Ritual and Archaic States feels like a book stemming from a conference. A preface, presumably written by volume editor Joanne Murphy, outlines and summarizes the book. Following that are chapters by Gary Feinman and Richard Blanton which effectively serve as an introduction to the role of ritual in archaic states and provide theoretical direction for the remainder of the volume. The book includes case studies from Greece, Peru and the American Southwest, concluding with a chapter by Alexei Vranich titled ‘Discussant’, as we might expect for a conference volume. Vranich begins his discussion by referencing two conferences which took place in 2006; however, it is not indicated whether this volume is the result of those conferences.
The goal of Ritual and Archaic States, as suggested by the preface, is to explore ‘the varying nature, expression, and significance of ritual in a variety of archaic states’ (p. xv). Ritual is not seen as necessarily sacred or religious. Instead, rituals include both sacred and secular actions which are repeated and ‘that can transform society and make sociopolitical statements or claims’ (p. xv). This would suggest that the archaeologist should look for patterns in order to find evidence of ritual. However, it is then more ambiguously suggested that a one-time event could also be considered ritual if it were ‘laden with intentionality or suggestive of a divine interaction’ (p. xv). The definition of archaic state suggested in the preface is also ambiguous. Archaic states are not to be defined by social or political organization, but could include ‘a wide variety of societies that range greatly in their levels of social complexity as well as in their political and economic systems, population size, geo-graphic spread, origins, and interactions’ (p. xv). From this statement, it would seem that the archaic state is in the eye of the beholder. What archaic states seem to have in common, however, is that rituals were very important to them.
In chapter 1, Feinman further explores how to define ritual. He suggests that rituals are repeated, formal, patterned, symbolic acts; they are essential to facilitate communication, cooperation and coordination in densely populated societies. He argues that the diverse ritual and other cultural practices which evolved in archaic states have historical roots in their respective communities; the leadership in those states (and presumably the rituals too) therefore should not be seen as ‘a purely top-down phenomenon’ (p. 5). In Feinman's understanding, ‘all people, both rulers and ruled, should be accorded agency’ (p. 6). Feinman suggests a continuum between more democratic or collectively organized states versus more autocratic or despotic states; similarly, he argues for a continuum between network and corporate political strategies, referring to the model he previously presented with Blanton and others. Feinman emphasizes that these strategies were empirically recognized through cross-cultural study, and cautions that they were not meant to be cultural evolutionary types—any state might show evidence of both strategies, but will tend towards one end of the continuum or the other. Ritual in a collectively organized state will have the goal of promoting cooperation and collective action, whereas ritual in a more autocratic polity will serve to promote the legitimacy and power of the ruler.
In chapter 2, Blanton explores many of the same themes, illustrating them with examples drawn from cross-cultural comparison of 30 ‘premodern’ states including prehistoric and historic examples from both Old and New Worlds. Blanton also argues that in autocratic states, rituals are theatrical spectacles designed to confirm and legitimize the ruler's power. Collective states, Blanton asserts, depend on the support of taxpayers, and therefore rituals in them function to inspire support of the state and to discourage ‘free-riders’ (p. 29). Because collective states are more complex than autocratic states, the rituals in them are more varied. Blanton nevertheless identifies four main types of ritual in collective states: ‘rites of governmentality’ inspire ‘social trust’ in the operation of collective government, ‘rites of inclusion’ integrate diverse constituents in collective society, ‘doing together’ or discursive rites create communal experiences and collective sentiment and ‘morality rites’ enhance feelings of moral correctness in collective society (pp. 39–41).
Next follow two case studies from Bronze Age Greece. Murphy examines ritual in the archaic states of Pylos and Mycenae, while Ann-Louise Schallin examines ritual in the Mycenaean cemetery at Dendra. Both consider archaeological evidence with reference to Feinman and Blanton's corporate-network model of political strategies. Murphy is fortunate that her evidence includes Linear B tablets, which indicate that ‘a supernatural order formed a significant part of Mycenaean palatial life and economy’ (p. 50). Considering these texts and also non-textual evidence from palaces and tombs, she concludes that politics at Pylos were more corporate than those at Mycenae. Focusing on mortuary evidence from Dendra, which is located near Midea, a Mycenaean citadel, Schallin concludes that evidence of pompous mortuary rituals indicate that Mycenaean political strategies tended more toward the network end of the spectrum. However, prestige displays were less common through time, suggesting that political strategies shifted away from the network end of the spectrum as local elites were pulled into Mycenaean politics.
Three case studies from Peru are offered. Giancarlo Marcone examines Middle Horizon evidence for ritual feasting and mortuary ritual from the central coast. He concludes that local elites used the same rituals as strategies both to accommodate directives from the expansive Wari state, and also to maintain their privileged position in the local community. In other words, these strategies tend toward the network end of the spectrum. However, they were in response to a network imposed from above (literally, as the Wari were a highland culture) at the same time that they functioned to maintain the existing local hierarchy. Patrick Ryan Williams and Donna Nash examine the expansion of the Wari state from a different perspective, the highland site of Cerro Baúl, which was built as an outpost on the border with another powerful highland state, Tiwanaku. They argue that rituals at Cerro Baúl were very different from those in the Wari heartland, as they were strategically used to attract followers from the local population. They conclude that while ‘both network and corporate strategies were used in Wari expansion, the treatment of alternative religious ideologies in Wari's southern province reinforces the employment of corporate modes of action in this realm of Wari hegemony’ (p. 151). Jessica Joyce Christie and Matthew Piscitelli return us to the central coast of Peru, but take the reader to an earlier period by examining Late Archaic and Early Horizon sites, focusing on stone monuments known as huancas. They argue that the function of huancas varied, and caution against uncritical use of ethnohistoric analogy. While stone was revered throughout the Andes, examination of its changing use in ritual can lend ‘new insights into the shifts of social complexities from collective to more autocratic as expressed through ritual’ (p. 185).
Stephen Lekson offers the last case study, examining ritual and politics at Chaco Canyon. He, too, cautions against uncritical use of a direct historical approach, arguing that our understanding of Chaco has been constrained by the ‘Pueblo myth’—that Puebloan peoples were ‘peaceful, egalitarian, communal, spiritual, eternal, unchanging’ (p. 192). Because of this myth, Lekson protests that archaeologists see ritual at Chaco as ‘the only acceptable alternative to the otherwise distasteful conclusion that Chaco was a state or state-like’ (p. 195). Lekson argues instead that ritual at Chaco was used to ‘underwrite’ polity; he argues that Chaco was urban, a secondary state inspired by interaction with Mesoamerican states. Lekson suggests that Chaco was a ‘theater-state’, although he does not cite Geertz (Reference Geertz1980), who coined the term. I am glad to see the concept resurrected here; I have argued that Geertz's model can help us better understand ancient Cahokia (Zimmermann Holt Reference Zimmermann Holt2009; cf. Lekson, p. 197).
Finally, in his discussion Vranich emphasizes that ritual should leave archaeological evidence, because ‘ritual action is patterned, recurring, and highly structured’ (p. 223). He argues that evidence of ritual ‘can be objectively measured and compared to other more quantifiable aspects of state and empire,’ although he does not explicate what those quantifiable aspects of state and empire are (p. 224). Vranich suggests that our definition of ritual is less important than defining the functions of rituals—and archaeologists can do the latter by careful description and quantitative analysis of the archaeological record.
I value the positivist approach demonstrated in this book—archaeologists can climb the ladder of inference, finding ritual in patterns that can be observed in the archaeological record. I also commend the use of case studies to explore the rich diversity of the human past, permitting better understanding of each of these unique societies; cross-cultural comparison, and application of the network-corporate model, should not be seen as typological, but heuristic. The authors succeed in showing that rituals were strategically used to create and maintain early states; as such, rituals were a source of power often more important than military or other coercion.
