Power from Below in Premodern Societies The Dynamics of Political Complexity in the Archaeological Record
Book contents
- Power from Below in Premodern Societies
- Power from Below in Premodern Societies
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Preface
- One Power from Below in the Archaeological Record
- Two Fragmenting Trypillian Megasites
- Three Structure and Agency
- Four Power Requires Others
- Five “And Make Some Other Man Our King”
- Six Societies against the Chief? Re-Examining the Value of “Heterarchy” as a Concept for Studying European Iron Age Societies
- Seven Peasants, Agricultural Intensification, and Collective Action in Premodern States
- Eight The Spread of Scribal Literacy in Han China
- Nine Confronting Leviathan
- Ten The Emergence of Monte Albán
- Eleven Dispersing Power
- Twelve The Perplexing Heterarchical Complexity of New Guinea Fisher-Forager Polities at Contact
- Thirteen Restoring Disorder
- Index
- References
Seven - Peasants, Agricultural Intensification, and Collective Action in Premodern States
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2021
Book contents
- Power from Below in Premodern Societies
- Power from Below in Premodern Societies
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Preface
- One Power from Below in the Archaeological Record
- Two Fragmenting Trypillian Megasites
- Three Structure and Agency
- Four Power Requires Others
- Five “And Make Some Other Man Our King”
- Six Societies against the Chief? Re-Examining the Value of “Heterarchy” as a Concept for Studying European Iron Age Societies
- Seven Peasants, Agricultural Intensification, and Collective Action in Premodern States
- Eight The Spread of Scribal Literacy in Han China
- Nine Confronting Leviathan
- Ten The Emergence of Monte Albán
- Eleven Dispersing Power
- Twelve The Perplexing Heterarchical Complexity of New Guinea Fisher-Forager Polities at Contact
- Thirteen Restoring Disorder
- Index
- References
Summary
Rural sociopolitical complexity in premodern states was quite extensive but variable. However, archaeologists and cultural anthropologists have been slow to recognize and study institutional complexity in rural contexts. Much ink has been spilled regarding economic relationships, “centralized” control, and “imagined communities” (e.g., Davis-Salazar, 2003; Earle & Spriggs, 2015; Flannery, 1972; Isbell, 2000; Kirch, 2010; Paris, 2014; Sanders & Price, 1968; Wright, 1977; Yaeger & Canuto, 2000). But the development of infrastructural power, especially collective power, in rural settlements and its relationship with regional or macroregional political structures has received only scant attention. With respect to contemporary cases, which provide important theoretical frameworks, anthropologists have taken a back seat to political scientists (e.g., Ostrom, 2015; see Lansing, 2012 for an important [partial] exception), whose focus has been on the management of common pool resources – a topic generally ignored by archaeologists. Unfortunately, neither political scientists nor anthropologists have invested much in understanding cooperation and public goods provisioning in rural settlements and landscapes. Conversely, we have made some initial forays into the issue of rural institutional complexity in premodern states and civilization (Blanton & Fargher, 2008); and here we expand to some degree on that discussion.
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- Power from Below in Premodern SocietiesThe Dynamics of Political Complexity in the Archaeological Record, pp. 157 - 174Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
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