Chiefdoms (Archaeology)

In the paper, we express some doubts about one of the assumptions
of Robert Carneiro’s model on state (and chiefdom) formation,
namely the role of circumscription. In our opinion, the main flaw of
Carneiro’s original theory of state formation is that it implicitly
assumes that every community dreamt to conquer its neighboring
communities. We test the presence of various types of warfare (such
as conquest warfare, land acquisition warfare, and plunder warfare)
in societies with different degrees of political centralization.
Quantitative cross-cultural tests reveal a rather strong correlation
between political complexity and the presence of conquest warfare
suggesting that conquest warfare was virtually absent among
independent communities. Newer works by Carneiro propose a
model explaining how simple chiefdoms could appear in the absence
of conquest warfare. This model also includes circumscription, but
our analysis suggests that it is unnecessary.

SUMMARY: Chapter 5, in Renfrew & Bahn's textbook (Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice), covers past social organizations, including hunter-gatherer groups (bands), segmentary societies (tribal societies), chiefdoms, and early state complex societies, with approaches to assessing settlement patterns, interpreting pertinent historical data, ethnoarchaeology, various ways to examine the various types of past social organizations and their variants, and looking at individuals, identity and society, gender and childhood, and other aspects.  Two additional case studies highlighting social organization in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome.  In my view, this is one of the best college textbooks available, and is invaluable for students, archaeologists, and the public in general, to obtain a top notch overview of approaching and interpreting the archaeological record.  REVISED: Feb. 2023.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the phenomenon frequently called the “Ubaid expansion” or “Ubaid interaction sphere” in which the material culture of Southern Mesopotamia appears in Upper Mesopotamia and the bordering mountains during the 6th-5th millennium. The paper will also attempt to explain how did the “Ubaid expansion” contribute to the formation of hierarchical societies in Greater Mesopotamia. Indeed, the biggest weakness of the model of expansion (drawn from the subsequent “Uruk expansion”) is that it ignores multiregional character of the Ubaid interaction sphere and describes the culture contact between south and north Mesopotamia as a core-periphery dichotomy. Uruk expansion was probably an actual colonial phenomenon, but it is difficult to use the same argument to explain the “Ubaid expansion”. Several arguments (exchange, colonization, emulation and technology transfer) have been proposed for the widespread dissemination of Ubaid material culture in Upper Mesopotamia. The present paper proposes to outline and discuss these competing arguments in the hope of contributing to the early complex societies literature and to answer how and why the Ubaid expansion emerged.

A. V. Mastykova, G. L. Zemtsov
A «princely» female burial in the Mukhino-2 settlement
from the Hunnic period in the upper reaches of the River Don
Abstract. This article focuses attention on female burial № 1 discovered in the multilevel
settlement of Mukhino-2 (Zadonsk District of the Lipetsk Region) on the left bank of the River Snova not far from the point where it flows into the River Don (Fig. 1). The burial
from Mukhino contained a striking range of grave goods: facings made of gold leaf of
various shapes and gold long beads; a metal lunular pendant, a mirror, a toilet set, tweezers
and a bracelet; an iron knife faced with embossed gold leaf; glass and amber beads
(Figs 3–4). A range of female jewellery of this kind complete with gold appliques would
have originated from the North Pontic region. The burial numbers among the «princely»
finds from the Hunnic period. The burial from the Mukhino-2 settlement can be dated to
either the end of the D2 period or to the beginning of the D2/D3 period of «barbarian»
European chronology, i.e. to approximately 430–450 AD. Anthropological examination of
the skeletal remains has revealed that they belong to a woman aged between 20 and 29.
The absence of any enamel hypolplasia of teeth shows that her childhood had been a fairly
prosperous one. Atomic absorption analysis made it possible to assume that the woman
had spent most of her life in rather arid landscapes. This is still the only «princely» burial
from the Hunnic period which has been found in the upper reaches of the Don. It substantially
changed our ideas about the spread of prestigious cultures centred on «leaders» of
the Untersiebenbrunn type.
Keywords: Hunnic period, Untersiebenbrunn horizon, «princely» female burial, Late
Classical centres of the North Pontic zone.

In the 1st millennium A.D. the North-East Yemen political system consisting of a weak state in its centre and strong chiefdoms on its periphery appears to have been transformed into a system consisting of a bit stronger state in its centre and true tribes (but not chiefdoms). Within this system the tribes and state constituted one well integrated whole.
There does not seem to be any grounds to consider this transformation as "degeneration", "regress" or "decline", as there was no significant loss of the general system complexity and elaboration, one complex political system was transformed into another one, structurally different, but not less complex, highly organized and sophisticated.
In many respects the tribe of the North Yemeni type could be regarded as a rather developed form of the political organization, whose complexity could quite be compared with that of the chiefdom (and it is by no means more primitive than the chiefdom), implying first of all a very high level of the development of the political culture and the existence of an elaborated system of the political institutions and the traditions of arbitration, mediation, search for consensus &c, a wide developed network of intensive intercommunal links on enormous territories populated by tens and hundreds thousand people. Such tribal system can to a certain extent organize (without the application of any centralized coercion) all these masses of population which often exceed the population of an average chiefdom by 1-2 orders of magnitude.
The notion of "tribe", as it is used by the social anthropologists for the description of the socio-political organization of the Northern Yemenis (or, say, the population of many areas of Afghanistan, Cyrenaica, Atlas &c) in the 19th and 20th centuries appears rather useful, as it denotes quite a distinct form of supra-communal political organization, which does not seem to be adequately denoted by any other current terms, like "chiefdom" (let alone "state", or "community"). We can observe here such a type of political organization, when the functioning of quite stable forms of intercommunal integration takes place without the monopolization by the tribal leaders of the legitimate application of violence, without their acquisition of any formal power over the communities and the commoners, when e.g. the conflicts are solved (or the collective "tribal" actions are undertaken) not through the decisions of authoritative officials, but through the search by the tribal leaders (lacking any formal, absolute, inde-pendent from their personal qualities, power) for the consensus among all the interested members of the tribe (or the tribes) &c.
It seems reasonable to consider the tribe as the chiefdom alternative rather than a "pre-chiefdom" form of political organization (whereas in some respects the tribe of the North Yemeni type appears to be an even more developped form of political organization than the chiefdom). And in any case there does not seem to be any ground to consider as "primitive" the tribal organization of the Islamic Middle East, which (like the Middle Eastern states) formed as a result of long "post-primitive" evolution as a specific (and quite effective) version of socio-political adaptation of some quite highly developed regional populations to certain natural and socio-historical environment.
The genesis of the tribal organization in the North-East Yemeni Highlands can be also well considered as the "response" by the area socio-political system to the "challenge" of the socio-ecological crisis of the North-East in the second half of the 1st millennium AD. With respect to the Highland area this crisis seems to have been at least partly caused by the "prestige economy" of the Highland chiefdoms which led to the overstrain of the very fragile natural environment of the region (e.g. to the extreme degradation of the natural vegetal cover of the East of the Northern Mountains). The socio-ecological environment of the region does not appear to have been able to sustain the prestige consumption of the qayls ("chiefs") and their entourage. The overcoming of the second socio-ecological crisis seems to have been achieved through the getting rid of the qaylite aristocracy by the region socio-political system through the genesis of the tribal organization which in this area secured the reproduction of a rather complex and developed agricultural society by the procurement of a very "economical" surplus production.
On the one hand, the tribal organization of the area population made it possible for the tribesmen to struggle successfully (with the arms in their hands) for the preservation of a rather low level of taxation on the part of the state center of the North Yemen multipolity. On the other hand, it secured the effective control by the tribal agricultural population over resources used for the maintenance of the non-agricultural strata of the tribal zone (including its intellectual and political elites).

SUMMARY: Lecture 15 provides coverage on the art, architecture, state, administration, and economy of the Late Bronze Age Mycenaeans, and a discussion of the presumed Mycenaean takeover or domination of Crete (Minoans); the Minoan initially influenced mainland Greece, while the Mycenaeans later influenced Crete. This lecture is designed mainly as an educational resource for college students (i.e., normally posted only on my institution's course website), the public (e.g., people auditing my course), and interested colleagues from other disciplines (to whom I provide copies privately).  I am posting it here, both as a broader access, educational tool, and especially to promote the study of this region and its past societies.  For further knowledge about this region and period, I refer interested parties to the textbooks and other sources from which the materials were extracted (see syllabus), and/or the bibliographies in these works and my online resource guides (see other files in my academia folders).  The lecture summarizes the pertinent materials in the course textbook(s), adding in other data, and furnishing numerous images to clarify information encountered within the textbook(s).  Some generic imagery (usually indicated as such) is posted to aid in transmitting various concepts visually, and/or when a specific image remains not located (temporarily).  I update and revise such lectures each time, with such elective courses normally being taught once every two years.  I try to cover the most current, mainstream views, and usually place summary notes at the end of each lecture alongside some of the key sources used for compiling the ppt.  Over time, each lecture is improved, errors rectified, and additional data placed within the lecture.  These ppt. lectures take many hours to compile, but they have proved useful to many of my more serious students and I hope they can be of benefit to others as well.  My apologies for any errors I may have made, and my liberal usage of educational imagery from professional sources and vetted internet sources. REVISED: March 2024, new formatting, slides, and text, with some text modifications, also adding a Late Minoan IIIC (1200-1100 BCE) summary section at the end, and additional sources.

Voldtofte – a Bronze-Age power centre from south-western Funen.
Outlining 180 years of research – and still working!

Thanks to a series of spectacular finds from the Late Bronze Age (approx. 1100–500 BC), archaeologists throughout Europe have been acquainted with the Voldtofte area in south-western Funen since the mid-nineteenth century. Finds from the Lusehøj burial mound are particularly distinguished and comprise two richly appointed chieftain’s graves from approx. 800 BC. These finds include, for example, imported bronze vessels, wagon fixtures, and textiles from Central Europe as well as gold jewellery, weapons, and possibly fixtures for a lur. Similar rich discoveries were made in several neighbouring mounds.
Near Kirkebjerg, approx. 1.5 km eastwards, a contemporary settlement, which turned out to be remarkably large and yielding extraordinary finds, was discovered in the early twentieth century. Among these finds were burnt pieces of wattle and daub from houses painted on the outside with patterns identical to those appearing on contemporary jewellery.
In 2010, amateur archaeologists equipped with metal detectors made a curious discovery comprising eight gold toggles, a gold toothpick, three bronze celts, and a large bronze knife with a punched ship’s motif in a ploughed-over burial mound near Lusehøj. Comparable to some of the equipment discovered in other burial mounds in the area, these objects are probably remedies used for religious ceremonies.
A detailed measurement of the area indicated that fourteen burial mounds together formed a fan-shaped structure comprising three entirely straight lines. The two outermost lines converge at an eighteen-degree angle and the third line is located precisely midway between these. If we extend the three lines in a northerly direction, the mound lines will intersect on a characteristic hill just north of there. If we regard the fourteen mounds and the hill as one overall structure, the lines are 1200, 1450 and 1430 m long, respectively. At the point of intersection, the mounds and the hill are interpreted as a site used for ritual activities, presumably in connection with sun worship. Perhaps the dead straight mound lines were actually used to take bearings and calculate specific events during the course of a year – such as the equinox.
The extraordinary finds from the burial mounds near Voldtofte indicate that not only did those buried there belong to the economic and social elite of the time, they may also have been cult leaders – priests of a kind who conducted the cult practices. Together, the finds paint a picture of an unusually rich community which, for some centuries, could be termed a power centre with connections branching out to other power centres in Central Europe.

"The megalithic tomb at Montelirio is off the scale in more ways than one. As well as being the largest example of its type known in Spain, the burial goods secreted in its subterranean chambers are unsurpassed in both quantity and quality. Leonardo García Sanjuán reveals what the dead of Montelirio can tell us about Copper Age society."

This paper addresses prehistoric mortuary practices by combining the perspectives of the classic Binford-Saxe research program with new analytical methods. Both individual-level analyses and spatial analyses are conducted on mortuary data recovered from the Koger’s Island site, a Mississippian cemetery located within the middle Tennessee River Valley in northern Alabama. These analyses are used to test an ethnohistorically and archaeologically derived model of status and social structure in Mississippian societies. The results raise the possibility that the cemetery was spatially segregated into areas reserved for two corporate kin-groups.

Archaeologists commonly use the onset of the construction of large burial monuments as a material indicator of a fundamental shift in authority in prehistoric human societies during the Holocene. High-quality direct evidence of this transition is rare. We report new interdisciplinary research at the archaeological site of Nan Madol that allows us to specify where and when people began to construct monumental architecture in the remote islands of the Pacific. Nan Madol is an ancient administrative and mortuary center and the former capital of the island of Pohnpei. It was constructed over 83 ha of lagoon with artificial islets and other architecture built using columnar basalt and coral. We employed geochemical sourcing of basalt used as architectural stone and high-precision uranium-thorium series dates (230 Th/U) on coral from the tomb of the first chief of the entire island to identify the beginning of monument building at Nan Madol in AD 1180-1200. Over the next several centuries (AD 1300-1600) monument building began on other islands across Oceania. Future research should be aimed at resolving the causes of these social transformations through higher quality data on monument building.

Xiongnu Archaeology: Multidisciplinary Perspectives of the First Steppe Empire in Inner Asia. Ed. by U. Brosseder and B. Miller. Bonn: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn, 2011, p. 77-96 (Bonn Contributions to Asian Archaeology, Vol. 5).

CITA: Martín Fernández Calo, Callaici principes: os soberanos da Galiza castrexa, A Coruña: Deputación Provincial da Coruña, 2020 (XII Premio de Ensaio Manuel Murguía).

Información/compra:
http://www.torrelibros.com/es/busqueda/detalle.php?codigo=_1270230363

DESCRICIÓN: Albiscar soberanos, ou xefes, ou reis, no poleiro das comunidades étnicas que compuxeron a ancestral cultura castrexa, no difuso limiar entre a Historia e a Prehistoria da nosa terra, non é unha proposta cómoda. Probabelmente, algúns censurarana por obvia; outros, por herética… E outros, en fin, probabelmente a maioría, por atrevida. Non contamos hoxe por hoxe —e precisamente hoxe menos ca nunca— con moitas certezas incontrovertíbeis arredor da cultura castrexa e dos seus límites coa romanización; e isto ten provocado moitas discusións, moitas controversias e moitas posturas irreconciliábeis. No presente libro, Martín Fernández Calo non parte dunha atención xenuína á cultura castrexa, nin á das súas potenciais realezas, xefaturas ou soberanías, senón que propón o estudo monográfico dunha antiga institución galaica, documentada por un par de lápidas dos primeiros tempos do dominio romano da nosa terra, no mesmo albor da Era cristiá: o principatus. Esta institución leva xa moito tempo presente na literatura científica: dela díxose de todo, servindo de feito de combustíbel ás discusións académicas que zarrapican as primeiras etapas da nosa Historia; pero paradoxalmente ninguén se propuxera nunca a urxente tarefa de a estudar en si mesma. Asumindo este cometido, e combinándoo co seu sólido coñecemento das fontes clásicas e epigráficas, dos máis diversos contextos históricos do mundo antigo, e do propio rexistro arqueolóxico da nosa terra, Martín Fernández Calo descóbrenos a elocuente riqueza dunha documentación aparentemente parca, para enxergar por fin quen foron os principes e a significancia que tiveron na Galiza do seu tempo… O resultado é este libro, acredor do XII premio de ensaio Manuel Murguía, no que o principatus se revela como un innovador e proveitoso vieiro sobre o que explorar o máis escuro da nosa Historia anterga.

SUMARIO: Introdución – 1. A epigrafía principesca da Callaecia – 2. Historia das investigacións – 3. O principatus como concepto – 4. Os principes tras os seus epitafios – 5. A patria dos principes – 6. O principatus gentis no Imperio Romano – 7. Realezas na encrucillada da Historia – 8. A era dos principes – 9. O princeps e os seus atributos – 10. O principatus na historia constitucional galaica – Conclusión. Contén 17 estampas, 6 táboas, 3 mapas.

This book provides a new conceptual framework for understanding how the Indian nations of the early American South emerged from the ruins of a precolonial, Mississippian world. A broad regional synthesis that ranges over much of the Eastern Woodlands, its focus is on the Indians of the Carolina Piedmont – the Catawbas and their neighbors – from 1400 to 1725. Using an “eventful” approach to social change, Robin Beck argues that the collapse of the Mississippian world was fundamentally a transformation of political economy, from one built on maize to one of guns, slaves, and hides. The story takes us from first encounters through the rise of the Indian slave trade and the scourge of disease to the wars that shook the American South in the early 1700s. Yet the book's focus remains on the Catawbas, drawing on their experiences in a violent, unstable landscape to develop a comparative perspective on structural continuity and change.

An increasing number of Iron Age Celtic sites in France and Luxemburg have been identified and interpreted as sanctuaries. Many of these sites have produced faunal deposits of varying quantity and quality that have been associated with Celtic rituals of sacrifice and feasting. Most of these faunal remains were found in internal and external enclosure ditches, but also in pits, shafts, and floors within the enclosures, and, in one case, in a shellmidden within a settlement site.

The faunal assemblages of one Hallstatt site and 20 La Tène sites, which have been interpreted as sanctuaries, were analyzed by synthesizing theoretical frameworks, specifically costly signaling, conspicuous consumption, and competitive display. The analyses carried out in this study involved the comparison of the relative abundance of domesticated species represented at the study sites to the expected abundance of those taxa based on settlement data. An analysis was also conducted based on the ubiquity of domesticated species consumed in feasting contexts at the sites. The evidence for wild species at these sites was included in order to approach the topic of Celtic animal exploitation in ritual contexts more systematically in relation to ethnohistoric evidence of Celtic symbolic meanings.

The following conclusions were drawn from this research: 1) approaching prehistoric ritual animal use through economic, costly signaling, and symbolic models can be productive; 2) the advantages to studying the remains of both domesticates and wild fauna exploited in ritual contexts from a regional perspective are considerable; and 3) there are advantages and limitations in combining faunal and ethnohistorical data in studies of prehistoric symbolic systems.

Gold temple rings – insignia of power in Bronze Age hierarchical societies of Central Germany

In the course of the Early Bronze Age (2200–1550 BC), chieftaincies were established in Central Germany for the first time. In contrast to tribal societies – such as may be assumed for the Neolithic Period – chieftaincies are hierarchical societies. From an ethnological point of view, these consist of a number of descent lines (lineages, clans), which do not coexist with the same rights, but are instead hierarchically structured.

Hierarchical societies may be inferred from the archaeological context through the differences in the quality and composition of grave goods, in which within the classic and post-classic stages (1975–1550 BC) of the Únětice Culture, in the Mittelsaale-Unstrut-group, five categories of grave equipment can be distinguished. In this the individuals buried without grave goods form the lowest level (Level 5) of the social pyramid. They are followed by a broad level (Level 4) of persons who are distinguished by being buried with exclusively ceramic grave goods (usually only one cup). Persons of a higher social level (Level 3) than this are distinguished by being laid to rest with bronze jewellery (often only one or two pins). The society of the Early Bronze Age was thus essentially composed of three hierarchical groups (the 3rd to 5th levels). The members of the 2nd level, which essentially consists of individual functionaries, on the other hand, were marked by wearing one or two golden ringlets at their temples. Beyond this, however, they are also distinguished by further grave goods that were usually not granted to the members of the 3rd level: a weapon, namely an axe or dagger, and solid bronze jewellery. The top of the social pyramid was formed by paramounts, who also wore golden temple ringlets and had weapons, but for them the pins and bangles were also of gold. Given that the graves of the 2nd level do not hold any other gold items apart from these ringlets, it can be suspected that these are insignia, possession of which was restricted and regulated and hence that they marked an institutionalised status. Given, then, that the extensive golden grave goods of the paramounts in the Middle and Late Bronze Age did not continue thereafter, whereas the golden temple rings later retained their significance as insignia marking out persons with leadership roles, the conclusion is permissible that in the bearers of the golden temple rings we see the society’s chieftains.

The formation of a society with paramounts is, however, an unusual feature of the Mittel-Saale-group of the Únětice Culture in Central Germany. Evidently it was the chief of Leubingen who first managed to raise himself above the other chieftains and to secure his authority, in that he succeeded in binding to himself the power to dispose a part of the goods produced and of their redistribution (both of which are criteria for the ethnological definition of chieftaincies). Together with this went the distribution of metals to the different levels of society, which laid the foundations of the hierarchical distinctions.

The most famous Pre-pottery Neolithic site of Anatolia, Göbekli Tepe, since 1994 has been the subject of intensive studies due to its peculiar characteristics , linked to the presence of both circular buildings and the so-called anthropo-morphic T-shaped pillars. It was supposed that its discovery would have been one of a kind, but in the next few years scholars revealed the existence of similar settlements in the area of Şanlıurfa Province. These sites, still far from being investigated, share with Göbekli Tepe the same archaeological evidences, including chronological features, size and architectural and iconographic traits. The aim of this article is to focus on the new available data, which could lead us to re-discuss the interpretive models valid up to a few years ago, as recent publications point out. New inter-pretive tools and excavations are required to better understand what seems to be the clue of the presence of a real cultural facies with precise connotations, amongst which an high specialized craftmanship, that was able to exploit the best limestone morphology of the territory for the construction of monumental complexes.

Ernesfs Vasilausks K a i p 6 d a s u n i v e rs itdtes V6sfures k ate d ra s d o kto ra nts. ZEMGALU ZEMES 12.-13. cS. levads. PEt-rjumu v6sture. Avoti Historiogrdfijd pastdv viedoklis, ka Zemgal6 13. gs. pastdv6ja 7 zemes-Silene, Zagare, Dobene, Spdrnene, T6rvete, Dobele un Upmale'(1. att.). V6sturnieki par 12.-13. gs. zemgalu apdz-tvoto teritoriju, zemju robeZas (Tpa5i rakst-rtu avotu tr0kuma d6! par Zemgales dienvidu robeZu) diemZ6l vardja noteikt tikai aptuveni, tdpdc bieZi Zemgale att6lota kd viengabalaina teritorija'. Tomer, p6tot zemgalu apdzlvoto teritoriju un tds izmai4qs, kd arT etniskos procesus, svaiigi ir lokaliz6t starpcil5u teritorijas un atsevi5(as zemedl' lnterese par zemgalu apdz-rvotds teritorijas v6sturisko geogrdfiju v6rojama no 19. gs. sdkuma. Baltvdcu p6tnieks K.F.Vatsons savd darbd pirmais m6gindja lokaliz6t Livonijas teritorijd dzlvojo5o cil5u centrus un zemes'Yzindtnisku p6Ujumu ir veicis A.Bllen5teins, kur5 izmantojot 13.-14. gs. rakst-ttos avotus sam6ra precTzi noteica zemgalu apdz-rvoto teritoriju, zemju un pilsnovadu robeZas, politiskds un ekonomiskds varas centruso (2. att.). V6ldk, lldz pat 20. gs. beigdm vi4a uzskati brja populSri vairdku Latvijas v6sturnieku vid[ (E.Mugur6vi6ss, l.Sternsu un citi). P6tot zemgalu apdzlvotds teritorijas v6sturisk6s geogrdfijas problemdtiku, ne mazdk svarlgi ir arT citu vdsturnieku (V.Bill5ins', E.Gudavidius') darbi. P6tdmajd problEmd svar-rgu informdciju sniedz rakst-rtie v6stures avoti. No rakst-rtajiem v6stures avotiem zin6tniskajd literatUrd tiek min6tas lndrilla un Atskaqu hronikas, 1254. gada Zemgales, 1260. gada un 1272. gada Sp5rnenes un Dobenes zemju dall5anas un mai4u dokumenti. RakstTto vEstures avotu nav daudz, bet par Dienvidzemgales teritorijas v6sturi 12.-13. gs. to irv6l mazdk. Pirmkdrttd atradds tdldk no Rlgas, otrkdrt 12.gs. beigu un 1 3. gs. sdkumi 5o zemgalu apdzTvoto teritoriju vairdk, vai mazdk ietekm6ja lietuvie5i. Svarigdkais avots, kas sniedz informdciju par zemgalu zemdm $ 1254. gada aprTla Upmales (Opemele) un Zemgales (Semigalliae) dali5anas llgums starp Rlgas arhibTskapu, domkapitulu un Livonijas ordeni. Tajd aptuveni noteiktas Upmales robeZas, piemin6ta viena Upmalei pieder6ju5a zeme-Pldne (adferram, que Plane dictur). Sajd llgumd ir minetas arT se5as Rietumzemgales zemes-Silene (S//ene), Zagare (Sagara),Tdrvete (Thervethene), Dobele (Dubelone), Spdrnene (Sparnene) un Dobene (Dubene)'. Hronists lndri(is zemgalu apdzTvoto teritoriju d6v6ja par Zemgalu zemi (terram Semigallorum). lespdjams, ka viq5 ar 5o terminu apzlm6ja visu zemgalu apdzlvotu teritoriju. lndri(is hronikd rakstot par 1219.-1220. g. notikumiem MeZotnE (Mesyote, Mesiote, Mesiothe)-Zemgal6 izdala divus pilsnovadus-T6rveti (provincia, que Thervetene vocatur) un MeZotni. VEstures avotos nav saglabdjuSds hronista zipas par pdr6jo Zemgales dalu'o. 13. gs. beigds sarakstTtajd Atskapu hronikd, kurd aprakstTta zemgalu iekaro5anas v6sture, bija piemin6ti zemgalu centri ar nocietindtdm pillm un senpilsdtdm TErvete (Terweten, Terwetein), MeZotne (Mezoten), Dobene (Doben), Dobele (Doblen), Rakte (Ratten, Racken, Racketen, Rakel) un Sidabrene (Sydobre, Sydobren, Sidobren).Zemgalu apdzlvotajd teritorij6 iesp6jams, ka bijaAtskapu hronikd piemin6ta Babotes (Babofen) pils11. 1259. gada dokumentd piemin6tas Surpes un Gostagales pilsnovadi", kuros var lokalizet bijuSds Pldnes zemes konkr6tajds vietds tagadEjd Lietuvas teritorijd. 1260. gada 13. janvdra un 1272. gada7. oktobra lTgumi starp Rlgas domkapitulu un-18

This article investigates the evolution of political systems in North-Eastern Yemen in the course of the last two millennia. By examining the main shifts of political power and their structural elements, it describes a typology of socio-political and economic formation that was particular to the Yemeni Highlands and that has been designated as ‘multi-polity’. The study concludes that a North Yemeni type of tribe is a non-primitive and highly developed political structure, which may be considered in some respects as an alternative to state organization.

The Prehispanic Mesoamerican World: Framing Interaction (Gary M. Feinman). In New Perspectives on Interregional Interaction in Ancient Mesoamerica, edited by Joshua Englehardt and Michael Carrasco, pp. 34–50. University Press of Colorado, Louisville, CO.

Great Moravia existed in central Europe from the ninth to the early tenth century and left behind a lasting legacy in central and eastern Europe. However, the interpretation of the early medieval history of the region has always been a delicate matter. The written sources concerningMoravia do not lend themselves easily to historical interpretation. As a consequence, they have often been invoked not just for academic, but also for political debates. For modern state ideologies to effectively exploit the historical heritage of Great Moravia, two conditions must be met. First, there should be absolutely no doubt as to whether Great Moravia encompassed precisely those territories now within the borders of the states claiming to be its direct heirs. Second, firm evidence of politically advanced structures of power is required in order to justify both the name of ‘state’ and continuity to the modern age. The goal of this paper is to prove these premises on the basis of the archaeological evidence.

Paper published in Gallaecia (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela), 35 (2016), pp. 99-128 [http://www.usc.es/revistas/index.php/gallaecia/article/view/3884]

CORRIGENDA: Repórtase un erro de citación neste traballo | Se reporta un error de citación en este trabajo | A citation mistake is reported on this article
[https://www.academia.edu/36556910/Corrigenda_de_Mart%C3%ADn_Fern%C3%A1ndez_Calo]

ABSTRACT: "The pre-municipal political development of the Callaeci". This paper analyzes the sociopolitical framework and the recognizable institutions in the 'pre-municipal' period in Callaecia, i.e. prior to Vespasian's juridical latinization. This allows to identify and contextualize a process of constitutional consolidation among Callaeci communities before their early imperial municipalization.

CONTENTS:  Introdución — Historiografía — Proposta de estudo — As comunidades galaicas — O réxime socio-político castrexo — Fragmentación e centralización constitucional — Os grandes castros galaico-bracarenses — A epigrafía cívico-política ástur — Epigrafía institucional — Concilia — Legati — Magistratus — Principes — Senator — Interpretación — Diverxencias rexionais — Os diferentes ritmos das transformacións — A ineludíbel influencia externa — Conclusións — FIGURAS: 1. Mapa de referencia — 2. Relación de institucións pre-municipais.

Feasting equipment, copper‐alloy cauldrons and flesh‐hooks, are a distinctive feature of the later Atlantic Bronze Age suggesting elements of a shared ideology whose ultimate origin may lie in the eastern Mediterranean. The easterly distribution of the earliest British cauldrons previously identified is further confirmed by the recent discovery of a Type Colchester example at Salle, Norfolk, which brings to three the number of cauldrons of this type found in the region. Similarities between them suggest their origin lies in a single workshop, if not individual craftsman. The appearance of the cauldrons found at Feltwell, Norfolk, and Salle is so close as to suggest a new ‘Feltwell’ Variant. Analysis of the contents of the Feltwell cauldron hint at the function of these intriguing objects as high status cooking vessels, most likely reserved for the chiefly class and deployed in the hosting of feasts which, along with flesh‐hooks, served to build and cement political alliances.

KEYWORDS
CAULDRON, FLESH‐HOOK, FEASTING, LATER BRONZE AGE, IDEOLOGY, BRONZE AGE CHRONOLOGY, METAL DETECTING

El presente artículo realiza una descripción analítica del periodo Formativo ecuatoriano (4500-300 ANE) teniendo como base comparativa los procesos descritos y conocidos para el Formativo peruano (1800-300 ANE), estableciendo los mecanismos a partir de los cuales se dieron procesos de transmisión cultural así como los productos derivados de estos procesos, los cuales reflejan en el registro arqueológico (fundamentalmente cerámico) la intensidad de los contactos entre ambas regiones, fundamentalmente durante el apogeo de la sociedad Chorrera en el norte y Chavín- Cupisnique en el sur.

The hypothesis that population pressure causes increased warfare has been recently criticized on the empirical grounds. Both studies focusing on specific historical societies and analyses of cross-cultural data fail to find positive correlation between population density and incidence of warfare. In this paper we argue that such negative results do not falsify the population-warfare hypothesis. Population and warfare are dynamical variables, and if their interaction causes sustained oscillations, then we do not in general expect to find strong correlation between the two variables measured at the same time (that is, unlagged). We explore mathematically what the dynamical patterns of interaction between population and warfare (focusing on internal warfare) might be in both stateless and state societies. Next, we test the model predictions in several empirical case studies: early modern England, Han and Tang China, and the Roman Empire. Our empirical results support the population-warfare theory: we find that there is a tendency for population numbers and internal warfare intensity to oscillate with the same period but shifted in phase (with warfare peaks following population peaks). Furthermore, the rates of change of the two variables behave precisely as predicted by the theory: population rate of change is negatively affected by warfare intensity, while warfare rate of change is positively affected by population densityKey words: population, warfare, dynamics, nonlinear feedback loops, mathematical models.

This paper presents a general overview of the current state of the art of archaeological research at the Valencina de la Concepción Copper Age site. The main aim is to put the contributions presented in this volume within a general perspective, with special reference to ongoing debates and promising avenues of research. First, a review is made of the research history of this site, assessing the general conditions of the currently available empirical evidence. Second, a series of topics are discussed, including the spatial organisation of the settlement, its chronology, subsistence economy, metallurgy, exchange and social complexity.