Anth, 24 April 2002

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So, I made it to class somehow...



Chiefdoms

• permanent political officers


• Full time religious officiaries (sometime the chief)


• Emphasis on rank and geneology


• Differential access to resources


• Sumptuary "Goods" : status symbols for chief and elite


• Chief has moral obligation to (and geneological link to) all families and individuals, to keep them alive


• Although there will be wealthy individuals, no one will be without sustenance

why?

• incessant warfare


• long distance training


• craft specialists


• organized labor to build vessels (sea going canoes)


• distribute goods from long-range trading expeditions


• labor coordination (compel) for large projects (dams, tomb, defensive walls, irrigation)


• store food (tax,tribute,gift) for redistribution (feasts, dole, pensions)


• requires agricultural production of food that can be stored: grains, roots (yams)


• store food for protection against crop failure, shortage or for alternate season crops


• community size (breaks rule of 140 cf Tipping Point)
  

who?

• rotate families


• contest of skill


• generally becomes hereditary


• patrilineage: chief's son


• martilineage: uncle to nephew (sisters sons)

ranking

• families, by geneological closeness to chief


• individuals, by birth order


• no two individuals will be of the same rank


• societal rights and privledges are based on rank


• eg: sacred coconut grove only for chief and relatives

Sumptuary Goods:

• Maori: (first warrior) chief's ritual weapon: side slapper


• Maori: (right of first cut) ritual flesh knife (sharp fish teeth) to carve enemy (varnished with abolone insets)

State (Nation-state)

• kings, royal elite


• political bureaucracy


• state religion, theocracy


• standing armies


• intensive agriculture


• task specialization


• market exchange barter


• economic inequality


• class, caste, slavery


• taxation


• writing systems


• urban centers


• elaborate art and architecture

• distance between rulers, ruled impersonalization


• large standing armies of conscripts with aristocrats as officer


• standing armies used as internal police force (what Rand keeps calling the Rule of the Gun in Atlas Shrugged)


• rules are edicts of elite


• classes are large groups with multiple criteria which may include millions of people, as opposed to rank which was individual


• caste determined by birth, unchangeable

caste

• keeps lower classes in place


• must marry in caste


• keeps professional niches filled

writing

• tax records (first recorded writing)


• census of peoples


• military rolls


• "history": propagandistic self-promotion of current rulers


• try to preserve greatness of state for long stretches of time

Maya

• city-states


• only known state developed in tropical forest


• at peak had densest population of known civilizations


• chinopas: artifical islands dredged from mud and vegetation


• cities located along or near rivers, used for transport


• doughts famine years upset balance of advanced agricultural techniques


• blood rituals seemed to be failing -> more blood


• leads to civilization collapse


• farmers and workers fled back into the forests

Mayan writing systems

• one of five to create a writing and math system


• dot for unit, line for five, columns for places


• katun: 7,200 days


• tun: 360 days


• uinal (wee-neels): 20 days


• kin: 1 day


• hierglyphics and alphabetics:
  
• balam: spotted cat (generic)


• ba-balam: jaguar


• balam-ma: oscelot


• ba-balam-ma: jaguars and oscelots


• only interpret half of known Mayan glyphs


• still a spoken language (100s of dialects)
  
• computer analysis in the last thirty years led to breakthrough

Slides

• Usa[..]


• step pyramids

more Maya, essays for final on Monday
Exam is non comprehensive (h/g tribes, chiefdoms and states)

Comments

[katyliciousmofo.livejournal.com]

*jumps on you and has wild monkey sex with you*