A Primer on Chiefs and Chiefdoms examines the nature of chiefdom societies from a cross-cultural perspective along with exploring the evolutionary pathways by which these societies developed. Timothy Earle is well suited for such an undertaking not only because he is an internationally recognized scholar who has conducted archaeological investigations throughout the world, including in Latin America, but also because his encyclopedic grasp of the ethnohistoric and ethnographic records facilitates a broadly comparative approach.
Earle employs a holistic understanding when explaining how chiefdoms appear and operate. Instead of simply presenting a list of traits for researchers to consider when studying chiefdoms, he provides descriptions of four distinctive pathways from which these societies emerged. These paths represent different power strategies associated with specific opportunities for control. Such modalities should not be considered as sociopolitical types but rather as theoretical models of various processes of control.
Given the scope and depth of Earle's work, this book can justifiably be described as a tour de force. He succinctly illustrates how leaders employ bottlenecks to create and maintain unequal power relationships by way of selected case studies from Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. Such bottlenecks permit leaders to control access to critical resources. Earle's claims regarding the nature of chiefs and chiefdoms find ample support in the archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic material he presents.
In contrast to characterizations of chiefs as system-serving redistributors who altruistically labor for the common good, Earle describes them as always acting “with their own interests at heart” (p. 2). Moreover, they “design power strategies to amass and extend control over populations larger than intimate, village-scale communities” (p. 2). Earle's nuanced understanding of chiefdoms includes the recognition that chiefs are political operatives who further group interests by resolving internal disputes, hosting ritual feasts, organizing defense, and building ceremonial places, agricultural systems, and defensive works.
Earle provides a useful overview of how social complexity has been analyzed through history. Beginning with Darwin and progressing through critical analyses by Spencer, Morgan, Marx, and Engels, evolutionary theory has greatly influenced our understanding of the emergence of social complexity. Although he acknowledges the contributions of structural functionalism, cultural ecology, and postprocessualism, Earle staunchly defends sociocultural evolutionary approaches and encourages those studying chiefdoms to focus on the political economy of such polities.
According to Earle, “Chiefs came into power by weaving together management of the economy, warriors, and ideology to solidify some measure of regional command” (p. 67); “most basic was control over the economy to mobilize surpluses to further chiefly ambitions” (p. 53). He identifies four modes of production representing distinctive pathways (power strategies) by which the regional organization of chiefdoms appeared: “The ritual, corporate, and Asiatic modalities are a continuum of increasing agricultural intensification supporting larger settled populations and surplus mobilization. The predatory mode of production is distinct, creating examples of low-density chiefly societies based on regional networks formed by the centralized distribution of wealth objects” (p. 156). These four modalities should be viewed as “processual models of how economic flows can be channeled to support power relationships in ritual, warfare, and surplus production” (p. 159).
Latin Americanists will find the Wanka chiefdoms of Peru particularly useful because this case study illustrates the corporate mode of production. Specifically, the archaeological evidence of warfare (in the form of defensive walls), regional settlement hierarchies, and socioeconomic integration documented in Wanka polities are commensurate with regional settlement systems (chiefdoms). For example, Tunanmarca served as the regional center of a Wanka chiefdom. This center had large residential areas housing relatively large populations (more than 7,500 people). The town-sized location of Umpamalca, with an estimated population ranging from 2,000 to 7,500 people, formed part of this Wanka polity. Various fortified villages that were relatively smaller (fewer than 2,000 people) also formed part of this chiefdom. Because all the communities in the Tunanmarca polity had access to agricultural lands, each settlement appears to have been self-sufficient for food. However, some communities “specialized and traded in craft goods (chert blades, ceramic vessels, and textiles)” (p. 97).
The information presented in this publication on precontact and colonial era chiefdoms in Panama will also be of great interest to Latin Americanists. Chiefs in precontact Panama established and maintained power by “controlling access to metal flows from Colombia along the eastern coast and into the interior. Gold and other objects from afar had inherent distinctiveness in material qualities of brilliance, able to be crafted into figured objects with symbolic significance” (p. 19). The ownership of canoes by chiefs allowed these leaders to control access (via bottlenecks) to foreign wealth. Along this line, ethnographers have documented the relationship between long-distance exchange and the emergence of social ranking. For example, among the Western Dani of Papua New Guinea, ambitious individuals secure and distribute highly coveted imported goods with the goal of creating debt among fellow villagers. In turn, these motivated individuals call in debts to sponsor large feasts; the status of such individuals rises with each large feast they successfully organize. Over the years, aggrandizing individuals who are repeatedly successful in organizing large feasts become “big men” (Chacon and Hayward, “Tibenuk and Chuji: Status Attainment and Collective Action in Egalitarian Settings,” in Feast, Famine or Fighting? Multiple Pathways to Social Complexity, 2017).
This book comes at a most auspicious moment, when the validity of sociocultural evolutionary approaches, as well as the use of the term “chiefdom” itself, is being questioned by students and scholars. Earle's masterful work not only demonstrates the soundness of such approaches but also illustrates the relevancy of cross-cultural comparisons and the value of interdisciplinary investigations.
In addition to shedding much-needed light on the nature of chiefdoms, this publication will serve as a guide for the study of how leaders use various strategies to create bottlenecks that, in turn, allow them to gain and maintain power over others. “Simply stated, to study chiefdoms we must understand how resources are mobilized and distributed to concentrate power regionally” (pp. 155–156). A Primer on Chiefs and Chiefdoms will be a valuable resource for researchers investigating Central American and Andean chiefdoms. However, the insights and understandings presented in this book may also shed light on how Mesoamerican, Caribbean, Orinoco, and Amazon Basin chiefdoms emerged and operated. In sum, Earle's comprehensive and well-researched work should be considered essential reading for those interested in understanding the processes that resulted in the advent of chiefdoms around the world.
