Chiefdoms?

A progression from band to tribe to chiefdom to state was first expounded by Service (1975) to replace the progression from savagery to barbarism to civilization popular in nineteenth-century scholarship. Many scholars think chiefdoms preceded states (Wright 1984; Earle 1987), although the possibility remains that chiefdoms were reactions to states or unrelated organizational forms.

The earliest states in the Near East appeared in the later fourth millennium bce, the Uruk period, in southern Mesopotamia. The argument might be made that a state existed in northern Mesopotamia or Anatolia contemporary with or even prior to that in southern Mesopotamia, since there are urban sites such as Tell Brak in Syria (about 100 hectares or 247 acres) and impressive buildings at Hacinebi and Arslan Tepe in Turkey. The earlier view of these areas as peripheries to a southern core is currently under revision. But despite evidence of complexity, the north has yet to produce a building to rival Uruk’s Eanna IV temple complex or artworks like the Warka vase. Nor did northern Mesopotamian material culture expand into other regions as did that of the south. The north was complex and vibrant but still owed much to, and followed the lead of, the south.

If the chiefdom preceded the state, we need to look for it in the Ubaid period of the sixth to fifth millennia (5800-4000 bce). A chiefdom is structurally kinship-based, with a degree of social complexity and inequality and a single leader, in contrast to the corporate entity implied by a state. The Ubaid does offer many identifiers of chiefdoms: two-tier settlement hierarchies, specialist production of pottery, large well-planned structures at Tell ‘Oueili, shrines at Eridu, possible chiefs’ houses at Tell Abada, and stamp seals indicating the increased importance of ownership. An unresolved question is whether Ubaid chiefs’ power was based on ‘‘wealth finance,’’ restricted luxuries, as is traditionally assumed for chiefdoms (D’Altroy and Earle 1985; Earle 1991), or on ‘‘staple finance,’’ surplus basic materials such as grain, with control of the land, water, and labor which allowed surpluses (Stein 1994, 1996). Imported luxuries do not appear in quantity in Ubaid sites, while the Tell Abada houses do have space for grain storage and the Tell ‘Oueili structures have been interpreted as granaries (Huot 1996). Nevertheless, it seems that the Ubaid power base rested on a combination of basics and luxuries, a strategy that allowed acquisition and advertisement of power at different levels. And later the Uruk state had the same dual foundation.