week 5 - The Development of Social Complexity

Question 1

What regions had settled villages before agriculture?

Answer 1

Near East, Africa, and the Andean Coast.

Question 2

In which regions did pottery develop early in the agricultural process?

Answer 2

Africa and China.

Question 3

What are Elman Rogers Service’s four types of societies?

Answer 3

Bands, Tribes, Chiefdoms, and States.

Question 4

What are Morton Herbert Fried’s four types of societies?

Answer 4

Egalitarian Society, Ranked Society, Stratified Society, and States.

Question 5

Define Bands according to Elman Rogers Service.

Answer 5

Egalitarian, equal access, less than 100 people, nomadic.

Question 6

Define Tribes according to Elman Rogers Service.

Answer 6

Settled farmers or pastoralists, sedentary or mobile, 1000-4000 people, kin-based social mechanisms.

Question 7

Define Chiefdoms according to Elman Rogers Service.

Answer 7

Leaders with unusual skills, 5000-20000 people, status differentiation, kin-based but more hierarchical, permanent ritual center.

Question 8

Define States according to Elman Rogers Service.

Answer 8

More than 50,000 people, centralized institutions, class stratification, central government, bureaucracy, urban centers, monumental architecture.

Question 9

What is the Irrigation Hypothesis in the rise of complex societies?

Answer 9

The hypothesis suggests that the need for irrigation led to social stratification and political centralization.

Question 10

What is Robert Carneiro’s theory on the origin of states?

Answer 10

Warfare and competition led to the origin of states through environmental circumscription and social stratification.

Question 11

What are the types of power that contribute to social complexity?

Answer 11

Economic, Social, Ideological, and Political power.

Question 12

What is economic power in early societies?

Answer 12

The ability to organize food production, storage, and distribution, leading to a class of elite landowners and officials.

Question 13

What does monumental architecture signify in early societies?

Answer 13

The ruler’s ability to impose authority through administration and military, often religious and secular in nature.

Question 14

Describe Göbekli Tepe.

Answer 14

A pre-pottery Neolithic A site in Turkey, with no domesticated plants and animals, likely a cult center for hunter-gatherers

Question 15

What characterizes the Beaker Culture?

Answer 15

Known for Bell-Beaker pottery, dated to ca. 2800-1800 BC, widespread in Europe.

Question 16

What is significant about Stonehenge?

Answer 16

Built in stages from the Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age, it served as a ceremonial and burial site.

Question 17

What is the significance of the urban revolution according to Vere Gordon Childe?

Answer 17

The development of large populations, specialization, agricultural surplus, monumental architecture, writing, sciences, art, trade, and the state.

Question 18

What were the Sumerian city-states known for?

Answer 18

Autonomous city-states, disunity and war, ziggurats, and bronze usage.

Question 19

What holds an empire together?

Answer 19

Institutions, charismatic individuals, and control of information.

Question 20

Who were the Akkadians?

Answer 20

Semitic language-speakers who formed the first true empire around 2370 BC.