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Biology, prestige, and the origin of states
Biology, Prestige, and the Origin of States Jack Hill ABSTRACT The biological goals of survival and reproductive success are promoted by material and h u m a n resources like food, shelter, assistance, and marital partners. Access to all of these increases with increasing prestige, so paying attention to prestige makes biological sense for humans. In the political sphere, the ruler of a state has more prestige than a chief because he (not often she) has more followers, so that competition for prestige is bound to result in the emergence of states when nothing prevents it. The question thus to be asked is what prevents their emergence, not what causes it. I argue here that sufficient conditions for the emergence of states are competition for prestige and a high enough population level to produce a large economic surplus which must be under central control. If this population level is to be achieved, the prestige system must be such that ambitious people remain within the group rather than establishing independent groups, as is c o m m o n in chiefdoms. The emergence of such prestige systems is examined, with examples from ancient Mesopotamia, China, and Peru.
Introduction The biological goals of a human individual, as of those of an individual belonging to any other species, are the reproductive success of self and close relatives; both promote inclusive fitness. In considering the relationship between biology and human affairs, we relevantly explore the conditions under which the pursuit of these goals could be responsible for such important effects as the origin of states, an outcome that appears remote from biological concerns. The link is prestige, which I have already discussed in the context of reproductive success (1984, 1988). Humans in all societies are concerned about the quality of their offspring (Daly & Wilson, 1983, p. 314), and they do what they can to improve it. How much they can do and what form it takes depends upon their cultural milieu. Among the !Kung, for example, the most effective step is to space their births optimally (Blurton Jones, 1986), whereas among Americans it may be to confine the number of their children to those they can afford to educate adequately. In some other societies, it is to have a large enough family to provide an effective economic or political unit (e.g., Mandelbaum, 1974). Reproductive success, including quality of offspring, depends upon command by the head of a family over group resources, human and material. Material resources are mainly Jack HiD, 18 Garden Street, Lewes, East Sussex, England, BN7 lTd. Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 17(2).'213-225 1SSN: 0161-7361
Copyright © 1994 by JAI Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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food and shelter; human resources include physical, financial, social, and sexual assistance, where social assistance means verbal or written approval and sexual assistance means access to marital partners for self or offspring. For example, among the Ache hunter gatherers, K. Hill and Kaplan (1988) found that better hunters were able to acquire more matings than poorer hunters and their offspring had a higher survival rate, in spite of the fact that meat was shared throughout the group. This suggests that good hunters had a greater command than poor ones over human resources, the expression of this being seen in a greater willingness by other group members to give them women in marriage and greater group care of their wives and children. A positive correlation between prestige and reproductive success has also been found among the !Kung and the Murngin (see my 1984 review). These findings suggest that a similar relationship could have existed during the Paleolithic with natural selection favoring genes that promote concern for prestige. But in the interpretation of modern data, we must remember that under normal conditions--during prolonged periods of "stasigenesis" (Huxley, 1957), when natural selection maintains the status quo--it will eliminate only extreme phenotypes. During environmental crises when competition for resources is most severe is when its greatest effects will become apparent (Wiens, 1977), as Boag and Grant (1981) also found with Darwin's finches. This is when high prestige will have its most beneficial effects on reproductive success. Command over resources both increases with prestige and tends to be increased by it, so that human individuals are biologically on key to concern themselves with their prestige. This means that we should all be concerned to avoid loss of it. But this does not mean that everyone should seek avidly to increase it as much as possible (although some will do so), since there are dangers in so doing, especially when cheating is involved. Nor does this mean that an individual's attitude to prestige is determined solely by his/ her genes: cultural background is just as important. Briefly, genes affect all of our behavior but determine none of it. Some individuals are more competitive than others but there is no way of telling how much of this is due to genes and how much to upbringing; all that can be said is that the genetic component is biologically inherited whereas the cultural component has to be learned, and the learning process will be affected by the relevant genes. In addition to biological significance, prestige also has sociocultural importance (Hill, 1988) because it facilitates the spread of ideas--as Rogers (1983) noted in his study of the diffusion of ideas, Janney (1941) found in the spread of undergraduate clothing fashions, and Labov (1972, 1980) in linguistic changes. Because of this, prestigious individuals will generally have more effect on the course of sociocultural evolution than people of less importance, so that prestige-seeking becomes the mainspring of sociocultural evolution just as striving after reproductive success is the mainspring of biological evolution. One sometimes encounters the claim that ideas can move against the flow of prestige, but such claims rest upon a failure to take the relevant group structure into account. Ideas flow with prestige within a group, and can be carried upwards across group boundaries by individuals who belong to both groups, especially if they are prestigious members of the second group. Exploring the role of prestige-seeking in so important a sociocultural phenomenon as the origin of states is therefore essential. But before we consider that we need to draw a clear line between states and chiefdoms, because the latter are the forerunners of states.
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A study (edited by Claessen and Skalnik, 1978) of 21 early states distinguished 21 structural characteristics which were significant at the 99 percent or I00 percent level. Since early rather than mature states need to be differentiated from chiefdoms, the study's conclusions are very relevant here. Accordingly, I shall list the main characteristics which do not appear in chiefdoms and use those as a basis for distinguishing states: The territory of an early state has divisions, but these are not incipient states, for the main difference between chiefdoms and states is that fission is not part of the normal life cycle of states whereas it is of chiefdoms (Cohen, 1978, 55-57). Full time specialists are found in states. There is an obligation to pay taxes. Tribute is the main source of income of the sovereign and the aristocracy. The sovereign, whose status is sacral, is the formal law giver and supreme commander, and he (less frequently she) usually has a bodyguard. The aristocracy is internally stratified according to rank order of birth and office. A three tier administrative apparatus exists. From this list of state attributes not found in chiefdoms, the most relevant for the present study are the absence of fission and the presence of specialists, since both impinge on the prevailing prestige system. The former means that ambitious people do not break away to form independent groups--they have to satisfy their ambitions within the existing group, otherwise a large enough population to form a state could never be built up. This involves a change from chiefdoms where fission is normal, and it is a change that took place in Mesopotamia, China, and Peru while there was still territory to expand into, that is, while fission was still a geographical option. The presence of specialists means that there will be several fields in which people may gain prestige, as in a priesthood, in administration, in military command, in the designing and construction of monumental buildings, in various artistic pursuits, and so on. The existence of these various ways of gaining prestige means that a state will have more cultural growing points than a chiefdom, because the parts of a culture where prestige may be gained are those in which individuals will be most anxious to outdo one another and are likely, therefore, to be most innovative.
The Origin of States Haas (1982) tested the conflict and integration models of state origin empirically against the archaeological literature. The conflict model supposes that the origin of states involves the exploitation and repression of the ruled by their rulers, whereas the integration model supposes that the ruled perceive the military and economic advantages of belonging to a larger group and are consequently willing to put up with restrictions on their individual freedom. Haas had to conclude that there was insufficient evidence at that time to reject either approach completely, although he felt that the balance favored the conflict model. But one could still incorporate some features of the integration model into it since the ruled undoubtedly gain benefits from state membership and these help to reinforce the coercive sanctions of the conflict model (Haas, pp. 128-129). This is one way of saying that the dichotomy between the integration and conflict models is not really fundamental. Going on from this position, Haas reviewed various theories of state origin based on warfare, trade, and irrigation, but was unable to accept any of them in their entirety, although they nearly all made some good points.
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Instead, Haas founded his hypothesis on the power exerted by rulers in three key areas: the economy, physical control through policing, and ideological control through religion. He argued that states emerged with the power of the rulers to control basic resources and their development, and that this power led to military and police power, without which the economic power could not be maintained. Policing was necessary within the state to exert the ruler's control over recalcitrant subjects, and military force was necessary to keep outsiders from seizing the resources. Since policing is expensive in terms of work-hours if the population is reluctant to accept leadership, the control of religious sanctions is to be preferred since they are much less costly to impose. If the leaders are unable to exert their control in these three areas, a state is unlikely to emerge, and if they lose that triple control once having gained it the state is unlikely to survive. The type of state which arises will depend upon the nature of the basic resources controlled by the rulers (Haas, pp. 159-161, 172-182, 213). Fascinating and stimulating though these ideas are, I think there is another approach which may give a better explanation. All theories so far have attempted to uncover certain conditions which cause states to emerge, but the main positive factor in the origin of states, as in the origin of so much else, is competition for prestige. Unlike competition for physical resources, it is open-ended so there is no possibility of it being ultimately satisfied. It must therefore lead inevitably to states because in them the proportion of ruled to rulers is higher than in any simpler polity, so that the ruler of a state stands on a pinnacle of prestige denied to autonomous chiefs. In view of this, what one should look for is not what causes states to emerge but what prevents them from emerging--or, more positively, what are the minimum conditions permitting their emergence. Two such conditions, population size and total economic surplus, are closely related because in early states, which are always agricultural (Claessen & Skalnik, 1978), the total surplus depends upon the surplus per head of peasant workers and thus increases with population size. Under these conditions, there is a population size below which a state is impossible because the economic surplus per head could never rise high enough to provide adequate funds for running a state. What is needed is a large enough population and a surplus which is adequate to fund a state. The presence of technical, religious, and administrative specialists depends upon the existence of a surplus, since they cannot be supported without one. Specialization is impossible if either the population or the surplus is too small. Although the absence of a surplus prevents the appearance of states, that cannot be the whole story, for otherwise they would very likely have been found on the northwest coast of America where a surplus certainly existed (Drucker, 1975). The reason for their failure to develop there was that surpluses were controlled at too low a population level. Among the Tlingit, for example, the autonomous unit was the local village clan which consisted of some 10 house groups each composed of about three generations of a single family (Oberg, 1973), so that their total surplus was far too small to support a state. The whole Tlingit population of several thousand (Oberg, 1973) might have been large enough to found a state if the surplus for the whole population had been under central control. So far, therefore, the emergence of states seems to depend upon the existence of a large enough population together with an adequate economic surplus under central control, plus ambitious people prepared to undertake the work and take the risks which the formation of a state inevitably involves. But are there any other necessary conditions?
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Various theories suggest that warfare, trade, or irrigation are necessary, but they are just different mechanisms that enable rulers to control the surplus. If they conquer another society they will be able to control its basic resources, and if they are in a position to control the import or export of some important basic commodities in their own society they can exert some control over other aspects of its economy. Irrigation is a special case of this in which the commodity is water needed for agriculture. Attributes of states, like administrators and craft specialists, are secondary manifestations which grow up with the state; they are not essential for its origin. What is essential for the emergence of a pristine state in a pre-state polity is some internal development which prevents fission, thus enabling the population level to be raised sufficiently, and/or maintained high enough, to form a state while at the same time keeping the economic surplus under central control. Some examples of the process will be considered below.
Mesopotamia There is no doubt that by the middle of the third millennium BC there were several states in the Tigris-Euphrates basin, like Kish, Ur, Uruk (Erech), Lagash, Umma, and Nippur, for example. All of these had state characteristics--independence, a single governmental center, full time specialists, agriculture as the main basis of subsistence but supported by trade, taxation, sacral status of the ruler who was the formal law giver and supreme judge, and a priesthood that supported the ideological basis of the society (Kramer, 1963). The free (non-slave) population of Lagash in the middle of the third millennium has been calculated at about I00,000 and of Ur about 200,000 (Kramer, pp. 88-89). But how far back can we extend the existence of states in this area? At Uruk there was a pillared hall at about 3,200 BC with a 30 meter wide portico having a double row of of circular freestanding columns each two meters in diameter (Lloyd, 1978, p. 50), plus two temples that we know of, one of which had dimensions of 80 x 55 meters. These monumental buildings could only have been erected in what we have defined as a state. No chiefdom could ever accomplish anything so grandiose. Eridu was considered by the Sumerians to be the first of the five cities that existed before the biblical flood, and archaeological studies have supported the claim. A series of temples at different levels, beginning in the sixth millennium with a very small simple building, included Temple VIII in the early fourth millennium. This had dimensions of about 21 x 12 meters, and was succeeded by a more elaborate Temple VII about 18.5 x 13 meters. At this time Eridu probably covered an area of about 20 to 25 acres and had a population of at least 4000 people. By the late fourth millennium, Temple I was a fine building with a columned portico standing on a high temenos surrounded by a retaining wall. Clay sickles had appeared by the mid-fifth millennium and at the level after this there was a marked change in temple ground plans. This might have indicated the arrival of new people, but archaeological continuity in the area over the whole period provides no real evidence for this. Eridu was abandoned towards the end of the fourth millennium, probably because severe sand storms made it uninhabitable. The original inhabitants may have depended for their livelihood mainly upon fishing, and they would certainly have formed a pre-state polity, but by the second half of the fourth millennium the size and complexity of their temples suggests that they were at least on the point of
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developing an early state. The presence of clay sickles a full millennium earlier shows that by this time agriculture had almost certainly replaced fishing as their main source of food, and this is likely to have involved the development of some form of irrigation. (Mallowen, 1970, pp. 332, 343,349; Lloyd, 1978, p. 39; Maisels, 1990, pp. 134-140). Not much is known for certain about Sumerian leadership, but three social positions are named, ensi (lord), en (possibly overlord or lord high priest) and lugal (great man or king). Unfortunately no generally agreed conclusions have been reached on the detailed nature of their roles. All that can be claimed with justification is that lugal was the general designation of a king and that ensi was originally a high priest and later a governor in his own right, but could be subordinate to a lugal in another city. An ensi might have been more closely connected with the city temple and its main god than a lugal but that is only a matter of degree. The lugal may also have been advised by a council of elders. Certainly the city was regarded as belonging to its god so that the leaders acted in the god's name and the largest and most imposing building in the city was always the temple. This temple owned three types of land, none of which could be sold: I) 2) 3)
that which was reserved for maintenance of the temple; that which was allotted to the farmers working the first type and also to artisans who worked for the temple; that which was rented to individuals, especially temple personnel, in return for a share of the crop.
The rest of the city land belonged largely to the "nobility" and what was left to commoner lineages and extended families. These lineages and families could sell their land through the agency of chosen representatives, not necessarily the head, with the other members acting as witnesses of the sale. After the appearance of states, representatives of the government also took part on some occasions (Kramer, 1963, pp. 73-76; Lloyd, 1978, pp. 88-90; Maisels, 1990, pp. 151, 154-198, 219). The unreliability of the inundation would provide periodic hard times, and this would lead inevitably to concentration of the surplus in fewer and fewer hands. The only impediment to this process would be if land were inalienable, as it is in many chiefdoms. But if the early Sumerians lacked such a safeguard, and in literate times land other than temple land could be bought, there would be nothing to prevent it. Control of an agricultural surplus, which would include wool for textiles as well as corn, would be a great help in trade which would itself bring additional control over local products in so far as people wanted the trade goods, and in most societies they do because their display brings prestige. Control of agricultural surpluses and control of trade in early Mesopotamia must have reinforced one another, with the result that the ambitious landowner would be bound to his community, for he could not possibly break away without sacrificing the prestige he had built up. The growth of temples would have reinforced this, for there would have been little possibility of building a new temple of equivalent size and importance in a new community. These were perhaps the bases for the cohesion of the first Mesopotamian states. In a simple chiefdom, where prestige depends upon birth and the number of a person's followers, an ambitious member of the chiefly lineage can gain in prestige by breaking away provided this upstart can secure enough followers, but that was denied to the Sumerian because his prestige depended upon the ownership of land
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and association with a temple, neither of which he could take with him, and the more prestige of this kind he gained the more closely he would be integrated into the nascent state. War was endemic among the early states of Mesopotamia, but this was very probably the result not the cause of state formation. War was the expression of state leaders' competition for prestige, which was bound up with their need for fertile land to grow crops and pasture their animals--for without these facilities they would be in danger of losing wealth and status. War was not what made Sumerian states likely; the building of temples as granaries and the possibility of buying and selling land was, for these enabled the control of the agricultural surplus to be gradually concentrated in relatively few hands and at the same time made ambitious leaders unwise to attempt to found their own independent polities. The crucial difference in the prestige system from that found in many chiefdoms was in the change of criteria from number of followers to size of land holding and association with a temple. Chma
The early part of the second millennium BC in China saw a change from village cultures like the Lung-shan on the Yellow River, which were associated with chiefdoms, to an urban way of life with a new type of polity that might be called a state (Chang, 1986, p. 295). As in many chiefdoms, village fission was a feature of this period in China, and it was accompanied as usual by the segmentation of lineages. There was also political subjugation of some villages by others, a process that eventually produced a few small states in several regions of ancient China (Chang, 1983, pp. 122-124). But how did states emerge from this background? First we may note briefly that Chang (1983, pp. 124-128) could find no archaeological support for the role of technology, population pressure, or irrigation in state formation in China. The main features of pre-state cultures in the third millennium may be summarized as follows. There are some indications from the presence of small copper objects that a primitive form of metallurgy was practiced, but pottery was much more advanced, the pottery wheel being widely used. Potters may indeed have represented a specialized profession in Lung-shan societies. Village walls made of stamped earth, a common Chinese feature in later times, are known from the period; and as there is also some evidence of raids or warfare, these walls were presumably defensive in function. Persons of high political status were involved in ritual activity, which together with the burial of what may be ritual victims in connection with the construction of chiefly monuments suggests that there were sharp political and economic divisions in these societies. Such divisions have indeed been observed in mortuary remains. All the societies practiced scapulimancy--that is, the study of cracks in animal shoulder blades after heating as a way of consulting oracles. The sense of this evidence points to the occurrence of similar developments in several regional cultures in China at that time rather than to the emergence of a single Lungshan culture (Chang, 1986, pp. 287-288). The period of early states in ancient China is divided by historians into three dynasties, Hsia (c. 2200-1750), Shang (c. 1750-1100) and Chou (c.1100-256). Writing is known from the Shang and Chou dynasties but not from Hsia culture. We do not know for certain
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whether important finds at Erh-li-t'ou belong to the Hsia dynasty or to the early Shang period, but that is not crucial for the present arguments. The most significant differences between the Lung-shan and Erh-li-t'ou cultures were palatial architecture, tombs of royal proportions, the existence of bronze ritual vessels and weapons, possible human sacrifice at rituals, and a hint of writing (Chang, 1986, pp. 307-317). Of these, the bronze ritual vessels may be of most relevance here. For Chang (1983, pp. 95-106) has shown that access to political power in China at that time depended upon being born into certain clans and lineages, marrying into the right families, being associated with the right myths, behaving in such a way as to deserve public support, and above all having access, preferably exclusive access, to the wisdom and foresight of the ancestors. Without the last, the rest were of little use because communication with the ancestral spirits was absolutely essential. The elaborate rituals required for this involved the use of bronze ritual vessels which thereby became symbols of the right to rule, and the difficulties and complexities of their production made them also the symbols of great wealth. The existence of scapulimancy in Lung-shan societies shows that communication with the ancestors was important even then, and from what happened in later times we may presume that the ability to interpret the cracks on scapulae was the duty of shamans who performed this function for chiefs, or sometimes of the chiefs themselves who doubled with the role of shaman. At that time, however, the associated rituals were probably much simpler than they later became, and they could not have involved the use of bronze vessels which could not be made until later. This means that when a potential leader wished to leave a chiefdom in order to establish his own independent polity he could do so provided he could attract the services of a shaman or could himself undertake scapulimancy. But when the use of elaborate bronze vessels was gradually introduced, all this changed, because in order to set up independently, a leader would have needed to command the services of craft workers who could make the vessels and he would also have needed to control sources of copper and tin ore. These were not easy to find and were not very extensive. Chang (1983, p. 105) considers that this may be one reason for the frequent moves of the royal capital--eight during the Hsia period and twelve under the Shang dynasty. This could have been the initial change which facilitated the emergence of states in place of chiefdoms, by closing the door on group fission as a way for potential leaders to increase their prestige. After this change they could seek high office only under the king, if they could not supplant him or did not wish to. Ritual innovations which must in themselves have increased the prestige of chiefs ended by changing their status from that of chief to that of king. Once the possibility of fission was removed these kings could begin to build up state attributes like armies with bronze weapons and chariots, great wealth expressed in palaces and grand tombs, ever more elaborate rituals for consulting their ancestors which necessitated the accumulation of more and more elaborately decorated ritual vessels of bronze, and finally the development of writing which was used at first to record events connected with the royal courts rather than for economic purposes (Chang, 1986, pp. 298-302). The original power base of the early Chinese states seems to have been ideological, founded on communication with the ancestors. But warfare between chiefdoms did exist, as it frequently does in other parts of the world, and the military forces that demanded would have provided a means for physical control once states came into being. Central control of the economic surplus stemmed from the state ownership of land and its
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cultivation by peasants who were little better than serfs, and who were required to join the army when more soldiers were needed for an attack on a neighboring state (Chang, 1980, pp. 220-227). One's status was determined by one's genealogical distance from the head of the major lineage of one's clan, and peasants came at the bottom of this structure. Unfortunately, there are as yet few data on economic transactions under the Shang, so we do not know how agricultural produce was distributed (Chang, 1980, pp. 236-241). As there were no advances in agricultural techniques at this time which could have increased production, the necessary surplus upon which the existence of the states depended must have been accumulated through taxation or distortion of the land ownership pattern. Control of the bronze industry which produced weapons as well as ritual vessels would have enabled the rulers to exert the necessary physical control over their subjects (Chang, 1986, pp. 361-367). Precisely because the prestige system was dominated by ritual status rather than economic activity, only an innovation in the ritual sphere could have initiated the formation of states--for only a change of that kind could have prevented potential leaders from breaking away from established polities as they had been accustomed to do in the past. Peru
I have chosen this example because the possible origin of states in the area has been explored so well by Haas (1982, pp. 192-208), and the following summary is based on his account. Since the data are archaeological, the existence or otherwise of monumental architecture and its probable function are central to the argument, which traces development from coastal sites during the Cotton Preceramic Period (c. 2500-1750 BC) to inland sites during the Initial Period and Early Horizon (c. 1750-100 BC) and on to the Early Intermediate Period (c.100 BC-1450 AD). The whole developmental process cannot be observed in any one valley, but it can be seen by putting the early stages in one valley before the later stages in another. Since there are no major environmental differences between the valleys, Haas considered this technique quite legitimate. In each valley, limited agriculture was possible without irrigation in the flood plain and near the river mouth, but further inland irrigation was essential in the main river valley because of the low rainfall. Two significant sites from the Preceramic Period are near river mouths, and they come from a time just after the introduction of domestic plants like cotton, maize, and beans, so they represent a turning point in sociocultural development away from a gathering-fishing economy. Haas thought that the introduction of these plants together with the location of the settlements pointed to control over limited agricultural resources a n d / o r arable land, presumably by the people who first cultivated the plants in those valleys. This would have allowed the owners of the land to provide or withhold desirable non-subsistence products, and in this way they would have been able to gain the cooperation of the rest of the population to build the relatively modest ceremonial centers which have been uncovered there. Since these centers were religious rather than secular in function, Haas saw their existence as evidence that the agricultural group was using ideology to support its hegemony.
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During the succeeding Initial Period and Early Horizon, there was a movement inland and, significantly in the present context, the appearance of much larger monumental constructions in the form of pyramids. Movement away from the coast indicated reliance on irrigation and increased dependence on agricultural produce together with a decreased dependence on marine resources. Haas saw the development of irrigation as providing an increased source of coercive power through control of subsistence resources, not just of luxury goods as in the Preceramic Period. The increase in the size of monumental centers then becomes the expression of this increased power, and Haas saw this as evidence that a state polity had developed. Interestingly, in some valleys where no Preceramic architectural works have been found, movement inland was not accompanied by the construction of monumental buildings. Since irrigation must have been necessary at these sites, apparently it was not used as a source of power to coerce the population into building ceremonial centers. Haas has argued that those populations which built early ceremonial centers were "pre-adapted" to subordination and to responding to a central authority, and that only if some command structure was already in existence could irrigation be used to intensify it. In the Early Intermediate Period, there is evidence from some areas that physical power joined the existing economic and ideological power bases. The evidence for this is the existence of fortifications which suggest endemic warfare, the artistic representation of elaborately clad soldiers, and the depiction on Moche ceramic ware of people whose noses and lips had been cut off, and of others bound to stakes and some being herded by men with whips (Haas, p. 120). This increase in the strength of the power base was accompanied by a further increase in the size and number of monumental buildings. All of this indicates that the Moche polity on the north coast of Peru during the Early Intermediate Period formed a stronger state than the polities of the Early Horizon. To use the terms employed by Claessen and Skalnik (1978), the Moche state was typical whereas the earlier ones were inchoate. Haas' account makes no mention of prestige, but it must be put in because it is so fundamental to sociocultural evolution. At the beginning, when domestic plants had just been introduced, the new products would presumably have been desired by those still following a fishing-gathering economy if their possession conferred prestige by virtue of novelty, as it might well have done. The fishermen would then have been willing to work to obtain them. But later when the population moved away from the sea, presumably in search of larger areas of land to cultivate the new crops, the people found themselves more subservient to their rulers because they depended upon the crops for their subsistence. They had lost their independence with the loss of marine resources. This would have been true, regardless of the need to irrigate, if all of the land belonged to, or was controlled by, the ruling group. As in Mesopotamia, land ownership rather than irrigation or "preadaptation" to subservience was crucial. This view is supported by the absence of great monumental centers in some Peruvian valleys after settlements moved inland--the reason being, I would suggest, that land ownership there was spread evenly so that all lineages had access to arable land and its crops and there was no central control of the economic surplus, and consequently no grand architecture. One might ask why all the societies moved away from the coast, and the answer could well be that this was necessary in order to expand their agriculture, which had become a source of basic necessities not just of luxury foods as it had been originally. The population might have grown too large for the marine resources alone to support it.
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Going back to the people who first introduced domestic plants, we can surmise that they may have been invaders who took some land not needed by the fisher-gatherers and grew their crops on it. Later, when settlements were moved inland, the newcomers would presumably have adhered to the tradition that they alone owned or controlled the land. Cultivation of these new crops might well have diffused to other valleys, but without the people who introduced them and consequently without their tradition of land control. This would have left the societies in these valleys free to establish their own system of ownership. Regrettably, we know nothing about land ownership in any of these valleys, but it cannot fail to have played a key role in their economic system and it seems the most likely mechanism through which any surplus could have been centrally controlled. Since the ruling group probably used ideology to support its right to rule, it could have used the same ideology to support its right to own or control the arable land. The size of the ceremonial buildings built during the Initial Period and the Early Horizon indicates that state polities must have developed by then, and this introduces the question of what prevented ambitious leaders from establishing independent settlements as they would in a chiefdom. There is no way at present of being sure, but two possibilities come to mind. First, perhaps from the beginning, relationships between the agricultural newcomers and the aboriginal fisher-gatherers were kept under central control by the agricultural chiefs, preventing a potential secessionist from carrying along members of aboriginal society. Second, the religion in these periods clearly demanded the erection of ceremonial centers, the size of which probably conferred prestige upon the leaders who had them built. Under such circumstances, fission in the ruling group would have been difficult because a large number of aboriginal followers would have been needed to build a new center. These two conditions could have reinforced one another so that an ambitious person would have been better advised to serve the existing ruler or replace the ruler rather than attempt to establish an independent polity. Alas, the question cannot be answered more satisfactorily at present, but it is a question that has to be asked before the origin of states in Peru can be understood. Other Areas
Unfortunately, there is too little evidence at present to put forward reasoned hypotheses about the origin of states in ancient Egypt, the Indus Valley, and Mesoamerica, although possibly the Naqada II (Gerzian) people entered Upper Egypt as an invading force via the Wadi Hammamat. Under these conditions, no invader's best interests would have been served by attempting fission, as this would only have played into the hands of the people the invader was trying to conquer. The eventual result of the conquest would have been to increase the number of people subject to a central government, as more than one chiefdom was gathered under a single military leader. This leader could then have controlled a large enough economic surplus, through taxing the conquered, to establish a state apparatus. Under these circumstances, ambitious people could probably have gained more prestige within the system than by attempting to set up independently in an alien land. A branch of the conquerors could, nevertheless, have continued the trek northwards very early, long before a state was founded in Upper Egypt, and eventually formed one in Lower Egypt. But all this is speculative. We know only that there was an
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invasion by Naqada II people who had semitic connections, and that there were two states, Upper and Lower Egypt, before they were united under Menes at the end of the fourth millennium (Emery, 1961 ; Baumgartel, 1970). Conclusion Our account has been concerned with pristine states only, because once a state has been formed in an area it provides an example for others to follow and the necessary changes in the prestige system can be affected by diffusion. I have attempted to show how such changes could have taken place autochthonously. Early states, especially pristine ones, arose from simpler societies where the major social categories were derived from the biological divisions of family and lineage. This was inevitable because such divisions are the ones which depend least upon socioculture for their realization. But it placed an immediate constraint upon the form which early states could take. They had to give political significance to clan, lineage, and family, and that meant any hierarchical structure had to incorporate the principle of inheritance. A second constraint arose from the need for monarchs to demonstrate their status to their followers and compete for prestige with the rulers of any other states that might exist in the area. This called for the ability to field an army either to defend their territory or to expand it if they felt so inclined. Without resorting to war they could demonstrate their superiority by building great palaces, temples, or tombs, or by the conspicuous display of rare and costly artifacts. These things led to a third constraint, for they all required a monarch to have control over a large economic surplus with which to pay, or at least feed, men to fight wars, build palaces and temples, or produce works of art. Since the surplus was produced by peasants who, one presumes, would rather have kept their surplus than surrendered it to the king, all things being equal, there was a necessity to ensure that all things were not equal. The least costly and most effective way of doing this was through a religion that provided the monarch with a charter for ruling that is, for making laws and for commandeering the surplus--because the ruler's actions were specially sanctioned by the gods. When religion failed to persuade the peasantry that they should submit to the monarch there was always physical coercion, but that was costly and better avoided if possible. These three constraints--the inheritance of high office, the need for military prowess and artistic display, and the role of religion in sanctioning the king's right to rule--were responsible for the limited forms taken by early states, regardless of the particular events which led to their establishment. The second of these has remained true for all states, but the first and third have been overcome in many cases, the sanction of religion being replaced eventually by that of the ballot box, and inheritance being displaced by ability as the criterion for leadership. But in all cases the quest for prestige has remained central to the development of states. What has changed has been the attributes which have attracted it, although the number of followers (subjects or citizens) that a state leader can call upon has remained a criterion of that state's standing in the world. This harks back to the situation in chiefdoms, but changes in the prestige system were responsible for the original growth of populations large enough to permit the emergence of states.
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References
Baumgartel, E. J. (1970) "Predynastic Egypt," in Edwards, I. E. S., Gadd, C. J. & Hammond, N. G. L. eds. The Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed., Vol. L Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 463-497. Blurton Jones, N. (1986) "Bushmen Birth Spacing." Ethology and Sociobiology, 7, 91-105. Boag, P. T. & Grant, P. R. (1981) "Intense Natural Selection in a Population of Darwin's Finches (Geospizinae) in the Galapagos." Science, 214, 82-85. Chang, K-C. (1980) Shang Civilization. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Chang, K-C. (1983) Art, Myth and Ritual. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chang, K-C. (1986) The Archaeology of Ancient China, 4th ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Claessen, H. J. M. & Skalnik, P., eds. (1978) The Early State. The Hague: Mouton. Cohen, R. (1978) "State Origins: a Reappraisal," in Claessen, H. J. M. & Skalnik, P., eds. The Early State. The Hague: Mouton, pp. 31-75. Daly, M. & Wilson, M. (1983) Sex, Evolution and Behavior, 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Willard Grant Press. Drucker, P. (1965) Cultures of the North Pacific Coast. Scranton, PA: Chandler. Emery, W. B. (1961) Archaic Egypt. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin. Haas, J. (1982) The Evolution of the Prehistoric State. New York: Columbia University Press. Hill, J. (1984) "Prestige and Reproductive Success in Man." Ethology and Sociobiology, 5, 77-95. Hill, J. (1988)"Reproductive and Sociocultural Success in a Dual Evolutionary Model." Journal of Social and Biological Structures, 11,337-352. Hill, K. & Kaplan, H. (1988) "Tradeoffs in Male and Female Reproductive Strategies among the Ache, Part 1," in Betzig, L., Borgerhoff Mulder, M. & Turke, P. eds. Human Reproductive Behaviour. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 277-289. Huxley, J. S. (1957) "The Three Types of Evolutionary Process." Nature, 180, 454-455. Janney, J. E. (1941)"Fad and Fashion Leadership among Undergraduate Women." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 36, 275-278. Kramer, S. N. (1963) The Sumerians. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Labov, W. (1972) Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Labov, W. (1980) "The Social Origin of Sound Change," in Labov, W., ed. Locating Language in Time and Space. New York: Academic Press, pp. 251-265. Lloyd, S. (1978) The Archaeology of Mesopotamia. London: Thames & Hudson. Maisels, C. K. (1990) The Emergence of Civilisation. London: Routledge. Mallowen, M. (1970)"The Development of Cities from al-'Ubaid to the End of Uruk 5," in Edwards, I. E. S., Gadd, C. J. & Hammond, N. G. L. eds. The Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed., Vol. I. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 327-462. Mandelbaum, D.G. (1974) Human Fertility in India. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Oberg, K. (1973) The Social Economy of the Tlingit Indians. Seattle, WA: Washington University Press. Rogers, E. M. (1983) Diffusion oflnnovations, 3rd ed. New York: Free Press. Wiens, J. A. (1977) "On Competition and Variable Environments." American Scientist, 65, 596-597. About the Author Jack Hill, a retired parasitologist, has published papers on prestige, reproductive success, and altruism in this and other journals.
Introduction The biological goals of a human individual, as of those of an individual belonging to any other species, are the reproductive success of self and close relatives; both promote inclusive fitness. In considering the relationship between biology and human affairs, we relevantly explore the conditions under which the pursuit of these goals could be responsible for such important effects as the origin of states, an outcome that appears remote from biological concerns. The link is prestige, which I have already discussed in the context of reproductive success (1984, 1988). Humans in all societies are concerned about the quality of their offspring (Daly & Wilson, 1983, p. 314), and they do what they can to improve it. How much they can do and what form it takes depends upon their cultural milieu. Among the !Kung, for example, the most effective step is to space their births optimally (Blurton Jones, 1986), whereas among Americans it may be to confine the number of their children to those they can afford to educate adequately. In some other societies, it is to have a large enough family to provide an effective economic or political unit (e.g., Mandelbaum, 1974). Reproductive success, including quality of offspring, depends upon command by the head of a family over group resources, human and material. Material resources are mainly Jack HiD, 18 Garden Street, Lewes, East Sussex, England, BN7 lTd. Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 17(2).'213-225 1SSN: 0161-7361
Copyright © 1994 by JAI Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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food and shelter; human resources include physical, financial, social, and sexual assistance, where social assistance means verbal or written approval and sexual assistance means access to marital partners for self or offspring. For example, among the Ache hunter gatherers, K. Hill and Kaplan (1988) found that better hunters were able to acquire more matings than poorer hunters and their offspring had a higher survival rate, in spite of the fact that meat was shared throughout the group. This suggests that good hunters had a greater command than poor ones over human resources, the expression of this being seen in a greater willingness by other group members to give them women in marriage and greater group care of their wives and children. A positive correlation between prestige and reproductive success has also been found among the !Kung and the Murngin (see my 1984 review). These findings suggest that a similar relationship could have existed during the Paleolithic with natural selection favoring genes that promote concern for prestige. But in the interpretation of modern data, we must remember that under normal conditions--during prolonged periods of "stasigenesis" (Huxley, 1957), when natural selection maintains the status quo--it will eliminate only extreme phenotypes. During environmental crises when competition for resources is most severe is when its greatest effects will become apparent (Wiens, 1977), as Boag and Grant (1981) also found with Darwin's finches. This is when high prestige will have its most beneficial effects on reproductive success. Command over resources both increases with prestige and tends to be increased by it, so that human individuals are biologically on key to concern themselves with their prestige. This means that we should all be concerned to avoid loss of it. But this does not mean that everyone should seek avidly to increase it as much as possible (although some will do so), since there are dangers in so doing, especially when cheating is involved. Nor does this mean that an individual's attitude to prestige is determined solely by his/ her genes: cultural background is just as important. Briefly, genes affect all of our behavior but determine none of it. Some individuals are more competitive than others but there is no way of telling how much of this is due to genes and how much to upbringing; all that can be said is that the genetic component is biologically inherited whereas the cultural component has to be learned, and the learning process will be affected by the relevant genes. In addition to biological significance, prestige also has sociocultural importance (Hill, 1988) because it facilitates the spread of ideas--as Rogers (1983) noted in his study of the diffusion of ideas, Janney (1941) found in the spread of undergraduate clothing fashions, and Labov (1972, 1980) in linguistic changes. Because of this, prestigious individuals will generally have more effect on the course of sociocultural evolution than people of less importance, so that prestige-seeking becomes the mainspring of sociocultural evolution just as striving after reproductive success is the mainspring of biological evolution. One sometimes encounters the claim that ideas can move against the flow of prestige, but such claims rest upon a failure to take the relevant group structure into account. Ideas flow with prestige within a group, and can be carried upwards across group boundaries by individuals who belong to both groups, especially if they are prestigious members of the second group. Exploring the role of prestige-seeking in so important a sociocultural phenomenon as the origin of states is therefore essential. But before we consider that we need to draw a clear line between states and chiefdoms, because the latter are the forerunners of states.
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A study (edited by Claessen and Skalnik, 1978) of 21 early states distinguished 21 structural characteristics which were significant at the 99 percent or I00 percent level. Since early rather than mature states need to be differentiated from chiefdoms, the study's conclusions are very relevant here. Accordingly, I shall list the main characteristics which do not appear in chiefdoms and use those as a basis for distinguishing states: The territory of an early state has divisions, but these are not incipient states, for the main difference between chiefdoms and states is that fission is not part of the normal life cycle of states whereas it is of chiefdoms (Cohen, 1978, 55-57). Full time specialists are found in states. There is an obligation to pay taxes. Tribute is the main source of income of the sovereign and the aristocracy. The sovereign, whose status is sacral, is the formal law giver and supreme commander, and he (less frequently she) usually has a bodyguard. The aristocracy is internally stratified according to rank order of birth and office. A three tier administrative apparatus exists. From this list of state attributes not found in chiefdoms, the most relevant for the present study are the absence of fission and the presence of specialists, since both impinge on the prevailing prestige system. The former means that ambitious people do not break away to form independent groups--they have to satisfy their ambitions within the existing group, otherwise a large enough population to form a state could never be built up. This involves a change from chiefdoms where fission is normal, and it is a change that took place in Mesopotamia, China, and Peru while there was still territory to expand into, that is, while fission was still a geographical option. The presence of specialists means that there will be several fields in which people may gain prestige, as in a priesthood, in administration, in military command, in the designing and construction of monumental buildings, in various artistic pursuits, and so on. The existence of these various ways of gaining prestige means that a state will have more cultural growing points than a chiefdom, because the parts of a culture where prestige may be gained are those in which individuals will be most anxious to outdo one another and are likely, therefore, to be most innovative.
The Origin of States Haas (1982) tested the conflict and integration models of state origin empirically against the archaeological literature. The conflict model supposes that the origin of states involves the exploitation and repression of the ruled by their rulers, whereas the integration model supposes that the ruled perceive the military and economic advantages of belonging to a larger group and are consequently willing to put up with restrictions on their individual freedom. Haas had to conclude that there was insufficient evidence at that time to reject either approach completely, although he felt that the balance favored the conflict model. But one could still incorporate some features of the integration model into it since the ruled undoubtedly gain benefits from state membership and these help to reinforce the coercive sanctions of the conflict model (Haas, pp. 128-129). This is one way of saying that the dichotomy between the integration and conflict models is not really fundamental. Going on from this position, Haas reviewed various theories of state origin based on warfare, trade, and irrigation, but was unable to accept any of them in their entirety, although they nearly all made some good points.
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Instead, Haas founded his hypothesis on the power exerted by rulers in three key areas: the economy, physical control through policing, and ideological control through religion. He argued that states emerged with the power of the rulers to control basic resources and their development, and that this power led to military and police power, without which the economic power could not be maintained. Policing was necessary within the state to exert the ruler's control over recalcitrant subjects, and military force was necessary to keep outsiders from seizing the resources. Since policing is expensive in terms of work-hours if the population is reluctant to accept leadership, the control of religious sanctions is to be preferred since they are much less costly to impose. If the leaders are unable to exert their control in these three areas, a state is unlikely to emerge, and if they lose that triple control once having gained it the state is unlikely to survive. The type of state which arises will depend upon the nature of the basic resources controlled by the rulers (Haas, pp. 159-161, 172-182, 213). Fascinating and stimulating though these ideas are, I think there is another approach which may give a better explanation. All theories so far have attempted to uncover certain conditions which cause states to emerge, but the main positive factor in the origin of states, as in the origin of so much else, is competition for prestige. Unlike competition for physical resources, it is open-ended so there is no possibility of it being ultimately satisfied. It must therefore lead inevitably to states because in them the proportion of ruled to rulers is higher than in any simpler polity, so that the ruler of a state stands on a pinnacle of prestige denied to autonomous chiefs. In view of this, what one should look for is not what causes states to emerge but what prevents them from emerging--or, more positively, what are the minimum conditions permitting their emergence. Two such conditions, population size and total economic surplus, are closely related because in early states, which are always agricultural (Claessen & Skalnik, 1978), the total surplus depends upon the surplus per head of peasant workers and thus increases with population size. Under these conditions, there is a population size below which a state is impossible because the economic surplus per head could never rise high enough to provide adequate funds for running a state. What is needed is a large enough population and a surplus which is adequate to fund a state. The presence of technical, religious, and administrative specialists depends upon the existence of a surplus, since they cannot be supported without one. Specialization is impossible if either the population or the surplus is too small. Although the absence of a surplus prevents the appearance of states, that cannot be the whole story, for otherwise they would very likely have been found on the northwest coast of America where a surplus certainly existed (Drucker, 1975). The reason for their failure to develop there was that surpluses were controlled at too low a population level. Among the Tlingit, for example, the autonomous unit was the local village clan which consisted of some 10 house groups each composed of about three generations of a single family (Oberg, 1973), so that their total surplus was far too small to support a state. The whole Tlingit population of several thousand (Oberg, 1973) might have been large enough to found a state if the surplus for the whole population had been under central control. So far, therefore, the emergence of states seems to depend upon the existence of a large enough population together with an adequate economic surplus under central control, plus ambitious people prepared to undertake the work and take the risks which the formation of a state inevitably involves. But are there any other necessary conditions?
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Various theories suggest that warfare, trade, or irrigation are necessary, but they are just different mechanisms that enable rulers to control the surplus. If they conquer another society they will be able to control its basic resources, and if they are in a position to control the import or export of some important basic commodities in their own society they can exert some control over other aspects of its economy. Irrigation is a special case of this in which the commodity is water needed for agriculture. Attributes of states, like administrators and craft specialists, are secondary manifestations which grow up with the state; they are not essential for its origin. What is essential for the emergence of a pristine state in a pre-state polity is some internal development which prevents fission, thus enabling the population level to be raised sufficiently, and/or maintained high enough, to form a state while at the same time keeping the economic surplus under central control. Some examples of the process will be considered below.
Mesopotamia There is no doubt that by the middle of the third millennium BC there were several states in the Tigris-Euphrates basin, like Kish, Ur, Uruk (Erech), Lagash, Umma, and Nippur, for example. All of these had state characteristics--independence, a single governmental center, full time specialists, agriculture as the main basis of subsistence but supported by trade, taxation, sacral status of the ruler who was the formal law giver and supreme judge, and a priesthood that supported the ideological basis of the society (Kramer, 1963). The free (non-slave) population of Lagash in the middle of the third millennium has been calculated at about I00,000 and of Ur about 200,000 (Kramer, pp. 88-89). But how far back can we extend the existence of states in this area? At Uruk there was a pillared hall at about 3,200 BC with a 30 meter wide portico having a double row of of circular freestanding columns each two meters in diameter (Lloyd, 1978, p. 50), plus two temples that we know of, one of which had dimensions of 80 x 55 meters. These monumental buildings could only have been erected in what we have defined as a state. No chiefdom could ever accomplish anything so grandiose. Eridu was considered by the Sumerians to be the first of the five cities that existed before the biblical flood, and archaeological studies have supported the claim. A series of temples at different levels, beginning in the sixth millennium with a very small simple building, included Temple VIII in the early fourth millennium. This had dimensions of about 21 x 12 meters, and was succeeded by a more elaborate Temple VII about 18.5 x 13 meters. At this time Eridu probably covered an area of about 20 to 25 acres and had a population of at least 4000 people. By the late fourth millennium, Temple I was a fine building with a columned portico standing on a high temenos surrounded by a retaining wall. Clay sickles had appeared by the mid-fifth millennium and at the level after this there was a marked change in temple ground plans. This might have indicated the arrival of new people, but archaeological continuity in the area over the whole period provides no real evidence for this. Eridu was abandoned towards the end of the fourth millennium, probably because severe sand storms made it uninhabitable. The original inhabitants may have depended for their livelihood mainly upon fishing, and they would certainly have formed a pre-state polity, but by the second half of the fourth millennium the size and complexity of their temples suggests that they were at least on the point of
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developing an early state. The presence of clay sickles a full millennium earlier shows that by this time agriculture had almost certainly replaced fishing as their main source of food, and this is likely to have involved the development of some form of irrigation. (Mallowen, 1970, pp. 332, 343,349; Lloyd, 1978, p. 39; Maisels, 1990, pp. 134-140). Not much is known for certain about Sumerian leadership, but three social positions are named, ensi (lord), en (possibly overlord or lord high priest) and lugal (great man or king). Unfortunately no generally agreed conclusions have been reached on the detailed nature of their roles. All that can be claimed with justification is that lugal was the general designation of a king and that ensi was originally a high priest and later a governor in his own right, but could be subordinate to a lugal in another city. An ensi might have been more closely connected with the city temple and its main god than a lugal but that is only a matter of degree. The lugal may also have been advised by a council of elders. Certainly the city was regarded as belonging to its god so that the leaders acted in the god's name and the largest and most imposing building in the city was always the temple. This temple owned three types of land, none of which could be sold: I) 2) 3)
that which was reserved for maintenance of the temple; that which was allotted to the farmers working the first type and also to artisans who worked for the temple; that which was rented to individuals, especially temple personnel, in return for a share of the crop.
The rest of the city land belonged largely to the "nobility" and what was left to commoner lineages and extended families. These lineages and families could sell their land through the agency of chosen representatives, not necessarily the head, with the other members acting as witnesses of the sale. After the appearance of states, representatives of the government also took part on some occasions (Kramer, 1963, pp. 73-76; Lloyd, 1978, pp. 88-90; Maisels, 1990, pp. 151, 154-198, 219). The unreliability of the inundation would provide periodic hard times, and this would lead inevitably to concentration of the surplus in fewer and fewer hands. The only impediment to this process would be if land were inalienable, as it is in many chiefdoms. But if the early Sumerians lacked such a safeguard, and in literate times land other than temple land could be bought, there would be nothing to prevent it. Control of an agricultural surplus, which would include wool for textiles as well as corn, would be a great help in trade which would itself bring additional control over local products in so far as people wanted the trade goods, and in most societies they do because their display brings prestige. Control of agricultural surpluses and control of trade in early Mesopotamia must have reinforced one another, with the result that the ambitious landowner would be bound to his community, for he could not possibly break away without sacrificing the prestige he had built up. The growth of temples would have reinforced this, for there would have been little possibility of building a new temple of equivalent size and importance in a new community. These were perhaps the bases for the cohesion of the first Mesopotamian states. In a simple chiefdom, where prestige depends upon birth and the number of a person's followers, an ambitious member of the chiefly lineage can gain in prestige by breaking away provided this upstart can secure enough followers, but that was denied to the Sumerian because his prestige depended upon the ownership of land
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and association with a temple, neither of which he could take with him, and the more prestige of this kind he gained the more closely he would be integrated into the nascent state. War was endemic among the early states of Mesopotamia, but this was very probably the result not the cause of state formation. War was the expression of state leaders' competition for prestige, which was bound up with their need for fertile land to grow crops and pasture their animals--for without these facilities they would be in danger of losing wealth and status. War was not what made Sumerian states likely; the building of temples as granaries and the possibility of buying and selling land was, for these enabled the control of the agricultural surplus to be gradually concentrated in relatively few hands and at the same time made ambitious leaders unwise to attempt to found their own independent polities. The crucial difference in the prestige system from that found in many chiefdoms was in the change of criteria from number of followers to size of land holding and association with a temple. Chma
The early part of the second millennium BC in China saw a change from village cultures like the Lung-shan on the Yellow River, which were associated with chiefdoms, to an urban way of life with a new type of polity that might be called a state (Chang, 1986, p. 295). As in many chiefdoms, village fission was a feature of this period in China, and it was accompanied as usual by the segmentation of lineages. There was also political subjugation of some villages by others, a process that eventually produced a few small states in several regions of ancient China (Chang, 1983, pp. 122-124). But how did states emerge from this background? First we may note briefly that Chang (1983, pp. 124-128) could find no archaeological support for the role of technology, population pressure, or irrigation in state formation in China. The main features of pre-state cultures in the third millennium may be summarized as follows. There are some indications from the presence of small copper objects that a primitive form of metallurgy was practiced, but pottery was much more advanced, the pottery wheel being widely used. Potters may indeed have represented a specialized profession in Lung-shan societies. Village walls made of stamped earth, a common Chinese feature in later times, are known from the period; and as there is also some evidence of raids or warfare, these walls were presumably defensive in function. Persons of high political status were involved in ritual activity, which together with the burial of what may be ritual victims in connection with the construction of chiefly monuments suggests that there were sharp political and economic divisions in these societies. Such divisions have indeed been observed in mortuary remains. All the societies practiced scapulimancy--that is, the study of cracks in animal shoulder blades after heating as a way of consulting oracles. The sense of this evidence points to the occurrence of similar developments in several regional cultures in China at that time rather than to the emergence of a single Lungshan culture (Chang, 1986, pp. 287-288). The period of early states in ancient China is divided by historians into three dynasties, Hsia (c. 2200-1750), Shang (c. 1750-1100) and Chou (c.1100-256). Writing is known from the Shang and Chou dynasties but not from Hsia culture. We do not know for certain
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whether important finds at Erh-li-t'ou belong to the Hsia dynasty or to the early Shang period, but that is not crucial for the present arguments. The most significant differences between the Lung-shan and Erh-li-t'ou cultures were palatial architecture, tombs of royal proportions, the existence of bronze ritual vessels and weapons, possible human sacrifice at rituals, and a hint of writing (Chang, 1986, pp. 307-317). Of these, the bronze ritual vessels may be of most relevance here. For Chang (1983, pp. 95-106) has shown that access to political power in China at that time depended upon being born into certain clans and lineages, marrying into the right families, being associated with the right myths, behaving in such a way as to deserve public support, and above all having access, preferably exclusive access, to the wisdom and foresight of the ancestors. Without the last, the rest were of little use because communication with the ancestral spirits was absolutely essential. The elaborate rituals required for this involved the use of bronze ritual vessels which thereby became symbols of the right to rule, and the difficulties and complexities of their production made them also the symbols of great wealth. The existence of scapulimancy in Lung-shan societies shows that communication with the ancestors was important even then, and from what happened in later times we may presume that the ability to interpret the cracks on scapulae was the duty of shamans who performed this function for chiefs, or sometimes of the chiefs themselves who doubled with the role of shaman. At that time, however, the associated rituals were probably much simpler than they later became, and they could not have involved the use of bronze vessels which could not be made until later. This means that when a potential leader wished to leave a chiefdom in order to establish his own independent polity he could do so provided he could attract the services of a shaman or could himself undertake scapulimancy. But when the use of elaborate bronze vessels was gradually introduced, all this changed, because in order to set up independently, a leader would have needed to command the services of craft workers who could make the vessels and he would also have needed to control sources of copper and tin ore. These were not easy to find and were not very extensive. Chang (1983, p. 105) considers that this may be one reason for the frequent moves of the royal capital--eight during the Hsia period and twelve under the Shang dynasty. This could have been the initial change which facilitated the emergence of states in place of chiefdoms, by closing the door on group fission as a way for potential leaders to increase their prestige. After this change they could seek high office only under the king, if they could not supplant him or did not wish to. Ritual innovations which must in themselves have increased the prestige of chiefs ended by changing their status from that of chief to that of king. Once the possibility of fission was removed these kings could begin to build up state attributes like armies with bronze weapons and chariots, great wealth expressed in palaces and grand tombs, ever more elaborate rituals for consulting their ancestors which necessitated the accumulation of more and more elaborately decorated ritual vessels of bronze, and finally the development of writing which was used at first to record events connected with the royal courts rather than for economic purposes (Chang, 1986, pp. 298-302). The original power base of the early Chinese states seems to have been ideological, founded on communication with the ancestors. But warfare between chiefdoms did exist, as it frequently does in other parts of the world, and the military forces that demanded would have provided a means for physical control once states came into being. Central control of the economic surplus stemmed from the state ownership of land and its
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cultivation by peasants who were little better than serfs, and who were required to join the army when more soldiers were needed for an attack on a neighboring state (Chang, 1980, pp. 220-227). One's status was determined by one's genealogical distance from the head of the major lineage of one's clan, and peasants came at the bottom of this structure. Unfortunately, there are as yet few data on economic transactions under the Shang, so we do not know how agricultural produce was distributed (Chang, 1980, pp. 236-241). As there were no advances in agricultural techniques at this time which could have increased production, the necessary surplus upon which the existence of the states depended must have been accumulated through taxation or distortion of the land ownership pattern. Control of the bronze industry which produced weapons as well as ritual vessels would have enabled the rulers to exert the necessary physical control over their subjects (Chang, 1986, pp. 361-367). Precisely because the prestige system was dominated by ritual status rather than economic activity, only an innovation in the ritual sphere could have initiated the formation of states--for only a change of that kind could have prevented potential leaders from breaking away from established polities as they had been accustomed to do in the past. Peru
I have chosen this example because the possible origin of states in the area has been explored so well by Haas (1982, pp. 192-208), and the following summary is based on his account. Since the data are archaeological, the existence or otherwise of monumental architecture and its probable function are central to the argument, which traces development from coastal sites during the Cotton Preceramic Period (c. 2500-1750 BC) to inland sites during the Initial Period and Early Horizon (c. 1750-100 BC) and on to the Early Intermediate Period (c.100 BC-1450 AD). The whole developmental process cannot be observed in any one valley, but it can be seen by putting the early stages in one valley before the later stages in another. Since there are no major environmental differences between the valleys, Haas considered this technique quite legitimate. In each valley, limited agriculture was possible without irrigation in the flood plain and near the river mouth, but further inland irrigation was essential in the main river valley because of the low rainfall. Two significant sites from the Preceramic Period are near river mouths, and they come from a time just after the introduction of domestic plants like cotton, maize, and beans, so they represent a turning point in sociocultural development away from a gathering-fishing economy. Haas thought that the introduction of these plants together with the location of the settlements pointed to control over limited agricultural resources a n d / o r arable land, presumably by the people who first cultivated the plants in those valleys. This would have allowed the owners of the land to provide or withhold desirable non-subsistence products, and in this way they would have been able to gain the cooperation of the rest of the population to build the relatively modest ceremonial centers which have been uncovered there. Since these centers were religious rather than secular in function, Haas saw their existence as evidence that the agricultural group was using ideology to support its hegemony.
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During the succeeding Initial Period and Early Horizon, there was a movement inland and, significantly in the present context, the appearance of much larger monumental constructions in the form of pyramids. Movement away from the coast indicated reliance on irrigation and increased dependence on agricultural produce together with a decreased dependence on marine resources. Haas saw the development of irrigation as providing an increased source of coercive power through control of subsistence resources, not just of luxury goods as in the Preceramic Period. The increase in the size of monumental centers then becomes the expression of this increased power, and Haas saw this as evidence that a state polity had developed. Interestingly, in some valleys where no Preceramic architectural works have been found, movement inland was not accompanied by the construction of monumental buildings. Since irrigation must have been necessary at these sites, apparently it was not used as a source of power to coerce the population into building ceremonial centers. Haas has argued that those populations which built early ceremonial centers were "pre-adapted" to subordination and to responding to a central authority, and that only if some command structure was already in existence could irrigation be used to intensify it. In the Early Intermediate Period, there is evidence from some areas that physical power joined the existing economic and ideological power bases. The evidence for this is the existence of fortifications which suggest endemic warfare, the artistic representation of elaborately clad soldiers, and the depiction on Moche ceramic ware of people whose noses and lips had been cut off, and of others bound to stakes and some being herded by men with whips (Haas, p. 120). This increase in the strength of the power base was accompanied by a further increase in the size and number of monumental buildings. All of this indicates that the Moche polity on the north coast of Peru during the Early Intermediate Period formed a stronger state than the polities of the Early Horizon. To use the terms employed by Claessen and Skalnik (1978), the Moche state was typical whereas the earlier ones were inchoate. Haas' account makes no mention of prestige, but it must be put in because it is so fundamental to sociocultural evolution. At the beginning, when domestic plants had just been introduced, the new products would presumably have been desired by those still following a fishing-gathering economy if their possession conferred prestige by virtue of novelty, as it might well have done. The fishermen would then have been willing to work to obtain them. But later when the population moved away from the sea, presumably in search of larger areas of land to cultivate the new crops, the people found themselves more subservient to their rulers because they depended upon the crops for their subsistence. They had lost their independence with the loss of marine resources. This would have been true, regardless of the need to irrigate, if all of the land belonged to, or was controlled by, the ruling group. As in Mesopotamia, land ownership rather than irrigation or "preadaptation" to subservience was crucial. This view is supported by the absence of great monumental centers in some Peruvian valleys after settlements moved inland--the reason being, I would suggest, that land ownership there was spread evenly so that all lineages had access to arable land and its crops and there was no central control of the economic surplus, and consequently no grand architecture. One might ask why all the societies moved away from the coast, and the answer could well be that this was necessary in order to expand their agriculture, which had become a source of basic necessities not just of luxury foods as it had been originally. The population might have grown too large for the marine resources alone to support it.
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Going back to the people who first introduced domestic plants, we can surmise that they may have been invaders who took some land not needed by the fisher-gatherers and grew their crops on it. Later, when settlements were moved inland, the newcomers would presumably have adhered to the tradition that they alone owned or controlled the land. Cultivation of these new crops might well have diffused to other valleys, but without the people who introduced them and consequently without their tradition of land control. This would have left the societies in these valleys free to establish their own system of ownership. Regrettably, we know nothing about land ownership in any of these valleys, but it cannot fail to have played a key role in their economic system and it seems the most likely mechanism through which any surplus could have been centrally controlled. Since the ruling group probably used ideology to support its right to rule, it could have used the same ideology to support its right to own or control the arable land. The size of the ceremonial buildings built during the Initial Period and the Early Horizon indicates that state polities must have developed by then, and this introduces the question of what prevented ambitious leaders from establishing independent settlements as they would in a chiefdom. There is no way at present of being sure, but two possibilities come to mind. First, perhaps from the beginning, relationships between the agricultural newcomers and the aboriginal fisher-gatherers were kept under central control by the agricultural chiefs, preventing a potential secessionist from carrying along members of aboriginal society. Second, the religion in these periods clearly demanded the erection of ceremonial centers, the size of which probably conferred prestige upon the leaders who had them built. Under such circumstances, fission in the ruling group would have been difficult because a large number of aboriginal followers would have been needed to build a new center. These two conditions could have reinforced one another so that an ambitious person would have been better advised to serve the existing ruler or replace the ruler rather than attempt to establish an independent polity. Alas, the question cannot be answered more satisfactorily at present, but it is a question that has to be asked before the origin of states in Peru can be understood. Other Areas
Unfortunately, there is too little evidence at present to put forward reasoned hypotheses about the origin of states in ancient Egypt, the Indus Valley, and Mesoamerica, although possibly the Naqada II (Gerzian) people entered Upper Egypt as an invading force via the Wadi Hammamat. Under these conditions, no invader's best interests would have been served by attempting fission, as this would only have played into the hands of the people the invader was trying to conquer. The eventual result of the conquest would have been to increase the number of people subject to a central government, as more than one chiefdom was gathered under a single military leader. This leader could then have controlled a large enough economic surplus, through taxing the conquered, to establish a state apparatus. Under these circumstances, ambitious people could probably have gained more prestige within the system than by attempting to set up independently in an alien land. A branch of the conquerors could, nevertheless, have continued the trek northwards very early, long before a state was founded in Upper Egypt, and eventually formed one in Lower Egypt. But all this is speculative. We know only that there was an
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invasion by Naqada II people who had semitic connections, and that there were two states, Upper and Lower Egypt, before they were united under Menes at the end of the fourth millennium (Emery, 1961 ; Baumgartel, 1970). Conclusion Our account has been concerned with pristine states only, because once a state has been formed in an area it provides an example for others to follow and the necessary changes in the prestige system can be affected by diffusion. I have attempted to show how such changes could have taken place autochthonously. Early states, especially pristine ones, arose from simpler societies where the major social categories were derived from the biological divisions of family and lineage. This was inevitable because such divisions are the ones which depend least upon socioculture for their realization. But it placed an immediate constraint upon the form which early states could take. They had to give political significance to clan, lineage, and family, and that meant any hierarchical structure had to incorporate the principle of inheritance. A second constraint arose from the need for monarchs to demonstrate their status to their followers and compete for prestige with the rulers of any other states that might exist in the area. This called for the ability to field an army either to defend their territory or to expand it if they felt so inclined. Without resorting to war they could demonstrate their superiority by building great palaces, temples, or tombs, or by the conspicuous display of rare and costly artifacts. These things led to a third constraint, for they all required a monarch to have control over a large economic surplus with which to pay, or at least feed, men to fight wars, build palaces and temples, or produce works of art. Since the surplus was produced by peasants who, one presumes, would rather have kept their surplus than surrendered it to the king, all things being equal, there was a necessity to ensure that all things were not equal. The least costly and most effective way of doing this was through a religion that provided the monarch with a charter for ruling that is, for making laws and for commandeering the surplus--because the ruler's actions were specially sanctioned by the gods. When religion failed to persuade the peasantry that they should submit to the monarch there was always physical coercion, but that was costly and better avoided if possible. These three constraints--the inheritance of high office, the need for military prowess and artistic display, and the role of religion in sanctioning the king's right to rule--were responsible for the limited forms taken by early states, regardless of the particular events which led to their establishment. The second of these has remained true for all states, but the first and third have been overcome in many cases, the sanction of religion being replaced eventually by that of the ballot box, and inheritance being displaced by ability as the criterion for leadership. But in all cases the quest for prestige has remained central to the development of states. What has changed has been the attributes which have attracted it, although the number of followers (subjects or citizens) that a state leader can call upon has remained a criterion of that state's standing in the world. This harks back to the situation in chiefdoms, but changes in the prestige system were responsible for the original growth of populations large enough to permit the emergence of states.
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References
Baumgartel, E. J. (1970) "Predynastic Egypt," in Edwards, I. E. S., Gadd, C. J. & Hammond, N. G. L. eds. The Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed., Vol. L Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 463-497. Blurton Jones, N. (1986) "Bushmen Birth Spacing." Ethology and Sociobiology, 7, 91-105. Boag, P. T. & Grant, P. R. (1981) "Intense Natural Selection in a Population of Darwin's Finches (Geospizinae) in the Galapagos." Science, 214, 82-85. Chang, K-C. (1980) Shang Civilization. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Chang, K-C. (1983) Art, Myth and Ritual. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chang, K-C. (1986) The Archaeology of Ancient China, 4th ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Claessen, H. J. M. & Skalnik, P., eds. (1978) The Early State. The Hague: Mouton. Cohen, R. (1978) "State Origins: a Reappraisal," in Claessen, H. J. M. & Skalnik, P., eds. The Early State. The Hague: Mouton, pp. 31-75. Daly, M. & Wilson, M. (1983) Sex, Evolution and Behavior, 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Willard Grant Press. Drucker, P. (1965) Cultures of the North Pacific Coast. Scranton, PA: Chandler. Emery, W. B. (1961) Archaic Egypt. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin. Haas, J. (1982) The Evolution of the Prehistoric State. New York: Columbia University Press. Hill, J. (1984) "Prestige and Reproductive Success in Man." Ethology and Sociobiology, 5, 77-95. Hill, J. (1988)"Reproductive and Sociocultural Success in a Dual Evolutionary Model." Journal of Social and Biological Structures, 11,337-352. Hill, K. & Kaplan, H. (1988) "Tradeoffs in Male and Female Reproductive Strategies among the Ache, Part 1," in Betzig, L., Borgerhoff Mulder, M. & Turke, P. eds. Human Reproductive Behaviour. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 277-289. Huxley, J. S. (1957) "The Three Types of Evolutionary Process." Nature, 180, 454-455. Janney, J. E. (1941)"Fad and Fashion Leadership among Undergraduate Women." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 36, 275-278. Kramer, S. N. (1963) The Sumerians. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Labov, W. (1972) Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Labov, W. (1980) "The Social Origin of Sound Change," in Labov, W., ed. Locating Language in Time and Space. New York: Academic Press, pp. 251-265. Lloyd, S. (1978) The Archaeology of Mesopotamia. London: Thames & Hudson. Maisels, C. K. (1990) The Emergence of Civilisation. London: Routledge. Mallowen, M. (1970)"The Development of Cities from al-'Ubaid to the End of Uruk 5," in Edwards, I. E. S., Gadd, C. J. & Hammond, N. G. L. eds. The Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed., Vol. I. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 327-462. Mandelbaum, D.G. (1974) Human Fertility in India. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Oberg, K. (1973) The Social Economy of the Tlingit Indians. Seattle, WA: Washington University Press. Rogers, E. M. (1983) Diffusion oflnnovations, 3rd ed. New York: Free Press. Wiens, J. A. (1977) "On Competition and Variable Environments." American Scientist, 65, 596-597. About the Author Jack Hill, a retired parasitologist, has published papers on prestige, reproductive success, and altruism in this and other journals.