Ritual and Archaic States provides a data-rich, yet functional, consideration of the role of ritual in the increasing sociopolitical complexity typically associated with preindustrial states. Originating from a 2013 Society for American Archaeology symposium, this edited volume re-centers ritual performance as significant to processes of state-building rather than simply peripheral or epiphenomenal. The goal of the book, set forth in Feinman's introductory chapter, is to consider ritual as a means of political integration, communication, and negotiation in the context of increased social scale, bureaucratic complexity, or territorial expansionism. Consideration is also given to the diverse ways in which ritual can be utilized in accomplishing political goals in polities spanning the spectrum of autocratic to collective, as described by Blanton in this volume (a reformulation of Blanton et al.’s 1996 dual-processual theory of political strategy). The volume is largely free of discussion regarding what constitutes a “state,” instead focusing on variations in scale of sociopolitical organization. Likewise, “ritual” remains loosely defined as encompassing both sacred and secular, though, as Lekson reminds us in his chapter on ritual and polity at Chaco Canyon, this is a false dichotomy stemming from Enlightenment thought.
Drawing on case studies from both Old World and New, each chapter contributes a robust data set underscoring the diverse ways in which material remains and phenomenology of space may be interpreted as evidence for ritual practices as they are used to unify, communicate, or divide. Despite a promise in the preface of case studies from 11 different cultures, the contributions are somewhat limited geographically and temporally, drawing on three main areas of the world: pre-Inca Peru (Marcone, Williams and Nash, Christie and Piscitelli), Mycenaean Greece (Murphy, Schallin), and Chacoan Southwest (Lekson). Additional cultural evidence is found in a somewhat superficial survey of ethnographic examples used by Blanton to identify variations of collective or exclusionary ritual. The expanded case studies include evidence of unequivocal “ritual” practices in human mortuary and feasting activities (Murphy, Schallin, and Marcone) as well as more nuanced aspects of use and experience of landscape and architecture for public and private gatherings (Williams and Nash, Christie and Piscatelli, Lekson).
The enumerated archaeological examples provided tend toward a top-down consideration of how ritual might be manipulated or mobilized to accomplish the political goals of elite persons (or disembodied “states”), from communicating power or status to unifying disparate groups in an expansionist state or encouraging cooperation for collective action. What is lacking is a consideration of local ontologies, which could bolster the arguments made in this volume by informing an understanding of how ritual, from an emic perspective, can provide a successful pathway for creating and manipulating power dynamics. People must understand and believe in the efficacy of ritual in some capacity in order to engage and participate in such political-religious undertakings.
The volume is successful in highlighting the diversity in the use of ritual for political negotiation. In her chapter, Murphy demonstrates the variability of political goals and religious practices even among seemingly related polities; a theme likewise highlighted in Marcone's discussion of intermediate groups in the face of expansionistic polities like the Wari. The chapters by Marcone and by Williams and Nash especially demonstrate the creative space in which new social and political power dynamics may arise from plurality, taking their examples from locations and time periods in which perhaps differing religious practices overlap.
Lekson's contribution demonstrates how ritual can mask the political, both in the past as well as in the present through his critique of the use of ethnographic analogy between modern Pueblo and Chaco Canyon. He argues that ritual was likely used in service of a state centered at Chaco, rather than Chaco being simply a ritual center from which the power of politics has been reduced or ignored. Conversely, ethnographic analogy provides a starting point for Christie and Piscatelli's assessment of huacas and stone observation towers in the Peruvian Late Archaic and Early Horizon.
While perhaps not a cutting-edge theoretical contribution to the existing literature on religion in politics in the archaeological past, Ritual and Archaic States does provide a substantive contribution with its detailed, well-argued case studies. As the book is set forth as a functional rather than relational or ontological undertaking, it accomplishes its goal of considering the role of ritual in past politics. Perhaps partnered with other available texts on religion and ritual (such as Fowles 2013 or Pauketat 2013), this book contributes to a critical assessment of the interconnections between complexity, politics, and religion.
