A Primer on Chiefs and Chiefdoms

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

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"Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty." --CHOICE, March 2022 

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". . . 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 

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"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) 

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"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 

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"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 

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"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 

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