidence of large-scale food storage and

preparation, which indicates that elites were hosting and entertaining in a chiefly manner



– Uruk Period (6700-5200 B.P.)• First cities appear• Centralized leadership• Settlements spread north into modern Syria

and Turkey

• The Rise of the State



• First developed in southern Mesopotamia• Was used to keep accounts, reflecting the

needs of trade• The first kind of writing in Mesopotamia is

called cuneiform

• The Rise of the State– Writing



• Temples managed herding, farming, manufacture, and trade

• Priests used cuneiform to keep track of temples’ economic activities

– Metallurgy-knowledge of the properties of metals

• The Rise of the State– Temples and Writing



• After 5000 B.P., metallurgy evolved rapidly• The Iron Age began around 3200 B.P.

• The Rise of the State– Smelting-process of using high

temperatures to extract pure metal from ore



• Large populations densely concentrated in walled cities

• Secular authority replaced temple rule around 4600 B.P.

• A well-defined class structure, with complex stratification into nobles, commoners, and slaves, present by 4600 B.P.

• The Rise of the State– Bronze Age Mesopotamian States


36State Formation in the Middle State Formation in the Middle EastEast• Sites in Middle Eastern State Formation

– Insert Figure 11.2


37 Other Early StatesOther Early States

– Indus state flourished between 4600 and 3900 B.P.

– Major cities, Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, exhibited urban planning with carefully laid out wastewater systems and residential sectors

– Developed its own writing system

• Indus Civilization



– The first Chinese state belongs to the Shang Dynasty (3750 B.P.)

– Characterized by urbanism, palaces, human sacrifice, and distinct social classes

– Developed its own writing system– Well-known for its bronze metallurgy

• China



– Egypt developed in northern Africa as one of world’s first states

• Influence extended southward along the Nile into what is now Sudan

– Metallurgy played role in eventual rise of African states

• Spread by banru speakers about 2000 years ago

• African States



• Started in region now called Zimbabwe• Region rich in gold, and Mwenemutapa traded

with city of Sofala on Indian Ocean starting around 1000 B.P.

• Developed powerful kingdom based on trade

• African States– Mwenemutapa empiter



• Region rich in gold, precious metals, ivory, and other resources

• After 1250 B.P. traded across the Sahara to North Africa, Egypt, and the Middle East

• Cities in the Sahel served as southern terminal points for trans-Saharan trade

• Several kingdoms developed in area

• African States– Farming towns started appearing in the

Sahel around 2600 B.P. (just south of the Sahara in western Africa)


42State Formation in State Formation in MesoamericaMesoamerica• First monumental buildings in Western

Hemisphere constructed by Mesoamerican chiefdoms in many areas

Chiefdoms influenced one another as they traded materials


43State Formation in State Formation in MesoamericaMesoamerica

– The Olmec built series of ritual centers on Mexico’s southern Gulf Coast between 3200 and 2500 B.P.

• Earthen mounds grouped into plaza complexes• Also master sculptors• Trade routes linked the Olmec with other parts

of Mesoamerica, including Oaxacan• Items traded were for elite consumption

• Early Chiefdoms and Elites



– Incorporating several others into the emerging state it controls, and making changes in its own infrastructure as it acquires and holds on to new territories

• Olmec and Oaxaca just two of many flamboyant early Mexican chiefdoms

• Early Chiefdoms and Elites– Rapid social change between 3200 and

3000 B.P.


45State Formation in State Formation in MesoamericaMesoamerica• Early Chiefdoms and Elites

– As Olmec chiefdoms declined, elite level spread throughout Mesoamerica

By 2000 B.P., Teotihuacan flourished in the valley of Mexico



– By A.D. 1 Teotihuacan was town of 10,000 people

• Governed a territory of a few thousand square kilometers with perhaps 50,000 people

• Settlement hierarchy—ranked series of communities that differ in size, function, and building types

• State organization included large-scale irrigation, status differentiation, and complex architecture

• States in the Valley of Mexico



• By A.D. 500, population reached 130,000• By A.D. 900, population shrunk to 30,000• Succeeded by the lesser Toltec state (A.D. 900-

1200)

• States in the Valley of Mexico• Thrived between A.D. 100 and 700



• Population growth accompanied by intensification of agriculture

• In the capital, Tenochtitlan, production of luxury goods became more prestigious and highly organized occupied special position

• Manufacture of luxury goods for export important part of economy

• States in the Valley of Mexico– During Aztec period (A.D. 1325 to 1520),

several cities appeared


49 Why States CollapseWhy States Collapse

– Invasion– Disease– Famine

• Various factors could threaten economies and political institutions



– Environmental degradation• Canals in Mesopotamia feed cities• As water evaporated from the canals, the

water-borne salts became concentrated in the fields

• Various factors could threaten economies and political institutions– Prolonged drought



• The Mayan Decline

Maya state of Classic Period flourished between A.D. 300 and 900 (1700-1100 B.P.) in what is now southern Mexico, Guatemala, western Honduras, Belize, and El Salvador



• Last inscribed monument has the date of A.D. 822

• Copán’s collapse linked to erosion, soil exhaustion, and overpopulation

Warfare also was creator and destroyer of ancient kingdoms and states

• The Mayan Decline– Copán largest site in the southeastern

region of the Maya area

Documents

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 1 11 The First Cities and States Anthropology: The Exploration of Human Diversity 11 th Edition Conrad