Anthropology Exam
Explain the general features of integration theories of state origins. Provide 2 examples of conflict theories that we discussed in class.
Some integration theorists are Hobbes, Herbert Spencer, and Lewis Henry Morgan. They believed that outside forces them to form a society for the good of the group.
Early Neolithic Period
(10,000-8000 B.C.)
Transitional Village Period
(8500-7000 B.C.) -fully sedentary villages -first physical evidence of domestication (wheat, sheep, goats) -First pottery -Earliest sites outside the fertile crescent
Characteristics of Hunter Gatherer societies
(forager lifestyles) -small groups -family based -wild resources, hunting and gathering -egalitarian -little economic specialization -simple, portable technologies View of Forager Societies -Ethnocentrism (nasty, brutish, short lives (Hobbes))
Zargos Mountains
-(Jarmo, Ganj Dareh, Karim Shahir)
Unilinear Evolution
-19th century idea that cultural evolution follows the same path
Historical Particularism
-Franz Boas - It argued that each society is a collective representation of its unique historical past.
Explain the general features of conflict theories of state origins. Provide 2 examples of conflict theories that we discussed in class.
Childe, Marx, Engels, Rousseau. Thought upper class would always get the power.
Natufian Culture
-B/w 13,000 and 11,000 years ago, there was a climatic change that favored the abundance of new wild food sources, particularly cereals. The Natufians became foragers, specializing in the exploitation of gazelle, deer, pig, waterfowl, acorn, and cereal grasses -domesticated the dog Tools: -geometric flint tools used to harvest wild cereals, arrow points, etc. -produced non-utilitarian, entirely aesthetic objects Social stratification: -There were chiefs w/ both secular and religious respect
Jarmo
-Braidwood excavated -Northern Iraq -Foot of Zagros Mountains -first site specifically excavated to test V.G. Childe's hypothesis about the origins of the neolithic revolution -Indirect evidence of domestication of plants and animals at Jarmo--sickles, polished stone celts, hoes, mortars, pestles, and querns -Direct evidence: domesticated cereal seeds
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
-Conflict views -Class conflict suppressed by the state
Marx & Engels
-Cultural evolutionists -Marxism -Class Conflict and the rise of the state -Materialism: the idea that economic developments are regarded as prime movers of social evolution -Conflict theory -internal conflict over access to and control over material concerns
Neolithic Village Period
-Domesticates dominant subsistence economies -Pottery is important at nearly all sites -Larger villages (150-300 people) -Long-distance trade -by 7000-6000 B.C.
Great Rift Valley
-East Africa -fossils of very early human ancestors -"Lucy"-->walked on 2 legs, small brain (1/3) size of human, no use of tools
Neo-Evolutionists
-Elmann Service -Kent Flannery: Multivariate evolution -V. Gordon Childe -Julian Steward -Robert Carniero
Circumscription theory
-Environmental circumscription theory: -circumscribed agricultural land = land set off by mountains, seas, or deserts. Very diff. from lands like Amazon. -Example Peruvian coast: lots of circumscribed land-causes of war predominantly over land-instead of being exterminated or expelled, victor would force the loser to pay forms of taxes/would take over losers land-territorial units became larger and more organized-land shortages and warfare decreased-conquests made the state grow eventually into a single great empire-The Incas Social circumscription: a high density of population in an area can produce effects on peoples living near the center of that area. Villages cluster in the center tend to impinge on each other more w/ the result of war being more frequent in the center. The villages in the center thus became larger bc it gave them an advantage for attack and defense. -Less land = need for larger groups rather than many little ones -population pressure and warfare
Robert Carniero
-Environmental circumscription theory: -circumscribed agricultural land = land set off by mountains, seas, or deserts. Very diff. from lands like Amazon. -Example Peruvian coast: lots of circumscribed land-causes of war predominantly over land-instead of being exterminated or expelled, victor would force the loser to pay forms of taxes/would take over losers land-territorial units became larger and more organized-land shortages and warfare decreased-conquests made the state grow eventually into a single great empire-The Incas Social circumscription: a high density of population in an area can produce effects on peoples living near the center of that area. Villages cluster in the center tend to impinge on each other more w/ the result of war being more frequent in the center. The villages in the center thus became larger bc it gave them an advantage for attack and defense. -Less land = need for larger groups rather than many little ones -population pressure and warfare
St. Augustine
-History occurs along a predetermined course -Linear Design: believed that history is the work of a divine providence guiding events toward fulfillment of a final purpose. -progress: Each civilization was meant to influence later views of history again and again -Wrote his ideas in his book, The City of God -Early 5th century
Thomas Hobbes
-Integrationist views -Enlightenment philosopher: humans "in a state of nature",the Social Contract, problems with early theories -state of conflict people give up for better health
Dual Processural theory
-Richard Blanton Dual-processual theory posits that political leaders employ one of two basic processes to build and maintain power. Using the first, called a "network" strategy, political leaders use ties to other polities, supernatural powers, or sources of esoteric knowledge and goods to build power, and maintain it by excluding others from access to those sources of power. Using the second, called a "corporate" strategy, political leaders use the bonds of kinship and social groups to build power, sharing access to those groups broadly, but positioning him or herself as the "first among equals."
Characteristics of States
-States = civilizations -state form of political organization (professional ruling class), -social stratification, -economic role specialization, -surpluses, -intensive agriculture to feed large populations, -cycles of development and collapse, -urbanism (cities).
Holocene
-Terminal Pleistocene -warming temperatures -retreat of glaciers -extinction of mammoth, mastodon, camelids, giant horse, ground sloth -sea levels rise -creation of rich estuaries (water flows in from rivers and from sea) -expansion of smaller mammals and edible grasses
Cultural Evolution (19th century "progress")
-Viewed change as progressive and Non-Western societies as arrested in development -Critiqued idea of voluntarism (free-will/social contract theory) and believed that state is "natural" therefore not requiring explanation -Focused on causal mechanisms -Benefited by early archaeology and ethnography 4 elements: 1. belief in the naturalness of change in each culture 2. The directional trend-like character of change 3. The necessity of change in a social system 4. The belief that change was brought about by uniform persisting forces
Lewis Henry Morgan
-Wrote "Ancient Society" which outlined 7 stages of cultural evolution and characterized them by specific technological inventions: fire, the bow&arrow, domestication, and so forth -Cultural evolutionist -Evolutionary Stages: Savagery, barbarism, civilization -Used same idea as marx (materialism) -Cultures evolve from primitive to civilized
*Corporate Strategy
-aggrandizing impulse of leaders limited by ideologies emphasizing corporate (group) solidarity -evidence of rulers is muted -power based on special knowledge, usually religious -corporate projects
warfare
-coercive theory: the idea that war lies at the root of the state -War is a MECHANISM of state formation, we also need to specify the conditions under which it gave rise to the state
Herbert Spencer
-cultural evolutionist -Society as a system -Survival of the Fittest (societies not species) -Warfare and the rise of the state: felt that warfare was a major factor in the rise of the state -integration theory
Chiefdoms
-hierarchically structured -leadership ascribed or inherited -complex relationships of tribute and redistribution -increased economic specialization -settlement variation -large (10,000+)
V. Gordon Childe
-influenced by Marxism -Materialism--the material forces of production directly affected the legal, political, and religious superstructure of society. -Developed an environmentally deterministic model which replaced the 19th century cultural evolutionary explanation by introducing changing environment as the cause of the rise of civilizations -The neolithic was most important to Childe---(1st great revolution) the transformation from "living in a state of nature" to producing food through domestication -Urban REvolution (2nd great revolution): origins of state -Irrigation theory of origins of theocratic states -"Oasis theory": the food producing rev. took place at the time of major climatic changes which led to desiccation in the Near East. This desiccation was stimulus for a food producing economy. The drier land yielded less food for hunters and gatherers: thus populations clustered in oases where the natural proximity of plants, animals, and humans leading to a symbiotic relationship binding all 3. -Problems w Oasis theory 1.Little data in 1930s when Childe develops the theory 2.Sites with early domesticates not found in "oasis" settings 3.There was not a post-glacial drought
Pleistocene
-lower global temperatures (ice age) -from 2 million-->11,000 years ago -continental glaciers -lower sea level
Homo Sapiens Sapiens
-modern human -evolved through Pleistocene epoch -evolved in Africa: larger brains, early stone tools, fire, shelters, burial of the dead, hunting
Julian Steward
-multilinear evolutions -ecological explanations: views the environment as an active force -interested in settlement patterns
*Network Strategy
-political autonomy focused on individual elites especially powerful rulers -aggrandizement of individual rulers -power based on control of personal wealth -competitive with more frequent warfare between politics
Measures of Social Complexity
-scale -integration -heterarchy: differences within society, economic roles, social roles -hierarchy: inequality in power, wealth, status
Upper Paleolithic Society
-small family-based foraging groups (bands) -Mobile (non-sedentary) -Egalitarian -Little economic specialization (age&gender) -Small-scale portable technologies -cave paintings -mammoth hunting
Bands
-small scale (40-100) -mobile, hunter/gatherers -undefined group boundaries -leadership positions individualized and changeable -no institutionalized government -division of labor based on age and gender
Tribes
-small/medium (2,000-3,000) -may rely on agricultural plants and domesticated animals -sedentary -wider boundaries -egalitarian -society organized to kinship, super-kinship, clans etc.
Robert Braidwood
-stressed environmental factors, such as changing climatic conditions, desiccation, or glacial advances and retreats -believed that the shift to a food-producing economy resulted from an "ever increasing cultural differentiation and specialization of human communities" -Broke domestication into levels: level one: individuals began manipulating plants and animals, selectively hunting species by age or sex, moving plant species level two: animals and plants fully domesticated and independent food resources for the community -Criticized Childe's Oasis Theory 1.Little data in 1930s when Childe develops the theory 2.Sites with early domesticates not found in "oasis" settings 3.There was not a post-glacial drought' -Nuclear Zone Theory: -adequate technology was produced to utilize plants and hunt animals effectively -Communities settled in permanently and specialized labor and tools -period of experimentation w/ potential food resources: incipient agricultural practices -establishment of permanent farming communities w/ fully recognizable agriculture. Problems w/ nuclear zone theory 1.Does not really explain the origins of domestication; esp.the timing. 2.Jarmo is no longer one of the earliest sites with domesticates 3. Early sites with domesticates like Ali Koshare found outside the Fertile Crescent
*Kent Flannery
-systems theory -multivariate and integrationist -cultures adapt to environmental stressors -considers information and material conditions -cultural systems and equilibrium states -environmental stressors -cultural devolution (collapse)
The definition of archaeology
-the study of past humans through their material record
Types of evidence that suggest a state
-urbanism -social stratification -economic specialization -material surpluses -state form of political organization
Environmental Determinists
Flannery, Carniero, Braidwood, Steward
Describe the environmental changes that occurred at the end of the last ice age and the beginning of the Holocene epoch. How did Mesolithic people respond to these environmental changes through subsistence, settlement, and technology
At the end of the last ice age and the beginning of the Holocene epoch, temperatures rose which led to a rise in sea levels, melting of glaciers, creation of rich estuaries, extinction of large mammals such as the mammoth, and abundance of smaller mammals and edible grasses. Because during the Pleistocene era, large mammals were a main source of food for many people, civilizations needed to adapt. People enacted broad-based subsistence by hunting smaller animals, and fishing to make up for the loss of large mammals. Because people started to rely on fish more as a food source, people started to produce fishing technologies such as fish hooks and kits. Technology such microliths was also used to hunt smaller animals. Settlements also became larger and more sedentary due to reliance on trade of obsidian. Humans also conducted seasonal scheduling; they planned out hunting/gathering trips for certain plants and animals during specific times of year to get their best results.
_____ is the archaeologist commonly associated w circumscription theory
Carniero
Conflict vs. Integration
Conflict: government develops to suppress class conflict but ends up favoring rich and powerful. Society is so that people can exploit each other Integrationist views: uncivilized societies, existing chaotic "in a state of nature," life as a constant struggle -Civilization develops out of a state of nature -people gave up their natural rights -transfer collective will to a sovereign -accepts laws to gain benefits of an orderly society -Social contract
Explain Kent Flannery's theory of the cultural evolution of civilizations. What aspects of his theory can be considered important innovations in thinking about state origins.
Cultures adapt to environmental stressors -societies either evolve or de-evolve due to environmental stress -multivariate -there is no one track society is on and there is no one reason it changes- anything could happen -Focuses on information- see's info. as playing a big role in how society changes.
*Richard Blanton
Dual Processural Theory
Define and explain the process of domestication. What types of human interventions into the lifecycles of plants and animals resulted in domestication?
Humans started manipulating animals through selective hunting. For example, humans would hunt animals specifically based on gender or age. The beginnings of plant domestication also started with Propagation (planting/spreading seeds), Cultivation/husbandry (raising crops), Harvesting (taking them out), and Storage (putting them away). This farming of plants evolved as humans decided to selectively breed plants to have favorable traits. Similarly, humans used selective breeding on animals in order to give animals favorable traits. For example, one of the earliest cultures to domesticate took place in the Levant where there is evidence of domestication of the dog in Natufian culture.
Jericho
Levant Coast (Eastern Mediterranean) -There was disequilibrium in Levant (major climatic changes) that were coincident with demographic change.
Cultural Evolutionists?
Marx, Engels, Spencer
Conflict theorists
Rousseau, Marx&Engels
integration theorists
Spencer, Hobbes
States
States •More internally differentiated than chiefdoms (social classes) •Bureaucratic structure of governmental decision making •hierarchically more complex and less based on kinship ties •Demographically and territorially larger than chiefdoms •Urban, cosmopolitan settlements are common
Paleolithic
Stone Age (2.5 million years ago) marked by earliest use of tools
Franz Boas
The Boasian Revolution: -Ethnocentrism/Racism -Need more data to make universal theories -Cultural/Historical Particularism -Critique of cultural evolution -Scientific Approach -Theory building -Cross-cultural regularities -Multilinear cultural evolution -Cultural/historical particularism: each culture is a product of its own history and culture -Need more data before general theories can be developed
Multilinear Evolution
The collapse of the idea that cultural evolution had followed the same line everywhere. "Free will"(people choosing) vs. Determinism (people have no control over their fate). Multilinear evolution suggests both: While a man must eat (determinism), what he eats is ("Free will").
Cultural Evolution
The idea that the change of cultures over time can be described as a Darwinian evolutionary process that is similar in key respects (but not identical) to biological/genetic evolution.
Domestication
Types of human intervention leading to domestication: 1.Propagation (planting/spreading seeds) 2.Cultivation/husbandry (raising crops) 3.Harvesting (taking them out) 4.Storage (putting them away) -Domesticated: Plants or animals that have been extensively modified by humans, often to the extent that the plant or animal cannot survive without human intervention
In terms of human history, civilizations are quite______
atypical
Neolithic
characterized by the beginning of farming, the domestication of animals, the development of crafts, pottery, etc.
Elman Service
classificatory scheme for cultural evolution-bands--tribes--chiefdoms--states--empires*Bands: !Kung, Native Australians, Inuit (Eskimo)*tribes: Plains Indians, Nuer, New Guinea Highlands*chiefdoms: Hawaiian Islanders, Panama, Kwakiutl*states: Sumer, Ancient Mesoamerica, United States*empire: Aztec, Inca
Empire
has multiple states within it
Mesolithic
marked by microlithic tools and weapons and by changes in settlements Hunting: -broad-based subsistence -larger settlements and less mobility -seasonal scheduling -new technologies: microliths, and fishing toolkit
incipient cultivation
the manipulation and exploitation of plants for food
The Neolithic Revolution
the transition from hunter-gatherer to food producer -Domestication
Equilibrium
when there is no demographic stress or environmental change
