Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9:1 (1999), 3-21

Process and Agency in Early State Formation

Kent V. Flannery

Most pristine states formed in the context of competing chiefdoms, when one of the latter
succeeded in incorporating its rivals into a larger polity. Some of the processes evident
during state formation include chiefly cycling, biased transmission, territorial expansion,
and the gaining of competitive advantage. In some archaeological circles, however, it has
become fashionable to reject ecological, demographic, and technological processes, and seek
agent-based or ideological explanations for state formation. This essay, delivered as the
tenth McDonald Lecture, examines five agents who modified ideologies and created states
from chiefdoms. It concludes that process and agency are complementary, rather than
antithetical, perspectives; thus the latter is unlikely to make the former obsolete.

Fifteen thousand years ago, modern humans had Once into the Holocene, however, our ances-
reached almost every major land mass in the world. tors did something that has intrigued scholars for
Living in groups minute by today's standards, skilled centuries. By 3000 BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia,
mainly at dyadic and triadic relationships, they kept and 200 BC in Mexico and Peru, they had created the
society egalitarian and economy reciprocal. huge, politically centralized, socially stratified socie-
A growing number of cognitive scientists be- ties we call 'pristine states'. It makes these states all
lieve that the social, analytical, and interpretive skills the more amazing to think that they were created by
of those modern humans were part of a phenotype: a species whose hard-wired social, analytical, and
they had been produced by biological evolution dur- interpretive skills were designed for hunters and
ing the Pleistocene, and were just as 'hard wired' as gatherers. Humans have what psychologists call
the cognitive skills of other primates. In the words of bounded rationality, which means there are limits be-
Michael Gazzaniga (1998,59), 'No scientist seriously yond which their problem-solving cannot go; yet
questions whether we are the product of natural they created societies vastly different from the ones
selection . . . those precious circuits that allow us to in which they originally evolved. One of the chal-
learn are laid down by the genome.' lenges facing archaeology is to discover how.
How those circuits equipped our ancestors for Sadly, archaeologists are shackled with the same
success is slowly becoming clear. Apparently the left bounded rationality as their Pleistocene forebears.
hemisphere of the brain searches for order in our All we can do is use our left brain to detect repetitive
environment, detecting patterns and processes. From patterns in the prehistoric record. Our interpreter
this our ancestors learned such things as the habitats then tells us that those patterns result from universal
of food species. But there is also a mechanism in our processes. Unfortunately, when some archaeologists
left brain called the interpreter, which Gazzaniga look at the processes we have identified, their inter-
(1998, 1-3) likens to a political 'spin doctor'. This preter asks why we have not placed human agents
mechanism creates the illusion that our individual at centre stage; they accuse us of treating individual
selves are at centre stage, directing the play through actors as 'automata'. 1 The left brain gives us
our conscious decisions. While the left brain made ' processual archaeology; the interpreter gives us
our ancestors good hunters of deer, it is the inter- postmodernism.2
preter that led them to outline their hands on the Our current debate between process and agency,
walls of caves. of course, merely continues a struggle between
 Kent V. Flannery
materialist and idealist views that goes back to Marx
and Weber (Ortner 1984). Materialist paradigms of
the 1960s were mostly ecosystemic, based on convic-
tions that adaptation is 'real, naturalistic, anchored
to those historic contexts that inner dynamism ig-
nores' (Sahlins 1964,135-6). In the 1970s, structural
Marxists called ecology Vulgar materialism' and pro-
ceeded to narrow the definition of culture to 'ideol-
ogy', which they saw as 'legitimating the social order
and mystifying the sources of exploitation in the
system' (Ortner 1984, 140). An incredulous Robert
Carneiro (1992,202) has said of this definition, 'when
felling a tree with a stone axe is no longer a part of
culture, we have let ideology run rampant'.
Another paradigm of the 1970s was 'political
economy', which, while claiming to focus on large-
scale or even 'world' systems (Wallerstein 1974), was
largely about the penetration of native communities
by Western capitalism (Ortner 1984, 141). The fact
that such models were not appropriate for pre-
capitalist society did not stop some archaeologists
from using them. Of course, they were told that such
'economic determinism' ignored human agency,
power relations, domination, manipulation, control,
and the like (Brumfiel 1983).
In the 1990s we find ourselves in a virtual 'para-
digm boutique', free to try on new models without
necessarily buying. Most new models seem to have
arisen from the left-brain interpreter which puts our
individual selves at centre stage. How else to explain
paradigms in which the past is a 'text' to be written
as we choose, and whose only importance lies in
how we react to it?3 How else to explain an archaeol-
ogy whose goal is to make the past 'politically cor-
rect' (Flannery & Marcus 1994)? I think of a lecture at
which I heard sixteenth-century Aztec women
praised for their 'resistance' to exploitation; the
speaker expressed hope that her research would 'em-
power' her Aztec 'sisters'. No woman listening had
the heart to tell her she might be four centuries too
late, and certainly no man had the nerve.
In this article I cannot review every model in
the boutique, but I can compare 'process' and 'agency'
in state formation. We will look first at a handful of
processes, then at five historically documented
agents.
Process
Studies of state formation often begin with prologues
on the chiefly societies from which early states arose.
Just as cynodont reptiles had the kind of locomotor
skeleton and heterogeneous teeth from which the
first.mammals could evolve, ancient chiefdoms had
the hereditary inequality and hierarchical structure
from which the first states could arise.
Based on extensive studies of chiefdoms,
Carneiro (1992, 198-9) suggests the following six
processes for creating one:
1. defeat neighbouring villages by force of arms;
2. incorporate them and their territory into your
political unit;
3. take prisoners of war and make them work for
you as slaves;
4. use your close supporters to administer conquered
territory if local leaders prove rebellious;
5. require your subjects to pay tribute to you peri-
odically;
6. require them also to provide fighting men in time
of war.
Let me make two points about Carneiro's recipe.
First, it departs strongly from the earlier views of
Elman Service (1962; 1975), for whom chiefdoms were
peaceful, theocracies held together by redistribution.
That view has given way to one in which chiefdoms
arose 'not through peaceful acquiescence but through
military imposition', and redistribution became a
path to power 'only when it stopped being a volun-
tary contribution and became an exacted tribute'
(Carneiro 1992,181).
A second point is that Carneiro's model (which
better fits our growing data) makes chiefdoms even
more convincing 'precursors of states' (Carneiro
1981). To be sure, early states were larger and more
centralized than chiefdoms, displayed more levels
of administrative hierarchy, and had social strata
rather than a continuum of rank; however, they also
shared all the processes on Carneiro's list.
Chiefly cycling
A long-term process in chiefdoms is cycling. This
process, described by Henry Wright (1984, 42-3) as
periodic fluctuation between 'simple' and 'complex'
chiefdoms, has been found in areas as diverse as
southwest Iran (Wright 1987; Johnson 1987) and the
southeast U.S.A. (Anderson 1994).
Simple chiefdoms are those with two levels of
settlement hierarchy, perhaps a set of subordinate
hamlets surrounding a chief's village. Complex
chiefdoms have three levels: subordinate hamlets
surround the villages of subchiefs, which in turn
surround the village of the paramount chief.
Chiefdoms grow complex by taking over their neigh-
bours, demoting the latters' chiefs to subchiefs or
even replacing them.
After a period of expansion, most complex
 Process and Agency in Early State Formation
chiefdoms break into simple chiefdoms, or collapse
altogether. Thus cycling is 'the recurrent process of
the emergence, expansion, and fragmentation of com-
plex chiefdoms amid a regional backdrop of simple
chiefdoms' (Anderson 1994, 9). The causes of frag-
mentation may be competition between chiefly fami-
lies or factions, endemic raiding, differential
population growth, agricultural failure, weak lead-
ership, usurpation, or problems in succession.
Only a tiny percentage of chiefdoms ever gave
rise to states. Many of us are convinced, however,
that the world's first states formed in the dynamic
crucible of cycling chiefdoms. We do not believe that
isolated chiefdoms turn into states. We believe that
states arise in the context of a group of competing
chiefdoms, when one of the latter succeeds in taking
over its neighbours and turning them into the prov-
inces of a larger polity (Flannery 1995,15; Marcus &
Flannery 1996, 157). Thus when we speak of states
'evolving', we are only using a biological analogy;
states are in fact 'created'.
State formation
Any list of state formation processes should begin
with the six proposed for chiefdoms by Carneiro.
Then add chiefly cycling, but with the following ca-
veat from Henry Wright (1986,257): even in regions
that eventually produced states, cycling between sim-
ple and complex chiefdoms went on for centuries
'with intense competition and much replacement of
[chiefly] centers and no doubt of paramounts, but
with little or no increase in sociopolitical complex-
ity'.
Based on archaeological data from several ar-
eas of state formation (Wright 1984; 1986; 1998),
Wright has identified the following processes (Wright
1986,257-8):
1. As the result of long-term, increasingly overt con-
flict, areas on the threshold of state formation
may have their populations dispersed (or sepa-
rated by buffer zones), featuring a kind of 'stand-
off between chiefly centres of similar size.
2. Suddenly, rapid nucleation of population occurs
at one centre, apparently at the expense of de-
feated or threatened neighbours; in some cases,
archaeological data suggest that raiding was re-
placed by organized warfare, with conquest and
reorganization of surrounding areas.
3. Since each complex chiefdom incorporated into
the emerging state already had a three-level ad-
ministrative hierarchy, the capital of that state
rises to a fourth level, administratively above all
its provinces (Wright & Johnson 1975).
Did the creation of early states always require the
kind of territorial expansion suggested by Carneiro
and Wright? Probably, according to a model of
primary state formation just presented by Charles
Spencer (1998). Using an equation derived from
predator-prey relations, Spencer shows that as elites
reach the limit of resources they can extract from
their followers, and the growth curve of a chiefdom
flattens, one of three things must happen. Chiefs
must either: 1) step up demand for resources from
their own subjects, which can lead to revolt; 2) inten-
sify production through technological improvement,
which can increase wealth without increasing socio-
political complexity; or 3) expand the territory from
which they get resources, which may require the
subjugation of neighbours. When Alternative 3 is
chosen and the expanded territory grows beyond
the limits that a chief can administer directly typi-
cally a day's travel from his residence changes in
administration and political ideology are required,
and a state forms (Spencer 1998,14-17).
All of the processes identified by Carneiro,
Wright, and Spencer are well supported by data. As
predicted by advocates of agency, however, they do
not focus on individual actors. Let us therefore look
at a few actors to see if they change our perspective.
Agency
We will consider five agents who created indigenous
non-Western states (Fig. 1). We cannot draw on pris-
tine states, since the study of agency requires richer
texts than they provide. All five of the states in-
volved, however, arose from chiefdoms rather than
from previous states.
Shaka
Our first agent was born in Natal, southeast Africa.
Before the Iron Age, this land of wooded hills and
acacia grassland was sparsely occupied by Khoisan-
speaking hunters and gatherers. By the third century
AD, the latter were being displaced by Bantu-speaking
farmers and herders immigrating from the north
(Maggs 1989,29).
By the Late Iron Age (AD 800-1200), societies in
Natal had become greater in scale and complexity,
with many settlements shifting to defensible hilltop
localities (Maggs 1989,35-41). By the late eighteenth
century, there may have been as many as 50 autono-
mous political units in the area (Ritter 1957). Per-
haps the most powerful were the chiefdoms called
Mabhudu, Ndwandwe, and Mthethwa (Wright &
Hamilton 1989, 59). One of their neighbours was a
 Kent V. Flannery
Figure 1. The homelands of five agents zuho created states out of rival chiefdoms: 1) Kamehameha; 2) Osei Tutu; 3)
Shaka; 4) Andrianampoinimerina; 5) Mir Silim Khan.
smaller chiefdom, known as the Zulu.
A chief's territory was usually divided into sec-
tions, each commanded by one of his brothers or
half-brothers. Quarrelling between sections was com-
mon and usually resolved by fissioning. Chiefs used
amabutho regiments of young men of the same
age-grade as their tribute-collectors and warriors,
rewarding them with cattle obtained in raids (Wright
& Hamilton 1989). In traditional fighting, two groups
of warriors stood at a distance and hurled javelins
(Gluckman 1960).
Around 1787 Senzangakhona, chief of the Zulu,
had an illegitimate son named Shaka (Fig. 2). At 6
the boy was banished to his mother's village; at 15,
he moved to the chiefdom of Mthethwa, where he
became a warrior under a paramount named Dingis-
wayo (Selby 1971, 38-9). Such was his bravery that
he rose to become commander of Dingiswayo's army.
Dingiswayo had his own violent past. Accused
of plotting against his father, a Mthethwa chief, he
had lived for a time in exile. Upon his return he
found his father dead and his brother in command;
he killed his brother and installed himself as chief.
Dingiswayo then set out to unify his neighbours,
rationalizing-conquest by claiming that their constant
fighting 'was against the wish of the Creator' and
that he intended to 'make them live in peace'
(Gluckman 1960, 161-2). As his victories mounted,
Dingiswayo's mother kept the skulls of his defeated
rivals in her hut. Among his conquests were the
Zulu, and when Shaka's father died in 1816, Dingi-
swayo made sure that Shaka became Zulu chief.
Every agent who creates a state needs some
competitive advantage; Shaka's was innovation in
warfare. Dissatisfied with battles based on hurling
javelins, he created a short stabbing spear for hand-
to-hand combat. He ordered his warriors to shed
their traditional sandals, increasing the speed with
which they could sprint toward an enemy. Shaka's
strategy was to dodge his enemy's javelin, close at a
dead run, push his enemy's shield aside, and run
him through with the stabbing spear (Ritter 1957;
Selby 1971). He called his new weapon ixwa, after
the sound it made when pulled from an enemy's chest.
Shaka designed a new formation, composed of
four groups of warriors standing shield to shield. In
the centre was a block of seasoned veterans known
as the 'head', who did the bulk of the fighting. Be-
hind them was a block of reserves known as the
'chest', who waited in the rear. Extending out from
 Process and Agency in Early State Formation
Figure 2. Shaka. Based on a draiving by James Sannders
King which is said to be his only 'authentic portrait'
(Roberts 1974).
the 'head' were two columns called 'horns', designed
to encircle the enemy (Gluckman 1960,166). While
still a commander under Dingiswayo, Shaka used
this 'chest and horns' formation to defeat the
Ndwandwe (Selby 1971,42-3).
Finally, Shaka took the amabutho and turned it
into an instrument of statecraft. Traditionally, these
regiments were based on men from the same
chiefdom who had gone through initiation together
(Wright & Hamilton 1989,62-3). Shaka, who by now
had subjugated a number of formerly autonomous
polities, expanded the system by creating regiments
into which all warriors of the same age were placed,
Shaka's chiefdom at
'//, his accession, 1816
Limits of Shaka's
kingdom, 1827
0 50 100 150 km
Figure 3. Zulu expansion against rival groups under
Shaka, 1816-1827. (Redrawn from Gluckman 1960 and
might & Hamilton 1989.)
regardless of the chiefly territories from which they
had come. Under Shaka's direct control, these feared
'age regiments' broke down old territorial loyalties
and produced warriors beholden only to him.
From 1816. to 1818, Shaka fought beside
Dingiswayo in his unification of Natal; along the
way, he changed the protocol of conquest. Tradi-
tionally, a defeated warrior who threw down his
spear had been spared. Shaka's new policy, was to
slaughter enemy men, women, and children. When
the Ndwandwe killed Dingiswayo in 1818, Shaka
took over the latter's Mthethwa army and went on to
defeat 30 more chiefdoms. In a period of only 12
years, Shaka went from the head of a 250 square
kilometre chiefdom to the king of a 200,000 square
kilometre state (Fig. 3).
Establishing his capital at Bulawayo, Shaka built
a palisade 1.7 kilometres in diameter to defend a
kraal of 1500 dwellings, maintaining an army of
50,000. Shaka's revisionist ideology portrayed the
 Kent V. Flannery

Zulu as ruling by right of genealogical seniority rather bitious among these', according to T.C. McCaskie
than conquest (Wright & Hamilton 1989, 73). To his (1995,42), 'eventually institutionalized their wealth
inner circle, however, he confided his belief that 'you in chiefship . . . converting their economic clients
can only rule the Zulus by killing them' (Ritter 1957, into a political following of retainers'. Sixteenth-cen-
319). tury Ashanti chiefs used three main symbols of au-
Unfortunately, the acacia grassland of Natal thority: a spear, an elephant tail, and a carved wooden
made it hard for Shaka to usher in an age of 'good stool (McLeod 1981,112-13).
works', such as the irrigation canals and rice paddies Before 1700, various chiefdoms competed for
of the agents we will discuss below. Cattle gained control of the gold trading centre of Tafo (Wilks
through tribute or conquest were used to support 1975,110). In those days the Ashanti paid tribute to
armies and state institutions, but their rapid con- the more powerful Denkyira, who lived on the tropi-
sumption required unending military expansion cal coast to the south. Sometime in the 1680s, during
(Wright & Hamilton 1989, 71). There were limits to the course of the fighting over Tafo, Ashanti chief
such strategy, and growing resentment of Shaka's Obiri Yeboa was killed. It was not clear who his heir
cruelty. In 1828 forgetting his own dictum that 'a should be, so it fell to the priest Anoke to choose a
king should not eat with his brothers, lest they poi- successor.
son him' Shaka was assassinated by two half- The young man chosen by Anoke was Osei
brothers (Gluckman 1940,35; Selby 1971,68). Tutu, son of a highly ranked woman. Osei Tutu had
learned political and military skills during stays
Osei Tutu among the powerful Denkyira and Akwamu, and
Our second agent was born on the Gold Coast of returned to the Ashanti with firearms purchased on
Ghana, where Ashanti society had begun to form the coast. He defeated the neighbouring Domaa, then
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The the Tafo, Kaase, and Amakom, achieving complete
early Ashanti were led by entrepreneurs called Ashanti control of the disputed trading centre. Build-
abirempon or 'big men'. The 'most tenacious and am- ing his new capital at Kumase, near Tafo, he incor-
porated his conquered
neighbours into a single
polity and was named the
first asantehene, or king, of
the Ashanti (Wilks 1975,
111; McCaskie 1995,58).
Unsatisfied, Osei Tutu
continued his military ex-
pansion until, in 1701, he
overthrew the Denkyira.
This victory, ending dec-
ades of tribute demands,
established the Ashanti as
the most powerful polity
in the region. Osei Tutu
decapitated the Denkyira
ruler Ntim Gyakari, sav-
ing his head along with
those of other enemies.
Some 166 years later, Ntim
Gyakari's skull still lay
near Osei Tutu's coffin in
the royal Ashanti mauso-
leum (Fig. 4) (McCaskie
Figure 4. Bantama, the Ashanti mausoleum where the bones of Osei Tutu and Opoku 1995,214).
Ware were once curated. In the foreground.is the 'great brass vessel' in which the Then came the ideo-
skulls of their defeated rivals were periodically displayed. (Based on a photograph in logical changes which ac-
Rattray 1927.) company the creation of a

8
 Process and Agency in Early State Formation

new state. In a ritual orchestrated by the priest Anoke,

Osei Tutu buried the stools of the various chiefs he
had conquered, while he himself received a fabulous
Dagomba
golden stool in which the souls of all the Ashanti 1744-5
people were said to be enshrined. This stool was Cent
Western Gonja IGonia
given a supernatural origin in Ashanti myth; it was 1732-3
said to have descended from the sky, landing in Osei
Tutu's lap (McCaskie 1995, 127-8). Osei Tutu then Eastern
Gonja
converted Ashanti administrative structure to the 1744-5

four-tiered hierarchy typical of states. He sat on a Gyaman

ca. 1740
golden stool; his district governors had silver stools; Takyiman
1722-3 / Basaand
local headmen had wooden stools; simple villagers Wankyi Kete Krakye
and Abesim
had no stools. 1711-12
ca. 1745

Ashanti expansion continued under the later

king Opoku Ware (1720-1750). Beheading numer-
ous rivals five of whose skulls were still in the
Akwamu
royal mausoleum a century later Opoku Ware ca. 1744
brought 250,000 square kilometres under Ashanti
domination (Fig. 5) (Wilks 1975,19). Wassa X
andTwifo ^
Northern Fante

Mir Silim Khan

Our third agent comes from the princely state of
Hunza, set in the snow-capped Karakoram range
where Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China meet. Be-
fore 1790, Hunza consisted only of three fortified
villages on an upper tributary of the Indus; by 1830
it had become a powerful state (Sidky 1996). The
agent credited with this transformation was Mir Silim
Khan, who ruled Hunza from 1790 to 1824.
The Hunza story begins with chiefly cycling.
The thwn or paramount chief of the Hunza exerted
nominal control over the three mountain villages of
Baltit, Altit, and Ganesh, each of which had its own
small irrigation system and its own vizier. A great
deal of power was shared with clan elders and line-
age heads, and there were no firm rules of succes-
sion, so a deceased thiim's sons and brothers often
'entered into a bloody power struggle that ended
only when one claimant succeeded either in murder-
ing or forcing his rivals into exile' (Sidky 1996,18).
Periodic attempts to consolidate power in Hunza
began in the 1500s and took the form of eliminating
rival factions. During the late 1600s, a Hunza para-
mount named Mayori massacred the Diramheray
faction with the aid of the Hamachating and Osen-
kutz; the three factions divided the victims' land and
animals. Mayori's son, Ayasho II, then massacred
his former allies the Hamachating with the aid of the
Osenkutz; again> land and animals were divided.
The cycle of bloodshed was extended when Ayasho
II next massacred his former allies the Osenkutz,
seizing all their land and livestock for himself (Sidky
1996,50-51).
Amanahia
1715-21
50 100 150 km
ATLANTIC OCEAN
Figure 5. Ashanti expansion against rival groups under
Osei Tutu and Opoku Ware. (Redrawn from Wilks 1975.)
Now consolidated on the local level, Hunza
was not yet a state; the thum's political legitimacy
still rested on his relationship with the pari, or moun-
tain spirits, which allegedly gave him the power to
melt glaciers and bring rain. These powers were con-
firmed by the bitan, ecstatic religious practitioners
who could speak to the mountain spirits. Unfortu-
nately, this supernatural power did not impress the
Emperor Kien-lung, who in 1759 brought Turkestan
and the Karakoram region under Chinese domina-
tion (Muller-Stellrecht 1978). From 1760 onward the
Hunza paid China tribute in gold, while the thwn
received gifts of horses, silk, and tea in return.
Silim Khan entered the picture in 1790 when he
usurped the position of thwn, or mir, from his brother
Ghuti Mirza (Sidky 1996, 71). With most rival fac-
tions already eliminated by Mayori and Ayasho II,
Silim Khan moved quickly to bring Baltit, Altit, and
Ganesh under his control. He named one vizier to
administer all three villages, and installed loyal sub-
ordinates in each to serve as trangfa or village head-
men. Note that, despite our use of an 'agent-based'
approach here, we can identify the mir's decision as
a process called 'linearization' the bypassing of
local authorities by a central institution (Flannery
1972, fig. 3c).
 Kent V. Flannery

Silim Khan then prepared to expand against direct control of the state, and their loyalty was to
other neighbours. He built village defences, watch- the mir through his vizier (Sidky 1996,59).
towers, and fortified granaries, and began the large- Equally transformed was the ideology of
scale irrigation works for which he is most famous rulership. For centuries, political legitimacy had
(Fig. 6). Rounding up corvee labourers, working them rested on the thum's relationship with mountain spir-
dawn to dusk, and requiring wealthy families to its and his sacred power over glaciers, snow, and
provide food for them, Silim Khan created three ca- rain. Now supernatural power was less important
nals which opened up new areas for farming. than Silim Khan's secular control of the canal sys-
This irrigation system, featuring one canal more tem. He became the Ismailia muslim leader of his
than 10 km long, was completely under the com- people, relegating the ecstatic trances of the bitan to
mand of the mir. It not only ushered in a period of the realm of folk religion (Sidky 1996, 70-73).
unparalleled prosperity; it also changed traditional Silim Khan's irrigation system stimulated enor-
Hunza society. Because the canal system had been mous population growth and immigration into
built by Silim Khan, it was the property of an embry- Hunza. Soon he expanded east into the neighbour-
onic Hunza state. None of the new villages, estab- ing Shimshal Valley and north to the Pamirs (Fig. 7).
lished downstream on formerly useless land, had There he compelled the Kirghiz nomads to pay him
descent-based neighbourhoods; their occupants were tribute, assuming sovereign rights over former Chi-
genealogically heterogeneous, united by place of resi- nese territory. Expanding still farther north, he at-
dence rather than ancestry. They were under the tacked the small kingdom of Sarikol and turned many
of its villagers into slaves.
Now Silim Khan had
a vantage point from
which to raid caravans
along the Silk Route, and
in a complete reversal of
previous tribute flow, he
was soon receiving regu-
lar payments from the Chi-
nese (Muller-Stellrecht
1978, 137). The luxury
goods obtained by raiding
caravans led to further
changes in Hunza society,
such as increased social
mobility based on wealth
and military distinction.
The expansion of the
Hunza state was contin-
ued by Silim Khan's suc-
cessor, Mir Ghazanfar
Khan (1825-1865), who
enlarged the irrigation
system and overwhelmed
the neighbouring Nagar
polity to the east (Muller-
Stellrecht 1978,139; Sidky
1996,55).
The entire process of
Hunza state formation
may have taken 150 years,
from the first massacres of
Figure 6. The hilltop palace of the mir at Baltit, Hunza. Two channels of Silim Kltan'slocal chiefs by Mayori to the
irrigation system can be seen at lower left. (Based on a photograph in Sidky 1996.)maximum supraregional

10
 Process and Agency in Early State Formation

/
*

Shimshal Valley * 8 [ \
r

N
Gilgit
50 100 150 km

1. Baltit, Altit, and Ganesh Figure 8. Kamehameha in 1816. Based on a portrait by

INDIA 2. New Villages in Central Hunza Louis Choris of the Russian ship Rurick (Kuykendall
3. New Villages in Lower Hunza
4. New Villages in Upper Hunza 1938).

and unifying the big island (Kamakau 1961,66). The

Figure 7. The expansion of the Hunza under Mir Silim
Kfian. (Redrawn from Sidky 1996.)
expansion under Ghazanfar Khan. It began with
bloodshed, but was moved along by an irrigation
system of unprecedented productivity. It featured
the replacement of supernatural legitimacy by true
political power, and the triumph of centralized con-
trol over lineage loyalty.
Kamehameha
Our fourth agent was born on the 'big island' of
Hawai'i, an archipelago noted for chiefly cycling
(Sahlins 1958; Goldman 1970; Kirch 1984). Against a
backdrop of lesser chiefs or ali'i ai ahupua'a, para-
mount chiefs called ali'i ai moku rose and fell. By the
mid-1700s, commoners in the most complex
chiefdoms were rapidly losing their ancestral lands
to an emerging stratum of hereditary nobles (Kirch
1984,258 & fig. 85).
Oral histories record that in the early 1700s, a
chief named Alapai succeeded in defeating his rivals
only ali'i ai moku more prestigious than Alapai was
Kahekili of Maui, a chief so powerful that lesser men
prostrated themselves before his person, his cloak,
his spear, and his spittoon (Mellen 1949,13).
Sometime between 1748 and 1761 (Kuykendall
1938, appendix A), a son was born in the home of
Alapai's nephew Keoua. Rumors reached Alapai that
this boy, although born to Keoua's wife, had secretly
been fathered by his chiefly rival Kahekili of Maui
(Mellen 1949, 16). Fearing that the boy would be
assassinated by Alapai, his parents arranged for
trusted servants to hide him for five years. Only
after Alapai had grown old was the boy returned to
his father and named Kamehameha, 'The Lonely
One' (Fig. 8). His teenage years were spent in the
care of his uncle Kalaniopu'u, learning to be a war-
rior.
One of the vulnerable points in the cycle of any
chiefdom is the moment of succession. When Alapai
of Hawai'i died, he was succeeded by a son so un-
popular that rebellion broke out against him. He
was defeated and killed by his cousin Kalaniopu'u,

11
 Kent V. Flannery

whose most trusted military commander was by now
the young Kamehameha. Emboldened by his suc-
cess, Kalaniopu'u sought to add Maui to his terri-
tory. He managed to establish a foothold there, but
could not break Kahekili's grip on the rest of Maui.
From this point onward our dates are more
precise, since Captain Cook arrived in 1778 while
the battle for Maui was engaged (Gowen 1919; Mellen
1949; Service 1975, 154-5). Eventually driven back
from Maui, Kalaniopu'u died in 1782 with his dreams
of unifying the islands unfulfilled. He left a divided
inheritance, often a prescription for disaster in
chiefdoms. Chiefly title went to his most highly
ranked son; a territorial estate went to his less highly
ranked son. To his nephew Kamehameha went cus-
tody of the war god.
Angered over the division of property, the less
highly ranked son attacked Kamehameha, and civil
war ensued. From this war Kamehameha emerged
victorious in 1788, having killed his most highly
ranked cousin and driven the other into exile on
Maui. Now the most powerful chief on the big is-
land, Kamehameha was advised by his priests to
build a new temple and upon its altar to lay 'the
body of a chief (Mellen 1949, 54). Luring his less
highly ranked cousin back to the big island on the
pretext of peace talks, Kamehameha had him assas-
sinated and laid his body on the altar.
Now it was Kamehameha's turn to pursue the
unification that had eluded earlier chiefs. From the
European ships now docking at his port he obtained
muskets, cannons, and even two English sailors
John Young and Isaac Davis who became trusted
military advisors.
In 1790 Kamehameha invaded Maui. Chief
Kahekili had by then retired to O'ahu, and his heir
fled to join him after a taste of Kamehameha's artil-
the Anahulu Valley on the northwest coast of O'ahu
(Sahlins 1992; Kirch 1992); this was likely done to
provision his troops for an assault on Kaua'i. Seeing
that resistance was futile, the chief of Kaua'i capitu-
lated in 1810, leaving Kamehameha ruler of the en-
tire archipelago (Kuykendall 1938, 50-51). In less
than 23 years, he had gone from the usurper of a
local chiefdom to the king of a militaristic state (Fig.
9) (Service 1975,155).
Determined to keep his subjects content,
Kamehameha ordered that his reign should be one
of agricultural plenty. In the process, however, all
lands became royal property, escalating the process
of disenfranchisement begun by his predecessors.
Kamehameha created a council of chiefs to advise
him, a prime minister to deal with foreigners, and a
treasurer whose consent in gift-giving was obliga-
tory (Kamakau 1961, 175). It remained for his son
and heir Liholiho, however, to effect one of the
most radical ideological changes of the newly cre-
ated state.
Kaua'i
O Anahulu Valley
Ni'ihau
Moloka'i
Maui
Lana'i
Kaho'olawe
yKohala.' North
JKbhala/

lery. Kahekili passed away in 1794, and the follow- ( North Hilo L
ing year Kamehameha invaded O'ahu with 1000 war V Kona '
\
%
1

canoes, 12,000 warriors, abundant logistic support, V>outri *"' Puna ^

and 16 foreign advisors. For the second time he bat- \Kona>
N
/) ;i
tled Kahekili's son, and this time he succeeded in Kau
offering the latter's heart on the altar of a temple
(Mellen 1949,87).
Now Kamehameha was master of all but Kaua'i <
and tiny Ni'ihau. To solidify his dynastic line, he 0 50 100 km

offered asylum to the highest ranking noblewoman

of Maui, on condition that she betroth her grand-
daughter to him. While only one of Kamehameha's
noble wives, she bore him a son named Liholiho
who became his highest ranking heir.
In preparation for his assault on Kaua'i,
Kamehameha intensified agricultural production in
Figure 9. The Hawaiian archipelago whose rival
chiefdoms were subjugated by Kamehameha, 1783-1810.
The inset shows the Kona district of the 'big island'from
which he and his most trusted advisors came. (Redrawn
from Goldman 1970.)

12
 Process and Agency in Early State Formation
Liholiho was only 22 when Kamehameha died;
his mother was appointed regent to ensure an or-
derly succession. A traditional rite of succession was
to have the chiefly heir go into hiding while his
subjects violated all sacred taboos; the new chief
would then reappear, restoring order by demanding
that society's rules be observed. One rule was that
men and women must eat separately. At a banquet
sponsored by his mother (and at her urging), Liholiho
came out of hiding, defied tradition, and ate with the
women. By this and other acts he separated rank
from religious protocol, and created a secular state
(Davenport 1969).
Andrianampoinimerina
Madagascar is another island whose agents of native
'state formation are known, most notably among the
Betsileo and Merina (Kottak 1980,58-87). It is also a
place where historical data on agency can be com-
bined with archaeological data on process. There
Henry Wright, along with students and colleagues,
has worked to clarify the rise of the Merina state in
the central highlands (Wright & Kus 1979; Dewar &
Wright 1993). This Merina research has proved to be
more than a case study in state formation; it has
permitted the integration of historical texts with the
'archaeological signatures' of the state (Dewar &
Wright 1993,459).
The rise of the Merina was rooted in the usual
chiefly cycling. Between the fourteenth and sixteenth
centuries, European visitors reported powerful
chiefdoms in the Merina highlands. Their existence
is confirmed by archaeological settlement patterns
in which 5-10 hamlets tend to cluster around chiefly
centres (Dewar & Wright 1993,448).
Conflicts broke out between groups called the
Vazimba and Hova. These escalated once the Hova
had acquired iron axes and crossbows, giving their
warriors 'a decisive superiority over neighbouring
Vazimba' (Brown 1979,120). By the end of the six-
teenth century, an ambitious Hova chief named
Ralambo had begun the first consolidation of the
region. His victories over the Vazimba are credited
to his possession not only of a powerful sampy or
talisman, but also (in a move reminiscent of Osei
Tutu's and Kamehameha's) of European firearms
(Brown 1979,121). Ralambo was the first to call his
territory Tmerina' and move his headquarters to
Tananarive.
During the seventeenth century, the conquests
of a usurper named Andriamasinavalona extended
Imerina's boundaries. In an effort reminiscent of Silim
Khan's irrigation works, this leader also rounded up
13
y ' ' ' ' * ' ' '
ANDRIANAMPOINIMERINA.I.1788-1810
RADAMA.I.1810-1828
RADAMA1186U863
t
Figure 10. The tomb of Andrianampoinimerina and
Radama I at Tananarive, Madagascar. (Based on a
photograph in Mack 1986.)
corvee labour to convert a huge marsh near
Tananarive into rice paddies (Brown 1979,122). His
actions are clearly reflected in the archaeology of the
region. According to Dewar & Wright (1993,455-7),
settlement clusters . . . are centered on large po-
lygonal fortresses, often with multiple [defensive]
ditches and baffled entrances . . . The surrounding
subsidiary fortresses have a similar structure . . .
All smaller valleys were probably fully developed
as rice paddies at this time.
As often happens, this powerful realm fragmented
when Andriamasinavalona divided it among his four
sons. Soon all were in competition, each seeking to
take over his brothers' provinces. Around 1745, the
young man who would one day create the Merina
state was born in the northernmost of the four prov-
inces. For a time he was forced to flee from a jealous
uncle, much as Kamehameha had been hidden
from Alapai. In time, however, the unpopular uncle
was overthrown and killed, and the nephew
Andrianampoinimerina usurped his position.
Andrianampoinimerina's first 'royal residence'
was a wooden hut 6 m by 4 m in extent; its largest
piece of furniture was the bed for his 12 wives (Brown
1979, 124). From there he went on to reunify the
provinces divided by Andriamasinavalona, then ex-
pand his conquests to other parts of Madagascar. In
little more than a decade, he had extended his con-
trol to the entire inhabited area of the Malagasy
 Kent V. Flannery
Andrianampoinimerina's chiefdom
at his accession, 1787
'{/fi Andrianampoinimerina's kingdom
Diego Suarez
// at his death, 1810
If/l/lll Conquests of Radama I
'/////I/I (1818-1828)
100 200 km
Foulpointe
Tananarive
Antsirabe
Mananjary
Fianarantsoa
Ihosy
t
Tulear
Fort Dauphin N
Figure 11. The expansion of the Merina state, 1787-
1828. (Redrawn from Brown 1979.)
plateau. 'The sea', he is said to have boasted, 'shall
be the limit of my rice-fields' (Brown 1979, 127). His
son Radama I made good his father's boast by ex-
panding the Merina state to cover two-thirds of
Madagascar (Figs. 10 & 11).
According to Dewar & Wright (1993, 456-9),
the heartland of Imerina was reorganized, featuring
a four-level state hierarchy with a 35-ha capital, sec-
ondary centres, villages, hamlets, and specialized
military sites on the frontier. Larger settlements had
defensive ditches, and gates closed with multi-ton
granite disks. Concentric lines of villages protected
areas suitable for rice paddies. Finally, the increased
use of Western firearms led to thicker clay walls
around the villages of the outer frontier.
An ideological shift accompanied the creation
of the Merina state. It will be remembered that the
Hova attributed Ralambo's earlier victories to a pow-
erful sampy or talisman. Merina rulers appropriated
all local sampy and created a class of 'exceptional
talismans' for their use alone (Mack 1986, 52). The
14
creation of these royal talismans, or sampy masina,
reflects a significant change in the distribution of
hasina, a universal vital force (Delivre 1974). Hasina
was now considered to be differentially possessed
by royalty, nobles, and commoners, providing the
justification for social stratification (Kottak 1980, 68-
76).
The Merina state that emerged had an upper
stratum of hereditary nobles or andriana. Common-
ers were divided into 'true hova' descendants from
central Imerina's 10 original villages and mainty,
comprising royal servants and freed slaves. At the
bottom were the andevo or slaves, mainly enemies
captured in battle (Brown 1979,128). This class struc-
ture is visible in the archaeological mortuary data
(Dewar & Wright 1993, 458).
Despite an abundance of hereditary nobles,
Merina kings often appointed trusted commoners to
important government positions. Kottak (1980, 74)
identifies this with a process called 'promotion', in
which an institution is shifted from a lower to a
higher tier in the hierarchy (Flannery 1972, fig. 3b).
Again, as in the case of 'linearization', we find that
examining agents does not divert us from the study
of processes, but provides more examples of them.
The lessons of agency
Linearization and promotion were not the only pat-
terns shared by our five agents; each also made use
of role models. Silim Khan emulated Mayori and
Ayasho II; Kamehameha emulated Alapai and
Kalaniopu'u. Copying successful strategies is a
process called 'biased transmission' by Boyd &
Richerson (1985; see Spencer 1993). In a classic ex-
ample, Shaka took the idea of age-grade regiments
from Dingiswayo and used it to create a state mili-
tary apparatus. As Wright & Hamilton (1989, 68)
point out, Shaka was 'very much a product of his
own times'; that it was he who unified Natal 'was
the product of the meshing of circumstance, acci-
dent, and personal ability in a process of historical
change'.
How to be an agent of state formation
In fact, our five agents shared so many strategies
that we can suggest a list of instructions for creating
early states, similar to Carneiro's list for chiefdoms:
1. be born an 'alpha male' with an aggressive, au-
thoritarian personality;
2. be of elite parentage, but not in the main line of
succession just close enough to covet chieftain-
ship;
 Process and Agency in Early State Formation
3. gain upward mobility as a military commander;
4. usurp the position of chief even if it requires
assassination;
5. subjugate your nearest neighbours first;
6. seek a competitive advantage over more distant
rivals. (The Zulu had new military strategies; the
Hunza had superior numbers, owing to great ir-
rigation works; the Ashanti, Merina, and Hawai-
ians had superior weapons.);
7. using that advantage, expand into more distant
territories;
8. where the environment permits, use corvee la-
bour to provision your army, raise your subjects'
population, and keep followers content by build-
ing irrigation canals, rice paddies, or agricultural
terraces;
9. where the environment does not permit such in-
tensification, raid neighbours' caravans or cattle
herds;
10. solidify your position by power-sharing, even if
it is little more than a gesture.
Power-sharing
The tenth strategy on our list is frequently misun-
derstood. All state founders, however autocratic,
need support; they get it by making at least a pre-
tence of power-sharing. Twelve Merina chiefs helped
Andrianampoinimerina usurp his uncle's throne; he
made them his inner council of advisors (Brown 1979,
123-8). He added a council of 70 royal agents called
'husbands of the earth', and gave an annual speech
called the kabary, allegedly to 'share decision making
with the people'. Kamehameha turned five chiefs of
his native Kona district into a council whose ap-
proval was needed on important decisions. When
these original councillors retired, however, their re-
placements had little say in Kamehameha's 'feudal
aristocracy' (Kuykendall 1938,51-3).
A similar weakening can be seen in the
asantemanghyiamu or 'assembly of the Ashanti'. Origi-
nally designed to help kings create policy, the coun-
cil saw its legislative power steadily eroded
(McCaskie 1995, 307). Mir Silim Khan delegated
power to his vizier, and supposedly shared power
with the marika, or state council; however, the mir
himself presided over the marika, and in the words
of Sidky (1996,68), 'nobody dared speak out of turn'.
The agent least disposed to share power was
Shaka, but he had a group of advisors known as
innndas. Even skilled commoners could be raised to
iminda level. The 'great iminda' a kind of prime
minister was always a hereditary chief, but never
a member of the royal family (Gluckman 1940,33).
15
Because power-sharing is present to varying
degrees in all states, it is sometimes confused with
egalitarian, corporate, or democratic rule. More than
half a century ago, Jacobsen (1943) took the existence
of a Council of Elders and a Popular Assembly to
mean that the Sumerians had 'primitive democracy'.
Today we know better. In the words of Diakonoff
(1974), Sumerian society was an 'aristocratic oligar-
chy' in which the king and other oligarchs struggled
for supremacy. The Sumerian Council, like the Coun-
cil of Elders who chose the Aztec tlatoani, was com-
posed of aristocrats. The Sumerian Assembly gave
commoners a place to complain, but they had no
more say in crucial decisions than the commoners
who listened to the Merina kabary.
I stress this point because some of my Meso-
american colleagues are in danger of repeating
Jacobsen's error. Scholars like Pasztory (1992) note
that some Mesoamerican states, like the Maya, put
the names and images of individual rulers agents
on stone monuments; other states, like Teotihuacan,
did not. This dichotomy has led to suggestions that
some early states had 'corporate rule' (Blanton el al.
1996) or even 'egalitarian behaviour' (Blanton 1998).
Lack of individualized monuments, however,
does not imply corporate rule. No such monuments
were erected by any of our five agents, although all
were revered posthumously. Among the world's pris-
tine states, many seem more interested in depicting
vanquished enemies than in naming their own rul-
ers (Fig. 12) (Marcus 1974; 1992a, chap. 11). Given
how states are forged from chiefdoms, we can be
confident that all pristine states were created by
strong agents rather than committees. And those
agents ruled autocratically perhaps with councils
and assemblies, but certainly not with, democracy.
The changing of ideology
While he himself is a product of process, the agent
has a special role in state formation: he changes the
ideology of his society to one more appropriate for a
state. As Sahlins (1981) suggests, this is usually not
through revolutionary moves to promote wholesale
overthrow of the system, but through self-interested
change in the meaning of existing relations.
Osei Tutu did not do away with stools; he sim-
ply buried the stools of his rivals and created a golden
one in which the souls of all his subjects were incor-
porated. The Merina kings did not do away with
talismans; they appropriated local sampy and cre-
ated a class of royal talismans for themselves. To be
sure, each ideological change is unique in terms of
the symbolic repertoire of the culture involved. Each,
 Kent V. Flannery

Figure 12. Like the states created by the five agents named in this article, many of the world's pristine states formed
through the subjugation of rival polities: a) Uruk seal impression from Chogha Mish, Iran, showing a victorious ruler
on shipboard with mace and bound prisoners; b) ten nude prisoners from the reverse of Egypt's Narmer Palette, their
arms bound and their severed heads between their legs; c) Uruk seal impression from Warka, Iraq, showing bound
prisoners and their captors; d) stone monument from Monte Albdn, Mexico, showing a slain and sexually mutilated
enemy with his hieroglyphic name; e) painted scene on a Moche vessel, Peru, showing a warrior seizing a prisoner by
his hair. (Sources: a) Kantor 1991, fig. 8; b) Emery 1961, fig. 4; c) Oates 1993, fig. 2; d) Marcus 1992a, fig. 2.11;
e) Donnan 1976, fig. 96.)

16
 Process and Agency in Early State Formation
however, reflects a more universal process: breaking
down the autonomy of subject peoples and redirect-
ing their loyalty to the central figure of an emerging
state.
This transformation of ideology is a universal
variable in state formation; it is not, however, the
primary variable some believe. Archaeology has a
history of embracing fads, and one current fad, in
the words of Carneiro (1992, 175), is to condemn
ecological, demographic, and technological processes
and look to ideology 'as providing the principal im-
petus to cultural change'. This merely substitutes
one prime mover for another.
Robert McC. Adams has a warning for believ-
ers in the 'autonomous power of ideology in the
revolutionary process'. The oversimplification of ide-
ologies and their modes of attachment to other cul-
tural phenomena 'may well be the distortion that
most seriously threatens to undermine studies of
ideologies in early states and civilizations' (Adams
1992,220). In addition it is only in later states, where
oral or written histories are available, that ideology
is even recoverable (e.g. Brumfiel 1998). Those who
pretend to know the ideology of a pristine state may
wind up writing a 'just-so' story.
10 Jaguar and the Zapotec: a pristine case
Finally, if individuals and ideologies are indistinct
in pristine states, how can one evaluate the relative
roles of process and agency? Let us consider one
example, the early Zapotec state of Mexico's Oaxaca
Valley.
Without question, chiefly cycling set the stage
for the Zapotec state. One chiefdom, focused at San
Jose Mogote, peaked between 1150 and 850 BC, de-
clined between 850 and 700 BC, then reasserted itself
between 700 and 500 BC (Marcus & Flannery 1996,
chaps. 8-10). During its last two centuries it was
separated from rival chiefdoms by an 80 square kilo-
metre buffer zone. Excavated sites of 700-500 BC show
many burned houses (Drennan 1976, 111-33);
unexcavated sites have unusual amounts of burned
house clay on the surface, suggesting endemic raid-
ing (Kowalewski et ah 1989, 70). Toward the end of
this period, San Jose Mogote's main temple was
burned, and its leaders carved their first monument
showing a sacrificed enemy (Marcus & Flannery 1996,
128-30).
Next came a shift to defensible localities, analo-
gous to the changes seen in Iron Age Natal and
seventeenth-century Imerina. Instead of rebuilding
their temple, the leaders of San Jose Mogote
regrouped, moving themselves and thousands of
17
their followers to a defensible mountaintop. This
site, called Monte Alban, became the stronghold from
which they consolidated the rest of the valley. One
of the earliest constructions at Monte Alban Build-
ing L originally displayed more than 300 slain
enemies carved in stone (Marcus & Flannery 1996,
151-3). This was equivalent to the skulls periodically
displayed by Osei Tutu, Opoku Ware, and Dingis-
wayo's mother.
The rulers of Monte Alban then produced their
equivalent of Hunza's irrigation systems, Imerina's
rice paddies, and the gardens of Anahulu. Between
300 and 150 BC, Monte Alban surrounded itself with
155 satellite communities, many of them practising
canal irrigation (Kowalewski et ah 1989). Rivals else-
where in the valley moved to defend themselves,
but by 200 BC Monte Alban's demographic advan-
tage had forced them to capitulate or be burned.
Once Monte Alban had subdued the rest of the
valley, its inner ring of satellite communities disap-
peared. The four-tiered hierarchy typical of states
emerged, with secondary administrative centres
spaced 14-28 kilometres from the capital (Kowalewski
et al. 1989; Marcus & Flannery 1996, figs. 196-7). The
Zapotec continued to expand, eventually claiming
control of some 20,000 square kilometres of southern
Mexico (Marcus 1992b). Their conquest of the
Cuicatlan area, including the building of a fort at
Quiotepec (Fig. 13), seems to have featured a policy
Fortress of Quiotepec
Cuicatlan
Canada
PACIFIC OCEAN
50 km
Figure 13. Using a combination of colonization,
conquest, and skilled diplomacy, the Zapotec expanded
into neighbouring regions between 300 BC and AD 200.
(Redrawn from Marcus & Flannery 1996.)
 Kent V. Flannery
Stela 12 Stela 13
1 Agent-based perspectives are not destined to make
oooo
ooo eeoo
J
Figure 14. On Stela 13 at Monte Albdn, the agent '10
Jaguar' is mentioned at Position 1. Dates are given at
Position 4 on both stelae. (See Marcus & Flannery 1996,
161.)
of breaking dovvn the region's traditional residential
compounds and replacing them with smaller units
(Spencer & Redmond 1997). Such provincial reor-
ganization is reminiscent of our five agents' accom-
plishments.
Oaxaca thus displays many familiar state for-
mation processes, but how about agency? Set in
Building L are two stelae with columns of hieroglyphs
(Fig. 14). The text on Stela 12 begins with the Zapotec
year sign and year-bearer, and includes other
calendric glyphs which date an historical event.4 That
event is given on Stela 13, which we might read: 'An
individual named 10 Jaguar seized the second-born
son [name untranslated] during "Month" W (Marcus
& Flannery 1996,159-61).
Embedded in long-term processes as he may
have been, 10 Jaguar was clearly an agent taking
credit for the defeat of a rival. We would like to
know his contribution to the unification of the valley
and the creation of state ideology. Sadly, he is likely
to remain as shadowy a figure as his Egyptian coun-
terparts Narmer, Rosette Scorpion, and Menes
18
(Davies 1987; Emery 1961). We will never know him
as we know Osei Tutu and Silim Khan, but we are
confident that his state was created much like theirs,
and just as autocratic.
Conclusions
studies of process obsolete. Process and agency have
a relationship like that of mutation and natural se-
lection in biological evolution, and in fact, most proc-
esses are just long-term patterns of behaviour by
multiple agents.
Individual genes mutate at unpredictable times
in unpredictable ways, but it takes universal proc-
esses like natural selection, competitive exclusion,
and reproductive isolation to give those mutations
lasting consequences. Aggressive human agents are
born in all cultures in all epochs, but it takes pre-
existing conditions of social inequality and chiefly
competition, followed by biased transmission, com-
petitive advantage, expansion, and territorial incor-
poration, to turn a chief into a king. To be sure, the
agent manipulates ideology to encourage new social
forms. But an agent born in the Late Pleistocene,
unaided by the processes listed above, had no chance
of creating a state.
I mention the Pleistocene to reprise a point made
earlier: a growing number of cognitive scientists be-
lieve that our basic social, analytical, and interpre-
tive skills evolved to manage small-scale foraging
societies. We have since created larger societies, but
given our bounded rationality, there were undoubt-
edly constraints on how we first did it.
Hunting-gathering societies remained small be-
cause they resolved conflict by fission. Should we be
surprised to learn that the first truly large societies
had to be assembled by force, and eventually broke
apart? Most stable relationships in hunting-gather-
ing societies are dyadic or triadic. Should we be
surprised to learn that early rulers relied on their
siblings to control key parts of their domain?
To ignore the processes we see in the archaeo-
logical record would be a waste of the brain's left
hemisphere. To attribute all of them to ecology,
economy, agency, or ideology would be simplistic.
A certain number probably result from our having
used the cognitive skills of a hunter-gatherer to cre-
ate large hierarchical societies. Let us first establish
what the basic social, analytical, and interpretive
skills of Late Pleistocene humans were. Let us then
ask how constraints on those skills might have shaped
the institutions of the first large societies.
 Process and Agency in Early State Formation
Notes
1. For example, Hodder (1986,23) complains that 'within
most systems analyses, individuals play little part in
the theories they only appear as predictable au-
tomata, driven by covering laws'. While we appreci-
ate Hodder's disappointment, he has confused two
antithetical paradigms. Only archaeologists commit-
ted to logical positivism, for whom physics and chem-
istry provide the model for science, seek explanation
in 'covering laws' (Watson el al. 1971). Archaeologists
using 'systems' or 'ecosystems' approaches do so pre-
cisely because they do not believe in covering laws of
human behaviour (Flannery 1986). Their model for
science is drawn from biology, whose practitioners,
'instead of formulating l a w s . . . usually organize their
generalizations into a framework of concepts' (Mayr
1982, 43). This is done because 'living systems are
invariably characterized by elaborate feedback mecha-
nisms unknown in their precision and complexity in
any inanimate system' (Mayr 1982, 53). Evolutionary
archaeology, like palaeontology, leads to 'historical
narrative explanations' rather than covering laws
(Flannery 1986,514).
2. Some postmodernists become confused when a proc-
ess (e.g. natural selection) is abstracted from the or-
ganisms (or actors) on which it operates. Some also
find it confusing that systems, subsystems, and actors
can have contradictory needs. For example, Shanks &
Tilley (1987, 139) argue that since 'the needs of the
social system cannot be independent of the actors
which make it up', any notion that systems, subsys-
tems, rituals, or other institutionalized practices have
functions 'is entirely irrelevant and misplaced'. Re-
ally? When a military junta executes a dissident actor
who resisted oppression, are they meeting the actor's
needs, the social system's needs, or merely the needs
of their own administrative subsystem?
3. On this point I find myself in unaccustomed agree-
ment with columnist George F. Will, who has written:
The vocabulary and mentality of literary 'de-
construction' seeps everywhere, relativizing every-
thing, teaching that history, like all of life, is a mere
'narrative', a 'text' with no meaning beyond what
any individual reads into it. No event, no book,
nothing has a fixed content; the individual's 'per-
ception' or 'reaction' to it is everything (Will 1993).
Will was responding to a postmodern author's sug-
gestion that the Holocaust might only be 'our version'
of the World War II 'text'.
4. The study of Zapotec hieroglyphs is still in its in-
fancy; I am relying here on unpublished readings by
Joyce Marcus.
Acknowledgements
This essay is part of a larger study, stimulated in
part by the ongoing University of Michigan seminar,
19
'Principles of Social Evolution'. I thank all the par-
ticipants in that seminar, and acknowledge specific
contributions by S. Fowles and L. Sering (Zulu), A.
Lawson (Ashanti), A. Covey (Hunza), J. Gulick and
C. Elson (Hawai'i), and C. Kottak and H. Wright (Mada-
gascar). J. Klausmeyer created all the illustrations.
Kent V. Flannery
Museum of Anthropology
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
USA
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