State Level Complexity
● Knossos
● Mohenjo-Daro (partial)
● Shang Dynasty
● Ur (partial)
Stonehenge
● Not the only site in the area, however has not been excavated yet.
● Not much is known about the people who built the site
Types of Sociopolitical Organization
● Centralized political system
● Economy (organized)
● Standing military
● High tech developments
● Written Language
Wealth & Political Economy
● Large-Scale, intensive agriculture
○ Valley of Kings
○ Zaranj
○ Inca Gold
Centralized Authority (Divine Leadership)
● Overlap between political and religious authority
● Leaders stated they could communicate with god
Writing
● Indus Valley
● Mesopotamia (Cuneiform)
● Egyptian Hieroglyphics
● Chinese script
Military
● Social complexity often includes organized expansionist aggression
Consolidation of Power
● Military
● Economic
● Ideological
● Political
Voluntaristic Hypothesis
● Certain peoples spontaneously, rationally, and voluntarily gave up their individual
sovereignties and united other communities ot from a larger political unit.
○ Wittfogel (1957)
○ Childe (1936)
○ Service (1978)
Coercive Hypothesis
● Force, and not enlightened self interest, is the mechanism by which political evolution
has led, step by step, from autonomous villages to the state.
○ Engles (1884)
○ Oppenheimer (1908)
○ Carneiro (1970)
Lapita
● 1350-750 BC
● Pottery in western Polynesia
● Dentate pottery
● Shell, stone, obsidian
● Pigs, dogs, chickens, mollusc
● Yam, taro, breadfruit, coconut, banana
● Burials of vanuatu