The Evolution of Political Systems

Sociopolitics in Small-Scale Sedentary Societies

Edited by Steadman Upham

Throughout the world, the development of agriculture produced dramatic changes in human cultural systems. As people settled down in one locality, populations grew rapidly, patterns of subsistence were transformed, technology became more advanced, and the nature of social and political relations changed. People no longer interacted exclusively with kin, as they had in the past when organized in bands, and new forms of political relationships between groups were established. The emergence of these political systems was the first step in the evolution of the state. The contributors to this book rely on archaeological and ethnographic case studies to examine the social, economic, and political processes behind the development of these “middle-range” political systems, located on a continuum between communally organized hunter-gatherer bands and stratified, centralized chiefdoms and states.

1990. 336 pp., Figures, tables, map, notes, references, index., 6 x 9

Contributors: Barbara Bender, David Braun, Christine A. Hastorf, Arthur S. Keene, Richard B. Lee, Robert McC. Netting, Stephen Plog, Dean J. Saitta, Bruce G. Trigger, Steadman Upham

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List of figures List of Tables List of Contributors Foreword by Jonathan Haas Preface by Steadman Upham

1. Decoupling the processes of political evolution Steadman Upham

Part I EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVES AND EXPLANATORY FRAMEWORKS

1. Population, permanent agriculture, and polities: unpacking the evolutionary portmanteau Robert McC. Netting
2. Selection and evolution in nonhierarchical organization David P. Braun
3. Analog or digital?: Toward a generic framework for explaining the development of emergent political systems Steadman Upham

Part II THE ROLE OF DECISION-MAKING, PRODUCTIVE, AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROCESSES IN POLITICAL CHANGE

1. Maintaining economic equality in opposition to complexity: an Iroquoian study Bruce G. Trigger
2. One path to the heights: negotiating political inequality in the Sausa of Peru Christine A. Hastorf
3. Agriculture, sedentism, and environment in the evolution of political system Stephen Plog

Part III MARXIST VIEWS OF POLITICAL CHANGE

Politics and surplus flow in prehistoric communal societies Dean J. Saitta and Arthur S. Keene
Primitive communism and the origin of social inequality Richard B. Lee
The dynamics of nonhierarchical societies Barbara Bender

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