Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Pathways to complexity: an African perspective
- 2 The segmentary state and the ritual phase in political economy
- 3 Perceiving variability in time and space: the evolutionary mapping of African societies
- 4 Western representations of urbanism and invisible African towns
- 5 Modeling political organization in large-scale settlement clusters: a case study from the Inland Niger Delta
- 6 Sacred centers and urbanization in West Central Africa
- 7 Permutations in patrimonialism and populism: The Aghem chiefdoms of Western Cameroon
- 8 Wonderful society: the Burgess Shale creatures, Mandara polities, and the nature of prehistory
- 9 Material culture and the dialectics of identity in the Kalahari: AD 700–1700
- 10 Seeking and keeping power in Bunyoro-Kitara, Uganda
- 11 The (in)visible roots of Bunyoro-Kitara and Buganda in the Lakes region: AD 800–1300
- 12 The power of symbols and the symbols of power through time: probing the Luba past
- 13 Pathways of political development in equatorial Africa and neo-evolutionary theory
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Pathways to complexity: an African perspective
- 2 The segmentary state and the ritual phase in political economy
- 3 Perceiving variability in time and space: the evolutionary mapping of African societies
- 4 Western representations of urbanism and invisible African towns
- 5 Modeling political organization in large-scale settlement clusters: a case study from the Inland Niger Delta
- 6 Sacred centers and urbanization in West Central Africa
- 7 Permutations in patrimonialism and populism: The Aghem chiefdoms of Western Cameroon
- 8 Wonderful society: the Burgess Shale creatures, Mandara polities, and the nature of prehistory
- 9 Material culture and the dialectics of identity in the Kalahari: AD 700–1700
- 10 Seeking and keeping power in Bunyoro-Kitara, Uganda
- 11 The (in)visible roots of Bunyoro-Kitara and Buganda in the Lakes region: AD 800–1300
- 12 The power of symbols and the symbols of power through time: probing the Luba past
- 13 Pathways of political development in equatorial Africa and neo-evolutionary theory
- Index
Summary
This book project had its origins in my own frustration at the paucity of African models, African-inspired theories, and African case studies in the archaeological literature on the development of complexity. When Antonio Gilman asked me to organize an archaeology session at the 1992 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in San Francisco, I used the opportunity to showcase what that continent has to offer to ongoing debates about the origin and nature of complex societies. If archaeology was to live up to its claims to be a comparative discipline, it needed to take Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, seriously and systematically into account.
The papers at the invited session entitled “Intermediate-level Societies in Africa: Archaeological and Anthropological Insights” ranged widely over the continent and included presentations by anthropologists and historians as well as archaeologists. A number of the papers in this volume (those by Southall, S.McIntosh, Schoenbrun, Robertshaw, and Denbow) were originally presented at this session. Igor Kopytoff was also scheduled to participate, but circumstances prevented it. Fekri Hassan participated in the session, but in view of the strongly sub-Saharan focus of the rest of the papers, it was decided to strengthen that focus for publication and exclude ancient Egypt – arguably the best-known African complex society. Subsequently, papers presented by Ann Stahl and Nic David at the Complex Society Group's meeting in San Bernardino in October 1995 were added, and additional papers solicited. Not all of the additionally solicited papers actually materialized, leaving the coverage of some themes and areas envisioned for inclusion rather threadbare.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Beyond ChiefdomsPathways to Complexity in Africa, pp. ix - xPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999