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0521818370 - Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations
Norman Yoffee
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Myths of the Archaic State
In this ground-breaking work, Norman Yoffee challenges prevailing myths underpinning our understanding of the evolution of the earliest cities, states, and civilizations.
He counters the emphasis in traditional scholarship that the earliest states were large
and despotically controlled and their evolution can be adequately modeled by ethnographic analogies. By illuminating the creation and changes in social roles – not simply
of male leaders but also of slaves and soldiers, priests and priestesses, peasants and
prostitutes, merchants and craftsmen – Yoffee depicts an evolutionary process centered
on the concerns of everyday life. Drawing on evidence from ancient Mesopotamia as
well as from Egypt, South Asia, China, Mesoamerica, and South America, the author
explores the changes in human societies that created the world we live in. This book
offers a bold new interpretation of social evolutionary theory, and as such it is essential
reading for any student or scholar with an interest in the emergence of complex society.
N o r m a n Yo f f e e is Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Anthropology at the
University of Michigan. His various publications include Archaeological Theory: Who
Sets the Agenda? (co-editor with Andrew Sherratt, Cambridge University Press, 1993)
and The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations (co-editor with George L. Cowgill,
University of Arizona Press, 1988). He is editor of the Journal of the Economic and Social
History of the Orient and Cambridge World Archaeology.
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0521818370 - Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations
Norman Yoffee
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Myths of the
A r c h a i c S tat e
Evolution of the Earliest Cities,
States, and Civilizations
n o r m a n yo f f e e
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Cambridge University Press
0521818370 - Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations
Norman Yoffee
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p u b l i s h e d b y t h e p r e s s s y n d i c at e o f t h e u n i v e r s i t y o f c a m b r i d g e
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom
cambrid ge university press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge, cb2 2ru, UK
40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011–4211, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia
Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain
Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa
http://www.cambridge.org
C Norman Yoffee 2005
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2005
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
Typeface Minion 10.5/14.5 pt.
System LATEX 2ε [tb]
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Yoffee, Norman.
Myths of the archaic state : evolution of the earliest cities, states, and civilizations /
Norman Yoffee.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0 521 81837 0 – isbn 0 521 52156 4 (pbk.)
1. State, The. 2. Cities and towns, Ancient. 3. Civilization, Ancient. I. Title.
jc51.y64 2004
320.1 09 01 – dc22 2004052683
isbn 0 521 81837 0 hardback
isbn 0 521 52156 4 paperback
© Cambridge University Press
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Cambridge University Press
0521818370 - Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations
Norman Yoffee
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For Barbara
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0521818370 - Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations
Norman Yoffee
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Contents
List of figures
List of tables
introduction
page x
xiii
1
1
t h e e vo lu t i o n o f a fac t o i d
An introduction to social evolutionary mythology
Types, rules, and factoids
Neo-evolutionism evolving
States and civilizations: beyond heuristics
4
5
6
8
15
2
d i m e n s i o n s o f p o w e r i n t h e e a r l i e s t s tat e s
The pursuit of the wily chiefdom
Neo-evolutionism and new social evolutionary theory: back
to the future
The evolution of power and its distribution in the earliest states
Dimensions of power in social evolutionary theory
States as states of mind
What neo-evolutionism cannot explain
22
22
31
33
34
38
41
t h e m e a n i n g o f c i t i e s i n t h e e a r l i e s t s tat e s
a n d c i v i l i z at i o n s
City-states and chimeras
42
44
3
vii
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0521818370 - Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations
Norman Yoffee
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viii
ta b l e o f c o n t e n t s
Cities and states
Mesopotamian city-states and Mesopotamian civilization
Cities and city-states in social evolutionary perspective
4
w h e n c o m p l e x i t y wa s s i m p l i f i e d
Simplifying the path to power in early Chinese states
Law and order in ancient Mesopotamia
The context of Mesopotamian law
The context and function of the code of Hammurabi
The complexities of legal simplification: decision-making in Mesopotamia
45
53
59
91
94
100
102
104
109
5
i d e n t i t y a n d ag e n c y i n e a r ly s tat e s : c a s e s t u d i e s
A peculiar institution in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia
Imagining sex in an early state
Conclusion: Encounters with women in early states
113
116
121
128
6
t h e c o l l a p s e o f a n c i e n t s tat e s a n d c i v i l i z at i o n s
Theorizing collapse
131
132
134
138
140
142
144
147
151
153
159
Neo-evolutionism and collapse
Collapse as the drastic restructuring of social institutions
The collapse of ancient Mesopotamian states and civilization
The Old Akkadian state
The Third Dynasty of Ur
The Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian states
The end of the cycle?
Collapse as the mutation of social identity and suffocation of cultural memory
The collapse of Mesopotamian civilization and its regeneration
7
s o c i a l e vo lu t i o na ry t r a j e c t o r i e s
Evolutionary history of the Chaco “rituality”
Non-normative thinking in social evolutionary theory
Southwest and Southeast
Towards a history of social evolutionary trajectories
161
162
171
173
177
8
n e w ru l e s o f t h e g a m e
The game of archaeological neologisms
180
181
182
The engineering of archaeological theory: mining and bridging
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0521818370 - Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations
Norman Yoffee
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ta b l e o f c o n t e n t s
9
ix
How archaeologists lost their innocence
Levels of archaeological theory
Sources of analogy in archaeological theory
Analogy and the comparative method
183
185
188
192
a lt e r e d s tat e s : t h e e vo lu t i o n o f h i s t o ry
An essay on the evolution of Mesopotamian states and civilization
196
198
200
204
Initial conditions and emergent properties
Interaction and identity
The formation of Mesopotamian civilization and Mesopotamian
city-states
Evolutionary histories of the earliest cities, states, and civilizations
209
228
Acknowledgments
References
Index
233
236
268
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0521818370 - Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations
Norman Yoffee
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List of figures
1.1
1.2
2.1
2.2
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.9
3.10
3.11
3.12
3.13
3.14
3.15
3.16
3.17
3.18
3.19
Neo-evolutionist step-ladder model of stages
Myth of “our contemporary ancestors”
“Real” stratification
Hypothetical potential stratification
Earliest states and civilizations
Egypt
Hierakonpolis
Memphis (Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom)
Thebes
Amarna
Amarna – workmen’s village
Mesoamerica
Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan, urban growth
North China
Erlitou
Zhengzhou
Anyang
Indus Valley/Harappan sites
Mohenjo-Daro
Mohenjo-Daro – DK-G area
Harappa
North coast of Peru and Central Andes
page 18
19
30
30
63
63
64
65
66
66
67
68
68
69
70
70
71
71
72
73
74
74
75
x
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0521818370 - Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations
Norman Yoffee
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list of figures
3.20
3.21
3.22a
3.22b
3.23
3.24
3.25
3.26a
3.26b
3.27
3.28
3.29
3.30
3.31
3.32
3.33
3.34
3.35
3.36
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5
7.6
Moche
Tiwanaku
Wari
Wari, aerial view
Wari, urban growth
Maya region
El Mirador
Tikal, greater city
Tikal, urban core
Copán
Selected Mesopotamian cities
Mesopotamian settlement pattern in the late Uruk period
Mesopotamian settlement pattern in the Early Dynastic II
and III periods
Uruk
Nagar/Tell Brak
Kish
Lagash city-state
Comparison of some ancient cities
Comparison of some modern urban places on the scale of the
earliest cities
a. Amsterdam, 1936
b. Leiden, 1936
c. Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2003
d. University of Michigan, Central Campus, Ann Arbor
e. Hong Kong Island
f. New Orleans (Métropole de La Nouvelle Orléans, 1765)
Chinese potters’ marks
Mesopotamian tokens
Shang period bronze
Shang period oracle bone
Code of Hammurabi
Northern Southwest
Chaco, outliers, roads
Great house sites of Chaco Canyon
Shapes of great houses
Pueblo Bonito
Mississippian sites
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xi
76
76
77
77
78
79
79
80
81
81
82
82
83
84
85
85
86
87
88
95
95
97
99
105
163
164
165
166
166
175
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0521818370 - Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations
Norman Yoffee
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xii
list of figures
7.7
7.8
8.1
8.2
8.3
9.1
9.2
9.3
9.4
9.5
9.6
9.7
9.8
9.9
9.10
9.11
9.12
9.13
9.14
9.15
9.16
9.17
9.18
9.19
9.20
9.21
Cahokia
Examples of some evolutionary trajectories discussed in the text
Structure of archaeological theory
Valley of Oaxaca
Monte Albán
Selected Mesopotamian sites from various periods
Selected early Holocene and Neolithic sites
Selected Hassuna and Samarra sites
Yarim Tepe I
Hassuna ceramics
Samarra ceramics
Tell es-Sawwan, levels III and IV
Selected Halaf sites
Halaf ceramics
Tell Arpachiyah burnt house
Eridu, temple VII
Tepe Gawra, acropolis, level XIII
Tell Madhhur house
Tell Abada village
Eanna precinct, Uruk
White temple, Anu ziggurat, Uruk
Beveled-rim bowls
Archaic tablet scribal exercises
Archaic tablet list of professions with later copies
Uruk expansion sites
Some southern Mesopotamian city-states in the early third millennium BC
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176
178
187
190
191
215
215
216
216
217
218
219
220
220
221
221
222
222
223
224
225
225
226
226
227
227
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0521818370 - Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations
Norman Yoffee
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L i s t o f ta b l e s
3.1
9.1
Area and population size estimates of the earliest cities mentioned
in the text
Chronological table of selected periods in Mesopotamia
page 43
199
xiii
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