Chiefdom

The volume represents an attempt of a complex study of the politogenetic processes in their regional and temporary variety. The authors hope that their survey can and should also promote a better understanding of the general tendencies and mechanisms of cultural and sociopolitical evolution, of the interrelation and interaction of cultural, social, and political formats in the human society. The authors believe that the use of principles and methods of the civilizational approach in politogenetic studies, on the one hand, and the inclusion of the politogenesis into the problem area of civilizations studies, on the other hand, creates the effect of novelty in terms of both anthropology and civilizations studies, enriches their scientific toolkit and expands heuristic limits.

"PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
(Saarbrücken: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2011)

The notion of evolution is not popular in contemporary Anthropology. Many researchers do not use it preferring to write about transformation,
transit, or change. Evolution for them is synonymous to dogmatic understanding of human history (Yoffee 2005; Pauketat 2008). However,
even critics of evolutionism do not appear to reject= the very fact of continuous social change. In prehistory people were hunters and gatherers and were integrated in small bands. Later some of them experienced sedentarization and transition to food production, began to found towns and invent complex tools. It would be ridiculous to reject such changes. Another point is that contemporary vision of cultural transformations differs greatly from the naïve ideas of the 19th century evolutionists (see, e.g., Earle 2002; Claessen 2000; Carneiro 2003, Marcus 2008; Hanks, Linduff 2009; Earle, Kristiansen 2010 etc.). Contemporary approaches are more flexible and are based on a much more considerable set of evidence. That is why it would be wrong to criticize the scholars of the past for their knowledge of something worse than ours. They ought to be estimated in comparison with their contemporaries. So, we believe that the notion of evolution has a right to exist, and for already several decades we have been elaborating the ideas that can be called “new wave evolutionism”, or multievolutionism (non-linear evolution theory).
The first edition of the present volume was published over ten years ago, in 2000, in two languages, English and Russian (under the Альтернативные пути к цивилизации [Alternative pathways to the civilization] title given by the publisher for commercial reasons). It was the response of the then young generation of post-Soviet anthropologists in league with prominent Western and Russian scholars to dogmatic Marxist interpretations of older, Soviet ethnologists and archaeologists (see also Korotayev, Chubarov 1991; Kradin, Lynsha 1995). Several other collective edited volumes (Bondarenko, Korotayev 2000; Kradin, Bondarenko, Barfield 2003; Grinin et al 2004; Bondarenko, Nemirovsky 2007; Grinin, Beliaev, Korotayev 2008 etc.), monographs (Korotayev 1995; 1996; 2003; Bondarenko 2001; 2006; Korotayev et al 2006; Kradin, Skrynnikova 2006; Grinin 2007; Kradin 2007; 2010; Grinin, Korotayev 2009) and journal articles (Beliaev, Bondarenko, Korotayev 2001; Kradin 2002; Bondarenko, Korotayev 2003; Bondarenko 2007a; 2007b) have appeared since then. Five “Hierarchy and Power in the History of Civilizations” international conferences held in Moscow and St. Petersburg between 2000 and 2009 turned out very important for elaboration of the non-linear sociocultural evolution theory. The Social Evolution & History English-language journal published in Russia since 2002 has become a venue for discussion of the non-linear evolution theory, ideas and evidence related to it. In particular, besides an impressive number of separate articles, the following special issues and sections, among others, have been published in it: Exploring the Horizons of Big History (2005, Vol. 4, No 1), Thirty Years of Early State Research (2008, Vol. 7, No1), The Early State in Anthropological Theory (2009, Vol. 8, No 1), Analyses of Cultural Evolution (2009, Vol. 8, No 2), Urbanization, Regional Diversity and the Problem of State Formation in Europe (2010, Vol. 9, No 2). One more discussion, Chiefdoms in the process of social evolution: theory, problems and comparative studies, is to appear in
the Journal soon (was published in 2011 as Vol.10, Iss. 1. - D.B.).
Alternatives of Social Evolution consists of five parts. The first part includes theoretical studies of non-linear evolution. Articles on the alternative pathways of the prehistoric societies’ evolution form the volume’s second part. The evolutionary pathways of complex societies and state origins are the topics of the volume’s third and forth parts. The closing part is devoted to nomadic societies. We hope that the book has not lost its relevance and will remain in demand by readers."

This volume is the product of a one day session organised  within the IVth Congresso de Arqueología Peninsular, held in Faro (Portugal) between 14th-19th September 2004. The aim of this session was to discuss the subject matter of prehistoric social inequality, a topic that had never before been examined in an Iberian archaeology conference. The time span covered by this book is Late Prehistory, between the second half of the 6th and the beginning of the 1st millennia cal BC (Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age). From a thematic viewpoint, this volume discusses a wide series of issues, including theory (like for example, applicability of social evolution taxonomies, centre-periphery relationships, or the sets of factors causing inequalities), empirical evidence (critical assessment of the validity of systems of empirical indicators, testing of hypothesis, quality of the available data), as well as interpretation (comparative inter-regional and diachronic analyses of the economic, social and ideological process involved in social inequality).

The chiefdom concept is one of the most productive in social anthropology and political evolution. It helps to deeply understand the process of complication of society's structure and the development path from stateless society to early states. However, even when states spread everywhere, chiefdoms still remained political and administrative actors. At present one can find some features of chiefdoms in developing countries (e.g., in some regions of Africa) and in different kinds of organizations especially in illegal and terrorist ones. Thus, using chiefdom theories one can clarify a few basics of such kind of organization as well. Therefore, it makes sense to show how such chiefdom-like structures preserve and develop the features of ancient polities within them.

Thus, in the modern world, along with states, one can find numerous alternative social and political organizations, which, to a greater or lesser extent, have some features that are similar to certain ancient polities. How and why is this possible? We hope that this paper will shed some light on this question. However, it requires and deserves further study.