Chiefdoms

Question 1

What is Carniero’s definition of a chiefdom?

Answer 1

Autonomous political unit comprising a number of villages under the leadership of a paramount chief.

Question 2

Name three failings of Timothy Earle’s definition of a chiefdom as a centrally organisied polity with a population in the thousands.

Answer 2

1. Its usage of numbers is rather arbitrary. 2. It is vauge about the definition of central authority. 3. It leaves the possibility of a chiefdom without a chief.

Question 3

Muller, studying Mississippians and their anscestors describes Mississippian Chief power as absolute or limited?

Answer 3

Limited. Thought they could remove food-stuffs from the communal sheds.

Question 4

Descendents of the Mississippian Polities of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Answer 4

Choctaw, Chikasaw, and Creek confederacies.

Question 5

Hill-Fort Chiefdom

Answer 5

Earle’s idea of a chiefdom with social power rested entirely on military might. Population hides behind defensive wall that both protect and incarcirate them. EXAPLE: Wanka polities of highland Peru

Question 6

Prestige-Good Chiefdoms

Answer 6

Depended on prestige-goods exchange and focused on individuals and the networks they developed and tried to control. EXAPLE: Bronze Age Denmark. EARLE

Question 7

Staple-Finance Chiefdoms

Answer 7

Demonstrate sustained developement and centralization with less focus on the individual. EXAMPLE: Pre-contact Hawaii. EARLE

Question 8

What is Carniero’s definition of a chiefdom?

Answer 8

Autonomous political unit comprising a number of villages under the leadership of a paramount chief.

Question 9

Discuss “Environmental Circumscription” and how it relates to Carniero’s theory of the evolution of the State.

Answer 9

Environmental Circumscription occurs when natural barriers prevent the expansion of population and warfare ensures over remaining reasources. States and more higly stratified societies evolve out of this. It’s main flaw is the assusmption that all communities want to conquor their neighbors.

Question 10

Give an example of where environmental circumscription has not occured

Answer 10

South America, the Amazon. Political stratification and sophistication are not at the same level as areas that have experienced it.

Question 11

Social Circumscription

Answer 11

When the flow of people is disturbed by social, rather than environmental facotrs. Such as the borders of a neighboring power.