Beyond Chiefdoms
Pathways to Complexity in Africa
Published on 10. June 1999
Book
Hardback
186 pages
978-0-521-63074-0 (ISBN)
Description
Recent critiques of neoevolutionary formulations that focus primarily on the development of powerful hierarchies have called for broadening the empirical base for complex society studies. Redressing the neglect of sub-Saharan examples in comparative discussions on complex society, this book considers how case material from the region can enhance our understanding of the nature, origins and development of complexity. The archaeological, historical and anthropological case materials are relevant to a number of recent concerns, revealing how complexity has emerged and developed in a variety of ways. Contributors engage important theoretical issues, including the continuing influence of deeply embedded evolutionary notions in archaeological concepts of complexity, the importance of alternative modes of complex organization such as flexible hierarchies, multiple overlapping hierarchies, and horizontal differentiation, and the significance of different forms of power. The distinguished list of contributors include historians, archaeologists and anthropologists.
Reviews / Votes
"...certainly warrents careful consideration by anyone with an interest in the development of political complexity...Especially notable are what it has to say about research strategies in very large, but largely unknown, regions; the interplay between ethnography, oral tradition, and archaeological research; and the contributions regionally-focused archaeology can make to wider theoretical debates...I should stress this volume's inherent value as a representation of our growing knowledge of the diverse richness of world archaeological history." Canadian Journal of Archaeology "This important book deserves a wide readership, for it deomonstrates how much the rich archaeological and historical record of Africa has to offer. Strange that so many prominent archaeological theoreticians have ignored the African past! They can no longer afford to do so." International Journal of African Historical Studies "Overall, archaeologists, ethnologists, and political scientists will find it stimulating reading." Jrnl of Field ArchaeologyMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Illustrations
7 Tables, unspecified; 12 Maps; 3 Halftones, unspecified
Dimensions
Height: 254 mm
Width: 194 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
570 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-63074-0 (9780521630740)
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Schweitzer Classification
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Book
11/2005
Cambridge University Press
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Additional editions
Book
11/2005
Cambridge University Press
€52.20
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Content
1. Pathways to complexity: an African perspective Susan Keech McIntosh; 2. The segmentary state and the ritual phase in political economy Aidan Southall; 3. Perceiving variability in time and space: the evolutionary mapping of African societies Ann B. Stahl; 4. Western representations of urbanism and invisible African towns Roderick J. McIntosh; 5. Modelling political organization in large scale settlement clusters: a case study from the inland Niger Delta Susan Keech McIntosh; 6. Sacred centres and urbanisation in West Central Africa Raymond N. Asombang; 7. Permutations in patrimonialism and populism: the Aghem chiefdoms of Western Cameroon Igor Kopytoff; 8. Wonderful society: the Burgess shale creatures, Mandara polities, and the nature of prehistory Nicholas David and Judy Sterner; 9. Material culture and the dialectics of identity in the Kalahari: AD 700-1700 James Denbow; 10. Seeking and keeping power in Bunyora-Kitara, Uganda Peter Robertshaw; 11. The (in)visible roots of Bunyoro-Kitara and Buganda in the Lakes Region: 800-1300 David L. Schoenbrun; 12. The power of symbols and the symbols of power through time: probing the Luba past Pierre de Maret; 13. Pathways of political development in Equatorial Africa and neo-evolutionary theory Jan Vansina.