A Primer on Chiefs and Chiefdoms
by Timothy Earle
Chiefs are political operatives who hold titles of leadership over groups larger than intimate kin-based communities. Although they rule with the consent of their group, they are all about building personal power and respect. Many scholars have viewed chiefs as problem solvers–defending groups against aggressors, resolving disputes, providing support under hardship, organizing labor for community projects, and redistributing goods among those in need. Chiefs do these things, but much of what chiefs do is accumulate benefits for themselves, staying in power and legitimizing control. Anthropological archaeology is well suited to pursue the study of chiefs, their leadership institutions (chiefdoms), and long-term historical processes. The author argues that studying chiefdoms is essential to understanding the role of elemental powers in social evolution. As an illustration, he studies chiefs and their power strategies in historically independent prehistoric and traditional societies and discusses how they continue to exist as powerful actors within modern states.
Chiefs are political operatives who hold titles of leadership over groups larger than intimate kin-based communities. Although they rule with the consent of their group, they are all about building personal power and respect. Many scholars have viewed chiefs as problem solvers–defending groups against aggressors, resolving disputes, providing support under hardship, organizing labor for community projects, and redistributing goods among those in need. Chiefs do these things, but much of what chiefs do is accumulate benefits for themselves, staying in power and legitimizing control. Anthropological archaeology is well suited to pursue the study of chiefs, their leadership institutions (chiefdoms), and long-term historical processes. The author argues that studying chiefdoms is essential to understanding the role of elemental powers in social evolution. As an illustration, he studies chiefs and their power strategies in historically independent prehistoric and traditional societies and discusses how they continue to exist as powerful actors within modern states.
- By (author) Timothy Earle
"Earle has spent a career studying chiefdoms-the dominant form of human organization in the Holocene-and masterfully brings together his lifetime of work on the political, economic, and ideological relationships in these precursors to modern states. This book is a foremost example of understanding power in traditional and modern societies." Charles S. Stanish, University of South Florida
—
"Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty." --CHOICE, March 2022
—
". . . if you are interested in the social, political, and ideological engines that drive the creation of complex societies, you need to have Earle's Primer on Chiefs on your library shelf." Emerson, Thomas E., MCJA Book Reviews Volume 46, 2021
—
"Earle expertly summarizes a career's worth of knowledge on the political and economic underpinnings of early complex societies. . . . as a primer on current social evolutionary thinking it is a highly accessible volume for interested scholars working in California, North America, and beyond." --Fauvelle, Mikael, Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology u Vol. 41, No. 2 (2021)
—
"Given the scope and depth of Earle's work, this book can justifiably be described as a tour de force. . . . Earle's comprehensive and well-researched work should be considered essential reading for those inter- ested in understanding the processes that resulted in the advent of chiefdoms around the world." --Chacon, Richard J., Winthrop University, Latin American Antiquity, vol. 32, no. 4, 2021
—
"A synthetic tour de force for general readers. Earle navigates theoretically complex waters and makes good sense of the complex ethnographic and archaeological record that we call chiefdoms. The book is a unique blend of archaeology and political science-well crafted, reader-friendly, and inspiring." Brian Hayden, University of British Columbia
—
"Earle distills everything he has learned about chiefs and chiefdoms in human history. Students of anthropology and archaeology-and just anyone wishing to understand political relations-can learn about how power and rulers emerged and were controlled. His argument is relevant today and will be into the future. Highly recommended." Kristian Kristiansen, University of Gothenburg
—
Other Titles in this Series
Similar Books
As Messianism Turns to Heresy
The Regenstein Chair Lectures On Lurianic Kabbalah and Shabbatai Tzevi at Hebrew Union College - Cincinnati
Beyond Sovereign Courts
Agents and Practices in Early Modern Spanish and Habsburg Diplomacy
Volume 3
Colour Concept “Secoli bui” a colori
Codici cromatici e architetture dipinte nell’età tardoantica e medievale
Creating the Woman in Antiquity
Proceedings of the 16th Melammu Workshop, Innsbruck, 2–3 June 2022
Volume 13
Crossing Disciplines in the Study of Archaeology and Prehistoric Art: Insights from the Sahara and Mediterranean Africa
Proceedings of the XX UISPP World Congress (5–9 September 2023, Timișoara, Romania) Volume / Session 18
Crossing Sacred Landscapes
Contacts and Continuities in the Desert Cults and Beliefs of Ancient Northern Arabia and the Arid Southern Levant
Cuneiform Artefacts from Archaeological Contexts: New Research on Ancient Iraq
Proceedings of a Conference Held at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, July 4–5, 2024
Volume 2
Exploring Prehistoric Pottery in Japan
A Study of Organic Inclusions, Adhering Materials, and Impressions of Woven Items
Food Security under Armed Conflict
Global Knowledge Landscape and Public Attention to Social, Economic, and Humanitarian Dimensions
From Coast to Coast
Current Archaeological Research on Cultural Exchange along and across the Baltic Sea
Volume 19
Harvesting the Margins of the Viking World
Decentralizing Economies in Late Iron Age Fennoscandia
Volume 6
Images of Anonymous Women
A Semiotic Approach to Image-Text Relations in Interpretation of Ancient Near Eastern Art and the Hebrew Bible
Volume 310
Innovationes Lovanienses: Arts, Law and Theology at the University of Louvain (1425–1797)
Studium Lovaniense: Learning across Borders, 2
Volume 18
Linguistic and Cultural Dynamics in a Frontier Society
New Perspectives on Northeastern Bavaria and Western Bohemia in the Early Middle Ages
Volume 9
Making and Meaning in the Bronze and Iron Ages
Chronology, Landscapes and Societies across Europe. Proceedings from the METALAGES2024 Colloquium (Florence, 23 October 2024)
Medieval Yeghegis, Armenia
History, Archaeology, Society. Local Multiplicities and Global Connections of a Rural Centre on the Silk Road(s)
Myths and Tales of the Inughuit
Erik Holtved's Polar Eskimo Texts Revised and Retranslated into Danish and English
Volume 475, 12
