2. The 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 State
When, where, and why did early states originate, and what were their key attributes?
How do archaeologists distinguish between chiefdoms and states?
What similarities and differences marked the origin of early states in the Old and New Worlds?

4. The Origin of the State
State: a form of social and political organization that has a formal, central government and a division of society into classes
First states had developed in Mesopotamia by 5,500 BP and
3,000 years later in Mesoamerica
Evidence of an elite level by 7,000 BP in Middle East and 3,200 BP in Mesoamerica

5. Chiefdoms were precursors to states, with priveleged and effective leaders, “chiefs”, but lacking the sharp class divisions that characterize states.

6. The Origin of the State
The complexity of division of social and economic labor tended to grow as food production spread and intensified
Systems of political authority and control developed to handle regulatory problems encountered as population grows and as economy increases in scale and diversity.
Competition (including warfare) for territory and resources stimulates state formation
State formation may take centuries, and people experiencing the process may not perceive significance of long-term changes

7. The Origin of the State (causes of state formation)
Hydraulic Systems
Wittfogel: One cause of state formation is the need to regulate hydraulic (water-based) agricultural economies.
In arid areas such as ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, states have emerged to manage systems of irrigation, drainage and flood control.

8. Water control increases production but demands labor and organization (able to feed more people, hence fuels population growth).
Large hydraulic works sustain towns and cities and become essential to subsistence.
The expanding hydraulic system supports larger and denser concentration of people. Interpersonal problems increase; conflicts over access to water and irrigated land become more frequent.
Political authorities may arise to regulate production as well as interpersonal and intergroup relations.

9. Growth in hydraulic systems is often (but not always) associated with state formation.
Hydraulic systems are not a necessary (and definitely not sufficient) condition for the rise of the state.
There are states with no hydraulic systems and societies with irrigation that never experienced state formation.

10. The Origin of the State (causes of state formation)
Long-Distance Trade Routes
States emerged at strategic locations in regional trade networks. These sites include points of supply or exchange situated to threaten or halt trade between centers.
Not a necessary or sufficient condition for the rise of states
Trade generally follows rather than precede state formation.

11. The Origin of the State (causes of state formation)
Population, War, and Circumscription
Carneiro: Wherever and whenever environmental circumscription (resource concentration), increasing population, and warfare exist, state formation will begin.
Multivariate theory: involves multiple factors, courses, or variables
Incorporating three factors working together instead of a single cause of state formation
Theory explains many, but not all, cases of state formation

12. The Origin of the State
Environmental circumscription may be physical or social.
Physically circumscribed environments include small islands, and in arid areas river plains, oases etc.
Social circumscription (neighboring societies block expansion, emigration or access to resources) 12

13. The Origin of the State Coastal Peru illustrates factors’ interaction
Earliest cultivation limited to valleys with springs (arid)
Population increased, and new villages developed
Land became scarce, and rivalries and raiding grew
The first states developed when one chiefdom conquered others.
Eventually, these became an empire (a mature state that is large, multiethnic, militaristic, and expansive) 13

14. Figure 12.1: Carneiro’s Multivariate Approach to the Origin of the State as Applied to Coastal Peru

15. The association between population density and state organization is generalized rather than universal.
States tend to have large and dense populations, however, population increase and warfare within a circumscribed environment did not trigger state formation in Papua New Guinea!

16. To explain any instance of state formation, we must search for specific changes in
access to resources, and
regulatory problems
that fostered stratification and state machinery.
Remember, chiefdoms and states don’t inevitably arise from food production!

17. Attributes of States
States control specific regional territory (compared to kin groups and villaged in prestate societies). They were expansionist; competition among chiefdoms led to extending rule over larger territory and managing people and resources on it.
Early states had productive farming economies that supported dense populations (often in cities) and involved some form of irrigation and water control.
States used tribute and taxation to accumulate, at a central place, the resources needed to support hundreds, or even thousands, of specialists. Had rulers, military and control over human labor.

18. Attributes of States
States were stratified into social classes (elites, officials, priests, artisans, commoners, slaves). Rulers stayed in power by combining personal ability, religious authority, economic control and force.
Early states had imposing public buildings and monumental architecture (temples, palaces).
Early states developed some form of record-keeping system, usually a written script.

19. State Formation in the Middle East
Food production arose around 10,000 BP in the Middle East.
Population increased most rapidly in the alluvial plain in southern Mesopotamia by 6,000 BP.
Towns grew into cities by 5,500 BP.
Sumer, with its capital at Uruk
Elam, with its capital at Susa

20. Urban Life Jericho: the earliest known town
Located in today’s Israel at a well-watered oasis
First settled by Natufian foragers some 11,000 years ago
Unplanned, densely populated settlement with round houses and some 2,000 people
Surrounded by a sturdy wall (probably built against flood rather than for defense)

21. Urban Life Çatal Höyük arose because of trade
Long-distance trade important in Middle East between 9,500 and 7,000 BP
Located in central part of modern Turkey, possibly largest settlement of Neolithic, upported up to 10,000 people
No control or management of trade and production by priestly or political elite. Never became a full-fledged city with centralized organization. Food was stored and processed not collectively but on a domestic scale.
Shielded by a defensive wall
Ritual spaces decorated by wall paintings, sculpted ox heads, bull horns, and relief models of bulls and rams
Ritual images placed along north, east and west walls but never south (it was reserved for cooking and domestic tasks)

22. Figure 12.2: Sites in Middle Eastern State Formation

23. Archaelogists consider pottery shape, finishing, type of clay and decoration to determine time period.
The geographic distribution of a pottery style indicates trade or alliance spanning a large area at a particular time.

24. The Elite Level Halafian pottery (7,500–6,500 BP)
Describes the period when elite level and first chiefdoms emerged. Delicate pottery associated with elites. Low number suggests they were luxury goods associated with social hierarchy.
Indicates one of the first chiefdoms in the northern part of the Middle East

25. Ubaid pottery (7,000–6,000 BP)
Associated with advanced chiefdoms and perhaps the first states in southern Mesopotamia (more widespread than Halafian, diffused rapidly over a large area.)

26. Identifying early states (archaelogical evidence for state organization)
Monumental architecture
Central storehouses
Irrigation systems
Written records

27. Ancient Mexican chiefdoms had similar monuments, such as stone works and temple complexes that made it easier to detect chiefdoms.
Mesoamericans also marked their elites with durable ornaments and prestige goods (buried with the chiefs).
Early Middle Eastern chiefs, on the contrary, were less ostentatious in use of material markers of prestige.

28. On the basis of the kinds of status distinctions within society, Morton Fried divided societies into 3 types:
Egalitarian
Ranked
Stratified.

29. Social Ranking and Chiefdoms
Egalitarian societies: Most typically among foragers. Lack status distinctions except for those based on gender, age, individual qualities, talents, and achievements ( adult men, elder women, talented musicians, ritual specialists)
cultures with rudimentary status distinctions, which were not usually inherited (child of a respected person will not receive recognition because of parent, but must earn such respect)

30. Ranked societies: Hereditary inequality, individuals ranked by genealogical distance from the chief
Lack stratification (social divisions or strata with unequal wealth and power) into noble and commoner classes.
Continuum of status, with many individuals and kin groups ranked about equally, meaning a competiton for positions of leadership.
Chiefdoms: relations among villages and individuals are unequal (not all ranked societies are chiefdoms)

31. Flannery (1999): Only those ranked societies with loss of village autonomy (and under the authority of leaders who live in larger villages) should be called chiefdoms.
Evidence for chiefdoms in Mesoamerica dates back more than 3,000 years

32. Social Ranking and Chiefdoms
In Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, and Peru, chiefdoms were precursors to primary states (states that arose on their own, not through contact with other state societies).
Primary states emerged from a competiton among chiefdoms, as one chiefdom managed to conquer its neighbors and make them part of a larger political unit.

33. Burial practices Aristocracy, nobility (infants)
Villages linked in political units
Common canal to irrigate several villages
Small villages clustering around a large one, with public buildings.

34. Social Ranking and Chiefdoms
The first Middle Eastern states developed between 6,000 and 5,500 BP
Archaeological record of the period after 7,300 BP reveals that exotic goods were used as markers of status, raiding, and political instability

35. Recap 12.1: Egalitarian, Ranked, and Stratified Societies

36. Advanced Chiefdoms
Excavations at Tell Hamoukar suggest advanced chiefdoms arose in northern areas of the Middle East independently of events in southern Mesopotamia.
Site covers 32 acres, surrounded by a defensive wall
Evidence of large-scale food storage and preparation
A ranked society in which elites were organizing people and resources

37. The Rise of the State Uruk Period (6,000–5,200 BP)
Irrigation allowed the Ubaid communities to spread along the Euphrates River
Travel and trade were expanding
Economies managed by central leadership
First writing appears, to keep accounts
Cuneiform: wedge-shaped writing, using styles on clay

38. The Rise of the State Uruk Period (6,700–5,200 BP)
established Mesopotamia as the cradle of civilization.
Writing and temples played key roles
Priests managed herding, farming, manufacture, and trade
Priests used cuneiform writing to keep track of their temples’ economic activities

39. The Rise of the State Uruk Period (6,700–5,200 BP)
Metallurgy: the extraction and processing of metals to make tools
After 5,000 BP, metallurgy evolved rapidly
Smelting: a high-temperature process by which pure metal is produced from an ore
Golden objects found in royal burials at Uruk by 4,500 BP

40. The Rise of the State
The Mesopotamian economy spurred population growth and urbanism.
Secular authority replaced temple rule by 4,600 BP
Well-defined class structure, with complex stratification into nobles, commoners, and slaves

41. Recap 12.2: Archaeological Periods in Middle Eastern State Formation

42. Other Early States Indus Civilization
An Indus River Valley state flourished between 4,600 and 3,900 BP.
The major cities Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, exhibited urban planning with carefully laid out wastewater systems and residential sectors.
The area developed its own writing system.
The culture collapsed around 3,900 BP.

43. Other Early States China: Shang Dynasty (3,750 BP)
Arose in Huang He River Area
Urbanism
Palaces
Human sacrifice
Distinct social classes
Developed writing system
Well-known for bronze metallurgy

44. Andeans Peru: Andes System of suspension bridges
Known for their pottery manufacturing techniques
State formation truncated by Spanish Conquest

45. African States
Egypt developed in northern Africa as one of the world’s first states.
Egypt’s influence extended southward along the Nile into what is now Sudan.
Metallurgy played a role in the eventual rise of the African states.
Metallurgy was spread by Bantu speakers about 2,100 BP.

46. African States Mwenemutapa empire
Started in the region now called Zimbabwe, from Bantu migration
The region was rich in gold.
Developed a powerful kingdom based on trade
Mwenemutapa traded with the city of Sofala on the Indian Ocean starting around 1,000 BP.

47. African States
Farming towns started appearing in the Sahel around 2,600 BP (just south of the Sahara in western Africa).
The region was rich in gold, precious metals, ivory, and other resources.
After 1,250 BP, trade crossed 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 the area.

48. Figure 12.3: The Four Great Early River Valley States of the Old World

49. State Formation in Mesoamerica
Mesoamerican chiefdoms constructed monumental buildings in many areas.
Chiefdoms influenced one another as they traded materials.

50. Early Chiefdoms and Elites
The Olmec built a series of ritual centers on Mexico’s southern Gulf Coast 3,200 to 2,500 years ago.
Earthen mounds were grouped into plaza complexes.
Master sculptors emerged.
Trade routes linked Olmecs with other parts of Mesoamerica, including Oaxaca.
Items traded for elite consumption

52. Early Chiefdoms and Elites
Rapid social change between 3,200 BP and 3,000 BP
Mesoamerica’s chiefdoms linked by trade
Intensity of competitive interaction made change rapid
State formation involves one chiefdom’s incorporating several others into an emerging state that it controls, and making changes in its own infrastructure as it acquires new territories.

53. Warfare and State Formation: The Zapotec Case
Warfare often plays a key role in primary state formation.
Zapotec state: first Mesoamerican state, in the Valley of Oaxaca
Flannery, Marcus: Changing warfare patterns were seen in Oaxaca between 330 and 20 BP.
Evidence for earliest conquest warfare appears with evidence for emerging state organization.
Expansion through conquest can play a key role in the formation of a primary state.

54. States in the Valley of Mexico
Teotihuacán flourished between 1,900 and 1,300 BP.
Town of 10,000 people by our era.
Governed territory of a few thousand square kilometers with perhaps 50,000 people
Settlement hierarchy: ranked series of communities that differed in size, function, and building types
Organization included large-scale irrigation, status differentiation, and complex architecture

55. States in the Valley of Mexico
Teotihuacán (Continued)
Population reached 130,000 by C.E. 500
Population shrank to 30,000 by C.E. 900
Succeeded by the lesser Toltec state (AD 900–1,200)

56. States in the Valley of Mexico
During Aztec period (AD 1,325–1520), several cities appeared
Population growth was accompanied by an intensification of agriculture.
In Tenochtitlán, production of luxury goods became more prestigious and highly organized; artisans occupied special position
Manufacture of luxury goods for export became an important part of economy.

57. Figure 12.4: Major Sites in the Emergence of Food Production and the State in Mesoamerica57

58. Why States Collapse
Various factors could threaten economies and political institutions:
Invasion
Disease
Famine
Prolonged drought
Environmental degradation (deforestation, over-use of land, irrigation)

59. Why States Collapse The Maya Decline Flourished between AD 300 and 900
Known for monuments, calendars, mathematics, and hieroglyphic writing
Environmental factors (degradation): erosion and soil exhaustion due to overpopulation and overfarming
Food stress and malnutrition
From period just before collapse, evidence of their increased concern with fortifications (warfare)
Social, political and military upheaval and competition (texts). 59

60. Figure 12.5: The Oaxaca Region, Mexico, Showing Places Mentioned