The First Cities and States

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

4. The Origin of the State • 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 • State: a form of social and political organization that has a formal, central government and a division of society into classes

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 • 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 • The complexity of division of social and economic labor tended to grow as food production spread and intensified

7. The Origin of the State (causes of state formation) • Wittfogel: One cause of state formation is theneed 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. • Hydraulic Systems

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) • 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. • Long-Distance Trade Routes

11. The Origin of the State (causes of state formation) • 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 • Population, War, and Circumscription

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)

13. The Origin of the State 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) • Coastal Peru illustrates factors’ interaction

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 BPin 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 • 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) • Jericho: the earliest known town

21. Urban Life • 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) • Çatal Höyük arose because of trade

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 • Egalitariansocieties: 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. Rankedsocieties: 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 primarystates (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 • Archaeological record of the period after 7,300 BP reveals that exotic goods were used as markers of status, raiding, and political instability • The first Middle Eastern states developed between 6,000 and 5,500 BP

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

36. Advanced Chiefdoms • 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 • Excavations at Tell Hamoukar suggest advanced chiefdoms arose in northern areas of the Middle East independently of events in southern Mesopotamia.

37. The Rise of the State • 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 • Uruk Period (6,000–5,200 BP)

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

39. The Rise of the State • 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 • Uruk Period (6,700–5,200 BP) • Metallurgy: the extraction and processing of metals to make tools

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

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

42. Other Early States • 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. • Indus Civilization

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

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

45. African 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. • Egypt developed in northern Africa as one of the world’s first states.

46. African States • 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. • Mwenemutapa empire

47. African States • 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. • Farming towns started appearing in the Sahel around 2,600 BP (just south of the Sahara in western Africa).

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 • 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 • The Olmec built a series of ritual centers on Mexico’s southern Gulf Coast 3,200 to 2,500 years ago.