Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Adams
TZsjOIIMiIO
Urban Societ
Mesopotamia
Prehispanic Mexico
Early
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The Evolution of
Urban Society
Early Mesopotamia and Prehispanic Mexico
by
mented examples
of "pristine"
state
societies
tamia
"careers to statehood."
The author
first
states
from theocratic
societies,
and
in
their
development
whole
The author
is
Dean
Bedno
THE EVOLUTION
OF
URBAN SOCIETY
The
University of Rochester
Rochester,
New York
THE EVOLUTION
OF
URBAN SOCIETY
EARLY MESOPOTAMIA AND PREHISPANIC MEXICO
by
Copyright
1966 by Robert
No
McC. Adams
may
and
retrieval
First
published 1966 by
Aldine Publishing
Company
First
ISBN
Number
66-15195
FOREWORD
LEWIS HENRY MORGAN WAS ASSOCIATED WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF
Rochester from
its
left it his
manu-
for a
families
man
of the
fitting
later Provost )
gift.
He was
McCrea
Hazlett,
Asso-
ment.
permitted.
series
It
initially as
was thought
focused on
fitting at
if
three annual
circumstances
Morgan's
Foreword
vi
The
first
who
life
and work
in January, 1963.
volumes, were
it
much
Urban
visit at
Rochester would
available. Students
them
avail-
is
fill
and faculty
additional
alike recall
pleasure.
Origins:
Alfred Harris
Department of Anthropology
The University of Rochester
PREFACE
THE SUBSTANCE OF THIS STUDY WAS PRESENTED IN APRIL,
1965, AS
of colleagues
at
am
indebted to a number
Edward
E.
text.
in-
made by many
of the participants at a
ference on "The
Evolutionist
Interpretation
of
Culture" in
S.
my
it is
appropriate
Wenner-Gren Foundation
for Anthropological Research, under whose sponsorship this
unusually fertile gathering of diverse specialists was convened.
Among my colleagues at Chicago, I have benefited from comments made by Lloyd A. Fallers and Pedro Armillas. Finally,
I am much indebted to Miguel Civil for a number of illuminating suggestions on how some of the Sumerological materials
utilized in this study might be more solidly and imaginatively
also to express
gratitude to the
interpreted.
It
to
lecture
on
this
theme
in
Preface
viii
L. H. Morgan's city
to
some degree
and
in his
name. Surely
we
are
all
and
victims
increas-
but anthropology
field,
demic
izing
and comparative
of the
still
represents not so
much an
aca-
most
And one
may
be,
di-
us.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.
CHAPTER
H.
CHAPTER
HI.
CHAPTER
rV.
CHAPTER
V.
Conclusion
References Cited
the Evidence
38
....
....
....
79
120
170
176
Index
185
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure
1.
2.
25
Figure
3.
...
from Aztec
documentary sources
Figure
4.
70
73
IX
171
THE EVOLUTION
OF
URB.4X SOCIETY
direction,
perhaps
it
has continued to be
example of broad
This volume
sis
is
of regularities in our
early,
regularities in
human
behavior.
independent urban
provide as sys-
many acknowledged
in
be found
structure
in
both of them.
rather
than the
to
all
others,
it
seeks to
is
demon-
The Evolution
of
Urban Society
The independent emergence of stratified, politically organized societies based upon a new and more complex division of
labor clearly
is
it
is
it
Obcumu-
an untidy problem, on
The
begin with,
in
amount
is
all
historian.
Hence we
may
fall
back
becomes
a primary
means
be. In
of investiga-
tion,
often
seem
from
another line
Still
and
institutions
in traditional,
encapsulated
form.
With sources
is
one that
is
new
approach
problem of
set of institutional
offering, testing,
and refining or
replacing as necessary a scries of structured summaries or syntheses rather than confining analysis to fragmentary, isolated
cultural components.
With some
it
combine a sense
would appear
that
thetic outlook,
required to
a problem.
One
societies
may be
itself,
has
made
it
understanding
of the process of
for
been
identified with
tive.
is
statehood in widely
effect leading to
and epochs whatever the precise role of external stimuli may have been we have a problem that is peculiarly amenable to comparative treatment.
While the emergence of states has been a long-standing
different areas
it
is
impossible to deal
trace
to
most
that
vital
to
genealogy
of
the
assumptions
and concerns
commanded
upward through
preted in
that
is
bounds of a
To
cite
is
single discipline.
are
The Evolution
we
to conclude
Supreme
in-
Urban Society
of
may be
this insistence
Morgan properly
which he stimulated
To
others.
in
and
his
point
rests
is
on
it
essentially post
self-professed children.
we have
Only a quite
the
all
modes
and
of thought
convincingly
his times
may
dis-
us
how much
to the
temper of
tell
formal relationship to
positions
is
a variety of ) idealistic
and
materialistic
in
Morgan's time. At
least to
characterized by
sophical
its flexibility
position
that
is
approach
is
better
internally
consistent
by
latter-day
standards.
The problem
of
tracing
the
genealogy
of
evolutionary
Cf. the
Leacock
in
is
in Cur. Anthrop.
so,
little
to
draw upon save the immediate anteRome and the testimony of the
American
societies, for
example,
is
criticized
at
the time as an
which
to
make
way
in
at
which
was the
long, well-
in
time
records.
have
also
he saw
so,
there
in the context of
problem
it:
The Evolution
of
Urban Society
Two
independent
The one
tion.
through primary
other
therefrom,
institutions.
we may hope
our atten-
and the
With the knowledge gained
and
discoveries,
human
development. [1963:4]
If
my
object
were merely
to insist
anew on
the authenticity
would be enough
to perceive in this
and
from Morgan,
similar passages
it,
light
are as
first
place,
was
to counterpose
items,
were visualized
institutional
developments that
own day,
savagery. What is
institutions of his
stage of
of thought succinctly
expression, "levels
as
summarized
is
the world
of sociocultural complexity" a
framework
of functionally interconnected institutions forming the structural core of a distinctive set of social systems.
assume that
it
character.
increments of change as a continuously adaptive process moving through time, he was content to chart the fortuitous pres-
demarcated
much thought
between them or to
the interplay of factors propelling the change. And, even where
innovations of a societal rather than a technical character were
either to the character of the transitions
this
as the
it is
appearance of a
new and
at-
noteworthy that
new
pro-
strati-
idea or
feature.
merely a difference
advance beyond
recognizable
what he seems
of successive stages in
traits
have regarded
ward
in
his
as a
to civilization.
to
The more
recent view
is
one
that, instead,
fact, for
purposes of systematically
parallel
one.
(or,
at least,
much
of,
Urban Revolution
writing, the
employment
of the
The Evolution
knowledgment
Urban Society
of
still
to
lutionary parallelisms.
in
After
all,
expanded
is
to
by new
levels
become
modern
biology, so
we
its
prototype. Just as
growth
in the
is
operationally very
of evolutionary
advance
There
is
in evolutionary biology,
evolution,
in the
on the
other.
recognition of the population as the unit within which adaptation takes place
The
genetic constitution,
human
its
societies rather
human
behavior
is
mediated by the
"
more
although
also,
remains
this
encourage
There
entities
is
variability
no need
with which
on
to dwell at length
this
definitions of the
and
am more
may
fuller
as basic features of
case
in
any
this process
and that
it
it
suggests at least
urban locus
specifies a restricted,
Yet
it
distortions
of the
word
it.
The
were over-
issue
is
case,
unsettled.
however,
Any
implica-
is
certainly
much
less
to the development of
state,
and even
than
this
theme.
The Evolution
10
and the
social stratification
of
Urban Society
thority.
Still
term
a further possible
may
drawback
is
is
at best a
more than
and yet
trivial,
it
attention toward misleading analogies with other cultural settings sharing only
clusters rather than
phenomena
phatically
in
is
they seem
first
to
by which,
at least in
first
as
steps in
cities
but
some cases,
will become
urban growth
closely.
outweigh
its
it
specialization;
or perhaps
One
bag of
ties;
territorial principles,
of naturalistic
Some,
like
is
that
it
monumental
gives us a
mixed
architecture, can
11
known
to
peoples.
civilized
have been associated occasionally with nonOthers, like exact and predictive sciences,
And
others,
still
if
is
at
not most
in kind to
in degree.
More-
over,
in their
it
human
its
initial
appearance, insofar
at least not
is
immediately apparent.
A more
ticism
is
as
that
to
its
eclec-
purpose.
by
whose
a series of traits
in
initial
delineation of a succession of
shifted
we
enter an era
how
conveniently
From
it
clearly
was
Childe's
The Evolution
12
of
Urban Society
new
of technology
he argued,
were the central causative agencies underlying the Urban
Revolution.
This study
is
somewhat
differently
in part,
such an approach
is
oriented;
it
tends to
more
easily to the
construction of a brief paradigm than do the tool types or pottery styles with
I also
traditionally works.
But
Urban Revolu-
apart from
its
cultural
and ecological
context,
it
seems to have
word
it
is
religion, rather
"civilization" in this
discussion.
It
refers inclusively to
paradigmatic
its
most
dis-
tinguished exponent:
To
when
ments of the
segregated.
segments of the
off
To
totality of
human
history
when
are
viewed less
the more en-
this is
for
13
by technology; most
less
by speech,
partly
of
all,
government,
religion,
To be
sure,
Kroeber goes on
structure possessed
by
civilizations invite a
form and
comparative mor-
phology." But, in practice, the forms upon which he concentrates are indefinitely inclusive
and
This
is
and
degrees of complexity. As
from
societies of lesser
and internal
greater scale
civilizations are
and
this
it
is
dif-
entirely
term even
if
the
and "barbarism,"
will
seem
to
The
other advantages
when
term
the objective
is
still
tion of
and
"civilization" confers
little civilization al
distinction
traditions as posited
between great
by Robert Redfield
of interaction
between
little
limited in scope,
more variable
would only
more
insist that it
may
has
to
do with
The Evolution
14
of
Urban Society
society.
its
value
The term
more
is
cussion in that
it
"state"
is
all
may
reasonably be
even primitive
states
and
tended
itself,
emerged at varying
Urban Revolution. While our
often rendered dubious and never pre-
recognition of
cise
them
by the nature
is
a new, qualitatively
extensive,
mode
of
social integration.
References
made
Urban Revo-
The
(1955:94).
for
common
I
to the
would agree
and even
determined to
fall
religious patterns
may be em-
(p.
change "the
15
extracultural factor
mediated them,
it
more
directly conditioned
by
their
whether
his
view
effective locus of
than within
change
The
it.
we
is
is
to
effect of
may be
pointed out,
is
to en-
emergence of the
among
No
matter
how
is
one that
is
between a cultural
operationally imposed
and archeology.
It is
quence.
It
se-
we
Urban Revolution. As such, it concentrates on the cluster of institutions whose development characterizes the full achievement of the Urban Revolution. It emphasizes those features
The Evolution
16
of
Urban Society
of the concept of
at
least,
other that
justifies
is
no
what constitute the significant trends, instituand events from the point of view of understanding
ess of selection of
tions,
change.
employment
in the
of
the concept of a culture core as an analytic device. Almost certainly the core trends
we
Urban Revolution
re-
we
Urban
have done,
we must
is
immanent.
The concept
and
hence perhaps more dangerous, connotations of interdependency and compactness. These connotations
may
create no dis-
which the
web
of classical functional-
complex
is
reality. But,
accompanied
the
system."
institutionalized
To
Ifenee
less
the
17
functionalist
Urban
employment
relevant as the
organs
proceeded
continuous,
in
of
autonomous
political
interdependency
intimate
At
93)
insists,
seem
have been,
to
as Eisenstadt (1963:
vari-
ables."
web
itself.
To
rate
and duration
we
visualize
it
abrupt or rapid rapid in absolute terms and not merely in relation to the long antecedent period of sedentary village farming,
at
possibility that
it
portance.
To
many
new
had
internally
assumes
less
im-
whole can be
levels of sociocul-
"ramp" that
is
implied
if
J.
Braidwood and Gordon R. Willey (1962:351) espean apparent difference between the course
cially to characterize
of
development
The metaphor
in
of the
ramp
it
respectively.
suggests a smooth
direction
was somehow
fixed
all
aspects of the
The Evolution
18
leading to
is
of
Urban Society
all
we
can infer
all
which there
is
tion or complexity. It
would
somehow were
differentia-
all
change
and
and ethnohistorical records can tell us only
about minor cyclical fluctuations superimposed on sociocultural
fixed inconveniently far
back
in prehistory
My own
bias
is
this discussion.
come
Urban Revolution
and the
it
The advanforces us to
an intelligible
as
on the ramp
it
as
se-
an almost
ramp metaphor
brings
may compel
abandon
all
us
to
do so
as
self-defeating.
Just as
we may
purposes a strategic
and a temporal
only
in
relation
to
its
hinterland,
in
spite
of
how
sometimes
and
as
be.
hinterland rarely
its
if
networks
and
composed
entities.
is
symbiotic
of
(Palerm
region
As the use
Sanders 1956:115).
1957:29;
of
many such
description of such
surrounding
its
19
of
this
like
key area
and
Wolf
concept to
the Valley of
sidered
isolation
often
highly variable
ciple,
in
There
is
practice
a
surroundings.
point
this
often
While obvious
tends
in
prin-
be overlooked.
to
archeologists to
in
as
clusively sedentary
way
of
life.
On
this
implying an ex-
as
basis,
the symbiotic
have been
will
vital,
some
may have
that,
least
earliest
may
Urban Revolution.
in
It
Mesopotamia, no-
Urban Revolution
into
at
ignore what
we would
be argued presently
cases
the considerable
tion for
number
of
The Evolution
20
of
of
Urban Society
tations of
opposite
my own
is
my own
at least, the
is,
dependently occurring
it is
all
Old World
at least a
by
problem
nated by including a
New World
civilizations
matter of continuing
may
significantly influenced
World
is
it
is
at least
held to a minimum.
Julian Steward, to be sure, has rightly insisted that even
may
fairly ask
it is
how
tive state
its
significant effect
is
problem
is
on
for
it
21
between
tion
"pristine"
and "secondary"
states,
arguing that
all
tend to agree
and Peru)
ica,
is
terest
is
again
it
from the
(or,
we may
hope, cases),
New
to contrast
it
with one
World.
if
we
its
fewer and
less serious
it
or,
offers rela-
with Egypt, the Indus Valley, and China, a more ample, diversified,
is
available of the
of sociocultural
complexity.
from
and
largely to graves,
patterns of social
levels of settlements in
The Evolution
22
of
Urban Society
remain
still
as poorly
known
as
be well represented
in excavations
still
ences from civilization farther west, the problem of the incompleteness of the archeological record during the course of the
Urban Revolution
is
equally acute.
if
we
many problems
Sumerian cuneiform
understanding
is
texts, at
number
By
as kings
contrast,
from tombs.
With
respect to a
few aspects
members
of
much more
fully than
do
their
Mesopotamian counterparts.
which both the mass of Mesoand the relatively wide extent of Early Dynastic Mesopotamian excavations in settlement debris are pertinent,
nothing is possible in Egypt that approaches the breadth and
depth of reconstruction of functioning Mesopotamian political,
aspects of economic behavior for
potamian
social,
texts
and economic
possible.
is
23
that
was
of
and
characteristic
yet available,
is
it is still
its
relatively late
may be
and
untranslated.
any observed
similarities
reflect
For the
logical
New
work
in
more simply stated. ArcheoMesoamerica has been much more extensive and
World, the case
is
much
fuller
strati-
knowl-
Andean
area.
large
historical material
is
An
logical
additional
knowledge
drawback
is
much
overwhelmed, destroyed
to the
fuller
as
Andean area
from coastal
independent
is
areas,
that archeo-
which were
political entities,
and
On
is
extremely
their origins
by the
whose
prehistoric sequence
is
best
The Evolution
24
known
of
Urban Society
and
culturally
is
from
described in
Egyptian
ity as
civilization
is
Old World of
in the
tions,
scale
as a whole.
is
termination of
many
of
its
Mexican influence on
The
disruption
and
later
900
a.d.
),
tinued only in previously marginal regions like northern Yucatan, create special
of possible parallelisms.
The most
Mesopotamia
as a civilizational nucleus is central Mexico. Although in large
part a rugged highland region that is strikingly different from
the alluvial plains adjoining the lower Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers, the
closely
comparable
in terms of
pop-
and urban-
CENTRAL MEXICO
B.C.
Dynasty
of
2300-
Agade
21
CONQUEST
AD.
-1500
STATES
2500-
-1300
Aztec
MILITARISTIC
Early
Dynastic
POLITIES
2700-
-1100
2900-
-900
n
Coyotlatelco
3100c
-700
Metepec
THEOCRATIC
POLITIES
Protoliterate
Xolalpan
3300-
-500
3500-
-300
Tlamimilolpa
a
Miccaotli
_Warka
3700-
-100
Tzacualli
Late
A.D.
Ubaid
Patlachique
~B.C.
3900-
-100
Cuicuilco
Figure
1.
when
and
core of the Aztec realm at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards,
it
Mesoamerican adversaries.
chronological framework for the comparison of Mesopo-
The Evolution
26
examples of the
fied these
which
is
of
Urban Society
outlined in Figure
it
we must
Having
speci-
the ones
upon
1.
more
consider
It is
fully
hardly
necessary to discuss the potentialities and limitations of archeological data in abstract terms for dealing with historical or sociological problems; surely they are
some
are
documenta-
tion,
differentiated
is
regularities, a
return repeatedly:
ities
or differences
to
which we
shall
them have
followed?
One
in
is,
of a sedentary, agricultural
scale,
way
and expansion
relatively undifferentiated
settlements.
First
archeological.
Particularly in
and most
is
almost
Mesopotamia, most
sites,
limiting
is
An
life.
standards.
As a
result,
the
to the onset of
hypothetical. Re-
of
individual
based
settlements
on
this
more
or ethnographic sources,
stems from so
much
is
later a
serious
27
large-scale
still
virtually
that non-archeologi-
is
documentary, ethnohistorical,
time that
its
applicability
is
it
highly
questionable.
An
marked
limitations or biases.
example,
is
artif actual
materials
word
"artifactual"
is
whole, published illustrations and discussion of wastes of manufacture (e.g., chipping debris), non-artifactual traces of subsistence patterns,
is
given to
which
and impression-
istically defined.
From
dominant socioeconomic
institutions
fact, interpretive
recon-
The Evolution
28
upon the
implicit
of
Urban Society
the
(e.g.,
cheological techniques of analysis permit under optimal circumstances, of course, chronological controls of the order of
work
is
two
or
seldom
Under such
in interpretation
As a
result,
and long-lived
sites,
is
behavior art
as
For
all
than to those
differentiation
and
itself,
disjunctive than
There
is
tends to be interpreted as
was
Urban
more abrupt and
as well as the
host of problems concerned with the representativeness of archeological samples that, at least
it
is
29
less
activities associated
it is
equally clear
pay them
Urban Revolution
work on monumental
itself.
The problem
struc-
of properly balancing
it
might be pointed
out,
is
New
museums
arise
to
fill.
crafts appeared,
each with
its
ingly
own
social
increas-
traditions, ex-
from the incomplete and badly preserved record. With increasing social stratification, too, the problem arises whether an
tomb
individual house or
is
we assume
ture as
is
hope
expanded number
more or
less
Finally,
urban
an unprecedented
raw ma-
in seeking to evaluate
The
notorious
its
all
civilizations
characteristically
is
con-
The Evolution
30
in the
cialists to
sarily
work
of
Urban Society
As the
specialists.
force
falls,
ratio of spe-
there
is
neces-
criteria, in
monumental
elitist
is
an
and
political
in-
cul-
repositories.
some increase
met with
is
but otherwise
is
only
Were we
study of early
cities,
we would have
to
whose cumulative
cumulative sequences
change are
to
reconstruct
is
fails
also
art.
The
more uniform
may be
considered
latter is
Whether
and
style in
much
in its effects
first.
because of two
and the advent of rep-
to materialize
resentational
of
difficult to
new
effects
upon
and hence
it
its
interpretation
it
it
a genesis in
myth and
ritual rather
human
protagonists,
it
than
much
of
reinforces
monies.
To be
sure,
secondary inferences
may
permit an enhanced
may
suggest the
as-
and other
details of portraiture
may
is
lems of distortion
on myth and
in the
31
prob-
tends
It
to deal
it
and economic
litical
most
sectors,
primary contribution
their
institutional patterns
is
but to the
fuller
understanding of the
What
its
effects
embody
texts
a still-primitive
on the basis of
later
not possible.
sense
is
form
script
it
full
in the cunei-
emerges by
about the middle of the third millennium as a versatile and reasonably unambiguous writing system, however incomplete and
imperfect present understandings of
was
is
it still
may
put.
By soon
after the
which,
if
numbers
transactions, but
lists,
Hence there
uses to which it
be.
now
it still
By
The Evolution
32
Urban Society
of
social stratification)
(e.g.,
in-
ferred from texts that take the societal context completely for
it
possible;
documents
reveal,
forever lost
if
even
we had
if
less
first
activities
they
is
cities.
and tends
tered
to
sites,
be limited
is
direct comparisons
strictly local or
There
always fragmentary
been of
is
may have
temporary application.
fail to
it
all in
ac-
provide a balactivities of
in rela-
persons
is
extremely
difficult or impossible.
is
Further to obscure
no necessary relationship
between the
which
felt
has
it
was
come
to
and
thriv-
all
33
ment
of grain
absence. 3
What we
have, in short,
is
we must
it
is
social setting to
which that
have
selection
were not
sufficiently
acter
is
different.
The
Thus
earliest sub-
Maya
although the
is
amount
way
"Classic"
aspects
ritual char-
at best a
Pending decipherment,
is
mainly
basis
in
by
was made.
earlier
left
as well as
Meso-
known
merely
three
Maya
it,
and
codices
known
to
Of the four
reli-
large Aztec
and
only one of the former and none of the latter treats historical
events.
lost, in
What
is
left
3. I
the
am
While
summary
may abound
impression
is
internal
of a richness
and variety
far
The Evolution
34
of
Urban Society
Diaz or of Cortes
Mexican
mode
itself,
state
we
but also
much
of
its
Through sixteenth-century Spanish eyes not the eyes of moderns, to be sure, but far closer to our own time and point of view
than anyone who ever reported on the city-states of early Meso-
potamiawe
complementary
and
beliefs
The
compiled by
com-
mem-
work of Sahagun,
documented detail
social strata and spe-
great
the day-to-day
life
of a
wide variety
of
form
it
in the entire
is
is
almost
absolutely
body
of cunei-
literature.
critically
or
disinter-
by native authors after the Conquest. In these conventionalized and often contradictory accounts of dynastic succession and tribal wanderings the student of Mesopotamian society
would find himself on more familiar ground. Particularly for
estedly,
from history
city-states.
dynastic
There
lists
is
the
same problem
of separating
myth
Sumerian
for separate
common
intelligible
limitation within
which the historian must work in both Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica is the narrowness and somewhat arbitrary quality of
35
is
tan-
is
of Teotihuacan
altogether prehistoric.
of the
intelligibility
is
Protoliterate
tablets
relatively similar.
it
upon an
from
its
in-
effects in
differ sharply
potamia.
On
Mesoamerica than
for
we
are incomparably
economic relationships,
we
america.
Thus
it
Urban
"contextual"
"textual" one,
the especially
full
owes something
much
been
it
which
to assess
coming
to
be dominated by new
institutional patterns.
Hence
The Evolution
36
of
Urban Society
and
society as primitive
tribal or
Morgan and
solved today.
Was
a
still
em-
description
is
correct, but
how
extensive
may be
ambiguity that
short
Partly, of course,
it
reflects the
arises
any
a period. In
much
we must depend
it is
At
least
cuneiform texts
(e.g.,
between the
those in
in-
much
better
in
centuries.
37
Here
far
back
in
The
means
archeological
alone.
shift
Urban Revolution
at
to
be faced.
New World
documentary sources
and overcome
if
more than
The broad
Urban Revolution in a number
of historically independent areas, and in the organization of
the primitive states that were its culminating products, simply
demand recognition and study as essentially parallel examples
pology
is
tionary framework.
it,
what
is
necessary
is
that "com-
phenomena
as well as in
is
to
similarities,
to
duplicated inde-
1955:180).
n
SUBSISTENCE AND
SETTLEMENT
IT IS
is
CIVILIZED SOCIETIES
sufficiently intensive
DEPEND UPON
and
reliable to
has
implied agriculture.
may have
oc-
has argued that the evidence for either plant or animal domesticates in Palestine
at best highly
millennium
ambiguous
B.C., in spite
had become
of the
a small
barley, sheep,
more
stable
realized.
as
subsistence resource
barley,
much
still
possible
on unpro-
38
39
harvest of wild grain could even have been the basic subsistence
resource, at least within the relatively limited (and not identi-
where conditions
for
were favorable.
But the important point
were
transitory
lized,
urban
societies.
lithic" Jericho
is
The
was followed
life,
its
in that area
when
it
civi-
by "neo-
by widespread aban-
first
The domestication
of cereals
and
to available land.
also
it
expanded following
of milk
their domestication,
an assured supply
to overlap the
expanding ranges
of agriculture.
It
was upon
this basis,
its
New World
The
became
suffi-
middle of the
first
millennium
B.C.,
back into
at least the
seventh mil-
lennium.
out-
The Evolution
40
side
Peru contributed
of
Urban Society
to this retardation
by
failing to provide
in the
young children
in the
It
New World
are of
little
between the
What
tialities.
now seems
it
was
constituted.
For
these,
from the
As
latter.
Pleis-
of agriculture at
first
was only
terns took
many
new
task of
not to
and
weirs,
their associated
equipment
much
apparent thai
ive"
for
of
successful
agriculture,
sowing or breeding
boats, nets,
es, su< h as
shoreline environments.
which even
in
thai
is
terms
intentional
It
"preadapt-
is
cultural
plants and
of
bulk,
in
technological advance
tin's
for food
41
it
has
food production
is
artificial:
that he
(i)
moved
it
is
to niches to
not that
which
it
selected
characters
for
not
undei
beneficial
conditions
of
natural
[Flannery 1965:1251],
selection
In short, the
not an "event,*
in
that
it
developed gradually
15
or
"process
and
by small steps
sequences according
the
to
differing local
What were
a mode-
of
which seem
tivities,
quences
of
manifestations,
the
Urban
conse-
and
Mesoarnerica.
Increased yields,
is
that
its
all
its
whose
those
in
Mesopotamia
have already
partly different
regime
to
to
at least
in
of
common
tural
very general
effects
in
to
We may
Revolution?
of
of
demands upon
of virtually
every agricul-
ous through the year and. moreover, are generally phased fairly
The Evolution
42
of
Urban Society
its
most hunting-eolleeting
societies
can achieve
control
aggregate of
and manipulation
and
of labor as a
form of
nually required labor ranges from 143 to 161 man-days at Tepoztlan, including time required for fencing against cattle (not
a prehispanic problem)
available for sale. In
days of agricultural labor per family unit per year under the
methods of
traditional
cultivation,
ence requirements of the producing family of peasants seemingly needing only half or less of this time investment. In both
cases, to
be
sure,
it
men
in the fields
and
in
crop transport.
To
consuming
As
not so
at least in
fall
to
women.
much
collecting
is
under ideal
local conditions as
it is
in the aggregate
number
stantial
certain
for
43
techniques as weeding, clearing, seeding, and irrigation, an extension that permits immensely larger population aggregates
Of
in suitable areas.
whether great
size
course,
it
and density of
rural population
were a pre-
local conditions
and type
to
of agriculture.
in
Under the
traditional
the
In
highlands,
the
maintenance
of
permanent
per family.
more
Where
radically
rainfall
and
year and to
there
is
reduced to
irrigation permit
less
much
less
two crops
to
be harvested per
sive conditions of
Valley of
is little
intensive,
in fallow.
Even on
one
this basis,
however,
median holding
Presumably minimal
district the
less
than this
figure.
The Evolution
44
Urban Society
of
Data on
this subject
studies that
and that
is
we
a strong inducement to at
is
Perhaps as important as
tools
and specialized
gender social
shift
its
skills,
stability,
effect
residential stability
may
also en-
in
which
fissionary
tendencies dominate to larger, more open-ended systems tending toward local continuity and endogamy.
More
the case
among
hunter-gathers.
pansion of
it,
the
in a given region
pressure
upon
number and
size of agricultural
communities
The foregoing
creases that are
is
due
level
was
is
Urban Revolution.
Particularly
in
of effective food
may be noted
it
is
reaching
after
45
some undefined
threshold.
demographic changes
in relation
to the
in-
it
must
timing of
Urban Revolution
in
in the
extreme.
insofar as they
of agricultural "surpluses"
Urban
among hunters
and
collectors,
be induced or compelled
more than
environment by
little
a truism.
a
to provide a surplus
is
of a given
is,
to
maximize
level consistent
their production
above subsistence
new
patterns of ap-
never
for
dealing
thought
so.
with
these
issues
directly,
appears
to
have
persuasively to the contrary (1957), noting that actual agricultural surpluses are always defined
institutional setting
collective
and that
it
is
and mobilized
in a particular
urban storehouses.
The Evolution
46
useful
and somewhat
of
Urban Society
different
surpluses has
What
Briefly,
it is
he
applied at
really matters,
he
is
is
is
amount
the gross
lem
chain of processes
is
it
calls attention to
by improvements
is
at least
in technological-transport facilities
all
(e.g.,
cating
it.
urban or otherwise.
It
was
groups of
new
all,
that
classes
its
and
the
may
Urban Revolution
as
47
merely as expressions
hiii
outcome
the
of
Urban Revolution
the
oi
new forms
control,
ritorial
ol
and
ol
technological
much
on
the-
to a
component
however
in
Extensions of
all
improvements
as
in
im-
ol
the
it
an
ter-
superordination, and a
advances
it.
effect.
of political
multiplicity
effect
oi
change
oi
e;uise
are central to
of
re-
interdependence
of
and technological
institutions,
may
it
of
Urban Revolution. At
of the
Mesopotamia, rationalization
of
least
production
in
Urban Revolution
as a
whole only
it.
in
In reality,
may
in-
stitutions
intertwined to form
The composite
its
substance.
is
somewhat
less easily
defined
be functionally related
Phrased
cases in
differently,
which
sustaining.
of the
their
While
there
were
significant
component producing
specific
most characteristic
Urban Revolution.
respects
units
in
were not
both
self-
in
emergent
states in
units of production.
The Evolution
48
This point
may be more
Urban Society
of
fully explained
by considering each
of
it.
Wheat and
barley cultivation
perhaps
is
the best known, with the prevailing emphasis on the latter be-
form of
basis,
field cultivation
takes the
It
by the
confined
favorable
to
watercourses.
low-lying
third adaptation
is
adjoining permanent
areas
and
economic
activity
is
of the 1,200 or so
Mesopotamian
is
few
and
diet; its
importance as an
members
of the
Bau community
in Early
The important
that they
and
sailors.
were pursued by
is
specialists in
example,
we
Shuruppak that
and accounted
for.
As many
as 9,660
and the
to
49
officials.
officials
Significantly,
signs
temple accounts, so
this centralization
texts representing
as old as
is
our earliest
written evidence.
With respect
to herding, the
was
in-
much
of the early
Bau
texts
from Early
summer
tralized
management, particularly
in
nomads occupying
the region
fields.
more
it
example, that the great early centers of the cult of the shepherd
god, Dumuzi, lay in cities bordering the Sumerian edin or
pasturing ground.
Similarly in the case of the fishermen, the central institutions
of the emergent
Sumerian
city-states
The Evolution
50
of
Urban Society
The
patterns.
many
ex-
of the
been taken
ings" at
made
all,
to the
it
levels at
made
avail-
still
more
ence products
Akkadian
tions to
direct
is
attested
texts. It
of subsist-
institutions.
The com-
been adumbrated by
and
have
I. J.
made allowance
among the
for the
conditions as well as
upon degrees
at
were annua!
festivals
fruits,
fish,
rations of
Oil
and wool,
51
as well as
occasions, of
tion of
is
available), the
model
that Polanyi
and
his collaborators
have
data that the actual flow of goods and services was large in
relation to the total available supply of such goods
Surely
we
see here, as
was adumbrated
earlier,
and
services.
not merely a
pendence of
lution
its
itself.
above
all,
rainfall, in soils,
tivable crops
complex of
and,
cul-
in luxuries
vir-
in diets generally
The Evolution
52
tions,
of
Urban Society
central valley of
if
of interregional
not earlier.
Salt,
obtained
sistence zone
specialization.
potamia
in its
Mesopotamia,
The pattern
it
it
has been
as a
is
the most advanced and characteristic institutions of Mesoamerican society were centrally involved, and
and interchanges
Meso-
potamia distances were small, geographical barriers were unimportant, and interaction between those engaged in different
was
close,
53
was
said to
urban
is
elites lay in
Hence
it
much
barter
is
by
sub-
all
millennium
a.d. at
By
as early as the
middle of the
first
similarity
known among
is
whose
little
least
it
But
in
is
upon
perhaps a misleading
labor-intensive tech-
amount
discerned on an extremely limited scale in the chinampa horticulture practiced in the Valley of Mexico, but there
is
no
evi-
The Evolution
54
dence that
Urban Society
Mexican or Mesopotamian
central
it
of
better
way
agriculture.
they
of land tenure
stratifi-
serve
Given inadequacies
water supply
in
from year-to-year
fluctuations, or
in relation to
resources of the
to concentrate the
may be reckoned
They
Such, at
the
in
same
in
emergence of a
is
and hence
also the
class society
least, is
some
cultivation
in
Madagascar
Edmund Leach
reports that such effects can be held in check for long periods
upon periodic
(1961).
fractionation
redistribution
of
holdings
alternatives,
our
question becomes:
early
and
effects
55
somehow held
in
it,
however,
we
stratification
is
its
usufruct.
But
has
it
fields,
or to
show how
we
can
fall
back on
at present are
some
indirect
all
that
and rather
doubtful hints.
First,
exceedingly
Western
low only
sixth
or
seventh
of
contemporary
practice,
temporary practice
in the
same
area. This
low seeding
rate,
cultivation.
there
low seeding
rate
is
ecologically advantageous
(it
provides a
as
well
as
number
component
is
fact that
differentiated into a
The Evolution
56
of
Urban Society
six
times
the
like.
is
less
it
over a
than even a
to confirm the
in re-
may mean
little,
since
it is
not
known what
proportion of which
more favorably
growing holdings
in the
is
entirely pos-
hands of
elites; if so,
Somewhat
surprisingly, in
view of the
critical
scarcity of
wide variations
tendency to
in flow of the
is
and the
also a
difficulties of
measuring
water
rights,
And,
at all the
water
The
omy
nificant scale of
development on a
sig-
marked trend
situated tracts.
On
57
it
even on favorably
more
restricted one,
and no mechanisms
their survival
by reducing
this
miscellany of observations
is
that
is little
or
no evidence of intracommunity
from ancient
texts
hanced by
locally
were increasingly
Of
in sub-
may have
be shown
directly
how much
wide variations
it
of that variation
simply cannot
was an outcome
Even
if
is still
lacking,
in-
were
at least partly
2.
On
what
later
It
(Ur
III)
texts
someboundaries between
of fields recorded in
The Evolution
58
Urban Society
of
is
maintained within
at best
an unstable eco-system.
salinity
blights
and
silting,
increasing
nomads and
settled
by
between
human
sidered in relation to
in
still
and
agricultural surpluses
chronic.
While these processes are perhaps most obvious among culFrederik Barth's work on the nomadic Basseri of south-
tivators,
among
an
isolate
but
life is
is
not to be understood as
a continuing dependence
of cultivation.
One form
of this de-
is
is
settlements. In part
it
nomadic population whose herds for one reason or another fall below the minimal level necessary to maintain extended family groups. Such groups have no recourse but to
of the
ratio of animals to
59
reflected in tendencies
in landholdings.
were
growth of
testifies,
The network
of
they attest
is
much
not so
what
and
bitter
gles
intercommunity struggles. In most cases such strugtheir origins in subsistence practices or re-
and downstream
adjacent lands, or
the characteristically divergent local patterns of substantial surplus and impoverishment. But they clearly are to be understood
in a regional rather than
ever their
tions
of land, population,
political
and economic
externally
factors
imposed patterns of
were
closely
which
intertwined. Thus
in
political
complementing
its
emergence
as
a result of ecological
There
is
fully stable
committed urban
elite
was
extraordinarily thin,
whom
settled
The Evolution
60
of
Urban Society
city life
able alternatives.
is
no reason
to
doubt that
his
account
is
equally applicable
The palace, of course, the temple, and the hard core of citydwellers in the large and old cities had only occasional contacts
with the people in the open country, who subsisted on the yield
and were not to be forced into sedentary conBetween these two groups there were important fluctuations
of this environment
ditions.
fectors
way
of life
by the
deteri-
because they had rebelled against taxes and rents. The number of
was increased by infiltrating groups from the mountains and
these
and
and even that over the entire country, into the hands
of outsiders or newcomers. Whenever linguistic differences appear
between the city and such power groups in the rebellious hinterlands, or more exactly, between the dialect used to write official
documents in the city and that actually spoken by the group in
command, we have the impression of sudden foreign invasions,
bringing kings bearing foreign names to the throne. Such dramatic
changes need not have been the result, necessarily, of foreign
invasion but could have been brought about by a rather slow economic and political process of increasing social unrest which would
not be reflected in extant documents. The most effective remedy
against these potentially dangerous elements were projects of internal
and frontier colonization which only a powerful king could set afoot.
over the
The
city,
and
the
till
irrigation system,
soil,
pay
taxes,
do corvee work
61
maintain the
to
[1964:82-83].
to
urban centers
at their
fall of cities
limited
of
nomads and
their necessarily
this
analogy
is
to,
The
Arab
attributions of
destructiveness to their
Mongol
and
in-
culti-
religious influences
slight environ-
mental
settlement.
of territorial expansion
is
settle-
The Evolution
62
of
Urban Society
hot steppe and the mesothermal savannah belt. With the internal collapse of Toltec political control, with the
or
abandonment
weakening
environmental deterioration as an additional cause of movement, most of these marginal groups would have had
little
choice but to drift southward into the heart of the former Toltec
realm, where they
to the
a formidable threat
among the major centers was involved, remains an open question. The Chichimecs of Xolotl (who clearly were not nomadic
food-gatherers but a people long experienced with agriculture),
after
all,
overgrown with
grass,
and
totally
its
streets
18).
between the
settled political
cultural outliers,
collectors,
Angel Palerm
active acculturation:
in the
of the
is
end
to
merge
exemplified by
63
in prehispanic central
Mexico.
It
divisions.
How
are
we
elite
differ-
more
skilled in the sedentary arts of construction and craftsmanship? Or the curious amalgam of supposed geographic derivations and separate customs characterizing the groups of
specialized craftsmen
who were
development
we
cities, to
its
immediately dependent
The problem
sistence patterns
of the relationship
social differentiation
still
and important differences between central Mexico and Mesopotamia with respect to systems of cultivation and tenure. While
the lands of Aztec commoners ( macehuales ) were held by corporate kin groups (calpullis) and were inalienable, with hereditable usufruct rights depending on continued cultivation,
Leaving for a
later
more
statuses of
sufficient
The Evolution
64
of
Urban Society
few
on
details
of.
who
what
that land
is
as spoils of
who
in warfare.
The bulk
conquest.
landownership "from
accompanying military
its
livelihood
to a lord's land
sale of land
and
to his service.
would appear
to
be
had accumulated
tailed fields
unprecedented process of
in the
territorial expansion.
in
an
Indeed, Jacques
was
To be
still
sure,
we must
coming
bear in mind
Given
this
may assume
case.
But
it
must
still
mains uncertain.
Generally,
lands
(i.e.,
office) lay,
it is
how
more
be particularly important
ico,
as the
65
but apparently
it is
lakes in
(lie
Valley of Mex-
"Maguey Map,"
While
houseplots,
maps on which
were painted
different types
in contrasting colors,
and
late
to
initial
is
admittedly inconclusive,
Mesopotamia and
if
partial,
contrast
there
between
we have
seen
selling not
ducers,
"at least
Lagash
at
institutions of sale
bulk of
The Evolution
66
of
Urban Society
have been
to
and
tribute.
Of
course,
this is
different ones.
seem
in
fundamental respects
...
and
for
and
services,
both as symbols
of authority
human
.
labor.
land
is
technology
are relatively
therefore controlled
who
wishes to
this
number
There
tive
is
subsistence resources
in
may have
initiated
growth of the
state.
political procI
refer to Karl
(1957). Wittfogel
commonly
asso-
institutional features
ment
different
67
to
elites
dominant
of the government,
of pri-
nomic
initiative
after
societies,
an
initial
and
nical
lution.
social
One
which we
deal,
Mesopotamia,
than concentrated.
am
may be
it
it
number
management
in the
growth of governmental
what
is
useful
Maya
overdrawn and
is
and reduction
in scope.
But
questions
and
it
central Mexico,
which WittfogeFs
we
manageassumed respon-
of irrigation
Who
The Evolution
68
closely
canal
for
sibility
of
construction
Urban Society
and
works
irrigation
in the
main tended
to follow bifurcating
which involved
little
was conducted on a
artificial.
and
To judge from
water was
slightly
in the
hands
for the
of
to
to
and
rather
officials
small-scale basis,
temple
irri-
of
in
ments in relation
of the
to
stems
unfortunately
authority
in
southern
(Adams 1960b:281).
Our knowledge
dynastic
di-
nothing
is
their
almost
agricultural
entirely
from the
hinterlands
and
central
Sumerian
is
very
much
city-states in the
later
much
denser
more
intensive recon-
The main towns ... do not form the hubs of radiating canal
networks along which the subsidiary villages are strung.
The
.
still
comparatively small,
population could have been met with flood irrigation based on tern-
69
of
Mesopotamian conditions,
kind of irrigation
it
As
ments
Mesopotamia
in
(Fig. 2)
map
by
them,
this
system
Much
is
in-
characterized
cities,
was permanently
The area
was small in
and
to the
a.d.
tively low.
There
is
cities, like
up within
their walls
tivated
gardens.
hectares,
built
A maximum
urban
concentration
of
fifty
densities
in
the
same
Figure
2.
Adams
area,
a handful of
approached even
millennium
sons
B.C.
71
of
first
population
is
As
to
within the central part of the Aztec realm at the time of the
rolls in
the light of
levels
modern
tants;
3.
Rural densities
proposed for
360,000 persons
is
Some
clearly
of the
debatable,
evidence by R.
J.
of
the
Old World
Mesopotamia
but with preindustrial societies generally. Quite possibly Mexico attained population levels substantially higher than those
Urban Revolutions
But
it
is
dif-
Cook
ficult to
3.
works
Most
is
recently,
included therein.
full
bibliography of earlier
The Evolution
72
of
Urban Society
demographic pressure
in
terms
a major independent
as
war
scale
colonists
Mesoamerica than
american irrigation
summary
ever, a
is
more
difficult,
is
in
of particular interest.
At present, how-
new
An
is
to them, "coincide,
Our
vital,
is
with
its
tion through
its
encouragement of
differential yields. If
perhaps
2030'N
Figure
3.
largely
The Evolution
74
certainly
were present
Mesopotamia. But
of
Urban Society
Mexico
in central
new economic
just as
they were in
it is
from
its
encouragement of
tems.
And
Mesopotamia,
fails to
support him.
cluster."
Such
clusters
differ
from "local
irrigation" in that
and the
problem of allocating water can no longer be met within one community alone [Wolf and Palerm 1955:276].
In this case, as also in the case of the system of dikes and
aqueducts marveled
scale for
its
at
we may
in Tenochtitlan,
management
their
first
have had an
effect
arrival
sufficient
on the growth
known
to antedate
been undertaken
as state enterprises
by
and
intensify
political
may have
served further to
controls,
accordingly they
perhaps more
significant,
75
Rene
to indicate that
hitherto
except
itself,
first
millennium
a.d.,
What
is
less
its
dependence upon
irrigation that
have been
upon
the sub-
is
all
and
however,
The
some
no more than an
in
and
urban
relatively
modest
come
irrigation sys-
into being
and be
between
tion
villagers,
archies, after
all,
played.
Its
irriga-
complex system of
hier-
its first
at
still
lacking, but
it
may
The Evolution
76
be
Urban Society
of
ampa
district
silts
near Xochimilco.
It is
initial efforts
in the
main
and
scarce
erratic
and an absence
of superordinate po-
litical control.
been present
at
an even
time
earlier
is
would
insist that
It
would be
by preliminary
Tehuacan valley of
raised
southeastern Puebla.
may have
a foolhardy archeologist
no further surprises of
this
who
for us.
As
Mesoamerican
on the
role of irrigation
management
terrain
and the
summary statement
irrigation
that
was widely
political controls
but not
requiring them,
probability
less,
can
we
scattered,
it,
of the state.
growth of the
institu-
And
this
network will
The
less central to
77
end products
in
cities,
agglomeration of architectural components, secular and ceremonial, public and private, planned and unplanned. For central
more important
late prehispanic
towns
left
is
more than
offset
in surviving codices
by such
of the Conquista-
Cortes himself.
Although
less
Mesopotamia
relatively good.
is
We
we have
detailed
knowledge
if
of several palaces, of
can the
numerous
few
full
is
tion in relation to
we
But
as well.
we
on which
web
of day-to-day
of social
life.
and
their architectural
futile
Mesopotamia and
exercise. It would also
components
in
It is
the institutions of
78
The Evolution
of
Urban Society
The towns and cities that came into being in both areas
were no more than the gross outer manifestations of the totality
poses.
it
took place.
Mum-
Ill
were
class societies.
parative essay
structures
is
and
central task in a
com-
emergent
class
in the
brought about.
This
is
crete historical
from
Sir
state in
Henry Morgan
first
gave con-
his ideas
first,
the rise of
...
cities:
in the
ring embankments,
for the
first
time in
human
the existence of a stable and developed field agriculture, the possession of domestic animals in flocks and herds, of merchandise in
masses and of property in houses and lands. The city brought with
it
new demands
in the art of
line of antecedents of
both
The Evolution
80
Old and
New World
civilizations of
view
Urban Society
of
still
commands
respect.
Most students
would shift the emphasis from property as such, socially deand maintained rights to certain resources or commodities,
to the system of stratified social relations of which rights to
property were only an expression. Probably most would also
fined
tend to question Morgan's implicit assumption that the substitution of territorially defined communities for ethnically defined
ones was both a necessary and a sufficient cause for the growth
of the institution of private property. But there can
be
little
for one,
to the
still
forms
it
it
is
easier to
describe the latter than to trace the former. There are important
rules
of material.
For
earlier periods,
by
less
Accordingly,
for the present
it
is
contrast,
we
of archeology alone.
a necessarily brief
and somewhat
two areas
stratified social
groupings
AM) CLASS
KIN
added
virtue of
adumbrating some
the basi<
of
On
other.
this basis
late
we can
my
^]
similarities in
\kkadian Mesopotamia,
prehispanic central
Mexico, on the
processes
of
cautionary word
vital
growth, whir h
nec<
is
sary.
years
in
of
so-called
is
jt
at-
many
Tempelwirtschafi
was taken for granted on the basis of the pioneering but somewhat misconstrued and overgeneralized work of Father Anton
Deimel on archives from ancient Shurppak and Lagash (cf,
Schneider 1920; Deimel L931). Even without consideration
the massive philological problems confronting students
of
of
these
their representativeness
their interpretation.
disciplinary,
atic
by
historical
and
Provisionally,
der way,
literary texts,
umentary sources
we may
for the
of
of
is
cause
of
their
limited,
Terms
'father's
not.
un-
terminology (terms
now
restudies
irj
formal
for "cousin"
brother"
is
rec-
marriage pattern
largely administrative
subject
matter.
known
1.
time,
Ako
depth
of patrilateral parallel
cousin marriage
among
The Evolution
82
many groups
Suggest
(la(
il
is
of
pattern
<>l
Urban Society
immense
may
which already
Robert Murphy and Leonard Kasdurability,
still
are vertically
that
common
to
integrated
ancestors.
plausibility to a suggestion of
present systems.
of
still
remain
obscure.
Marriage,
clusively,
in
except
for the
royal court
monogamous. To judge
was reckoned
arc
clude individual
is
in that
in
in
the male
line.
which genealogies
memCases
also in-
traced. Moreover,
and on
and
ings.
ration
lists
as
in
their
offer-
on long-distance trade
tant
Dynastic Lagash.
To judge from
ration
lists,
in
late
Early
records of in-
family.
AND CLASS
KIN
83
and the
on the other, although they are only occasionally and ambiguously referred to in the specialized archives
must
rely. It is
upon which we
life
of
were
pri-
The latter bear comparison with guilds, in that their recruitment and internal structure must have followed kin lines;
moreover, they acted as corporate bodies in the fulfillment
of
certain
We
"external''
are
civic
responsibilities.
to explain satisfactorily a
first
of sale
number
who
has been
of enigmatic deeds
widely scattered
as
"owners" of a
"eaters")
But
localities,
of
its
field
or
at
least
as
recipients
(literally,
(this
of the
field,"
who
to
The Evolution
SI
of transfer
ritual
group as
"owners" are
house
of.
volved
example
while
characterized
Incidentally,
,"
From
the
as
the corporate
ol
revealing
"men
the numbers
transactions can
dales
that
Marad were
name
(he
in
one particularly
in
Further
."
these
in
carried out
"owners,"
the
is
Urban Society
Of
ease
by the
elected
of
of
the
individuals in-
two days
in
men
of
connection
little
were the
are
sellers.
The
known which
Fact
tural
who
groups
number
of texts
that a eonsiderable
Moreover, the documents Diakonoff has collected betray substantial differences in at least the
the "owners"
e>r
principal
representatives
and
their followers.
locally in
mode
clusive
of
returned to presently.
Among
estates in
which
their
on kin
differaffili-
lists
specifying the distribution of rations, the affiliation of individuals with these larger units
carefully specified.
The absence
85
of references to landholdings
or gods (lutitled
As early
agriculturists.
as the
we
Dynastic III)
hear of 539
dumu-dumu grouped
seven
in
2200
B.C.,
we
Lagash
calling
up
his
population behind the emblems of their im-ru-a to perform specialized services in connection with the rebuilding of the temple
of Ningirsu.
of lineage or clan
it is
modes
of
and pro-
all,
many
cases
where
Early Dynastic
city-states,
officials.
Now, while
there
is
no
by descent
was
internally sanctioned
must
officials, it
the muster-roll
clerks
to
ing these units but their specialized functions and their cohesiveness for military purposes.
of such evidence
The Evolution
86
means
of
Urban Society
virtually nothing. It
for
crews,
again,
ascriptively
as
"headmen." But,
defined
is
it
than
in-
ternally.
How
far are
we
system of kin
justified in reconstructing a
The
The
framework taking
generalized
is
to place
them
in a
more
framework
will involve interpretive errors but also taking for granted that
and
these terms,
it is
ency that
is
title
to agricultural lands.
They
labor called
up by the
of the army.
lineage groupings
vestigial
to
and probably
by
still
late
Early
both power-
them
is
fully
and
Turning
satisfactorily explained
which the
to central Mexico,
by the particular,
were recorded.
existing texts
we
in
their
and
essentially sim-
is
no
difficulty in establishing
activities of the
more
inclusive
remain
bilities for
in dispute
87
possi-
ish accounts
of the
whom
it
The
status of
women
apparently was in
were
still
many
others,
commuEven the
nities,
them
as "line-
erally
calpullis
were apportioned
The Evolution
88
of
Urban Society
both for the house plots of their members and for cultivation
by the individual
continued or families
officers of
the calpulli,
moved away,
who
either reassigned
them
new famcommon to
to
ilies
was not
lost their
ally
is
result.
The
sold
to them.
as
are occasional
Still,
and
clan, Eric
mon
which
their
and
power most unequally among the members of the pseudo-family.
Such kin units trace their descent back to an original ancestor, real
or fictitious; but, at the same time, they regularly favor his lineal
familial ties but
If the
paradigm applies
to calpullis,
it
is
no evidence is
was endogamous. And
that the resemblances between
what
may
is
instances
do
8<)
not
many
of their re-
pullis.
their
activities of cal-
leadership as
the core of the Aztec armies under the control of officers ap-
pointed by the palace. Such was the case also in the early
Sumerian
As a
city-states.
in the
also
young men
assumed
war
for
that purpose.
responsibility
for
maintained for
in a special establishment
been described
in ancient
example, of the more than thirty crafts practiced by the inhabitants of Tenochtitlan,
exclusiveness, to
be
each with
sure,
is
its
is
members
However, one indication that most of them were essenfull-time specialists comes from descriptions by the Con-
as well.
tially
Moreover,
craftsmen em-
meet
was
market
Mesopotamia.
directly provi-
were
If
is
activities
generally, there
in
early
The Evolution
90
The
calpullis were,
Urban Society
of
we may
their
closed "palace"
compounds
that are
known
at
Teotihuacan,
it is
city,
and
residential units
tern
by that
time.
and
is
is
perhaps of
among
is
of the
came
by
vital.
capital
receipts of tribute
made
depended
The
91
differences
whether applied
Mesopotamia, were
latter
it
hence
applied to the
also:
and
fields
time.
estates,
communal
fruit
though
labor
in
is
commodities.
Its
its
major expression
characteristic
al-
in agriculture the
in the
production of
fields
those
entire harvest
need
was
to
be delivered
was
at a
minimum under
the sys-
tem, and the apparatus of direct state control did not extend
further into the
body
politic
And
the latter, as
we have
The Evolution
92
basic,
of
Urban Society
prised the antecedent form of the tribute system, the great ex-
in the fifteenth
century led to
its
As a result of the appearance of new administrative problems of unprecedented complexity, a specialpartial modification.
(if
hardly a bureaucracy
in
the fully
col-
documentary
evi-
lection of tribute.
At
we
toward
foodstuffs,
raw
materials,
or
locally
manufactured products.
The testimony
pullis.
tration
an
calillus-
The
all
calpullec
of those
who
its
principal or head,
Two
remain to be
made about
relationships
between the
state institutions
The
93
Triple Alliance,
forming the
beneficiaries of re-
num-
and
loyalties
new
to generate
itself
it
For
had received
and new
directly
to
of the cal-
patterns of organization
gifts of
assumed the
the poor from its own
many
festivals.
responsibility
reserves,
and
Moreover, the
the stratification within calpullis to some extent, and the increasing emphasis on military activities
to
Thus the sharp division between political patterns of organizaupper levels and solidary kin communities comprising
the great bulk of the population at the lower levels must have
tended to blur and disappear more or less rapidly during the
tion at the
final
decades of Aztec
The
rule.
is
that the
be overdrawn.
of major
It
in the
handful
redistribute,
by far
must have con-
The Evolution
94
Urban Society
of
tions
was a military democracy founded upon gentile institu(Morgan 1963:220), on the whole has been set aside by
more
best
it
day
is
Thus we
perhaps
still
dynamism and
institutions,
signifi-
their char-
elite.
composed
which the
states
seem
to
clans," in
common
toward
ancestor served
stratification.
Probably
by any
definition,
and
new
political
and
elaboration of a
new
Among the
may be mentioned:
(1) serving as units for military training and service; (2) providing a corporate framework for the development, employ-
skills
and
attitudes of specialized
and
management
services.
we must
ment
What
of social stratification?
Can we
respective areas?
fication
is
95
our evidence
What
identify a
forms did
common
for the
it
develop-
take in our
structure of strati-
course, this
problem
is
we
are
which
develop as an autonomous,
But
such
believe
it
comparison
entities essays in
entity,
like this
and without
To begin with
made
of
it.
Urban Revolution,
it
consists
almost
Ur and
It
is
tuary practices.
In the late Ubaid period significant differentiation in grave
feet, with,
The Evolution
96
Warka and
of
Urban Society
be
numbers
at
About one-third
of the
houses
still
modest) accumulations,
A much
larger
number
many
them
of
is
somewhat doubt-
than 10 per
less
lead cups or other metal objects. Only two graves of this large
series suggest substantial concentrations of wealth,
cases the
and
in
both
later date
utensils,
On
lapis lazuli, a
may be
had
as yet
of writing
proceeded very
art in the
be somewhat sharpened
far.
and representational
for "slave girl"
among
the
The term
for "slave"
is
a derivative
minimum
shown on
for subsistence.
Bound "war
war cap-
who
drifted
below an acceptable
may be
significant that
97
but
later
killed.
stood
texts.
Nor
are
we
and
less clear.
"king"-like
figures,
answer:
What
"reality"
priests
And,
Do
do they portray?
if
mainly
rituals, as
they
seems
roles
of
we must postpone
the dis-
following chapter,
it
some of the attributes and acwould not be known from the available
cemeteries in spite of the fairly large number of
new
reports of
elites that
As a perhaps
it
may be
and mash-en-kak,
status," other
major com-
words, there
is still
no unequivocal evidence
for the
emergence
By
late
is
much
fuller
and
less
The Evolution
98
ambiguous evidence
tem.
It
Urban Society
of
the contrasts with earlier periods for which they were not available, thus
let
us consider
mean-
To judge
from ancient Eshnunna, the larger houses lay along the main
roads through the settlement and often occupied 200 square
formed by
As a
alleys.
result,
many
by means
of twisting,
narrow
were
oc-
status.
wealth
is
and receptacles.
tiers of bins
is
more precious
may
reflect
lowland
cities,
leled
And
99
it
III
period
remained of so high a
few implements
which
all,
for
may
none of the
utilitarian
was made
earlier
(to say
nothing of gold or
burial assemblages in
in
as
opposed to those
lacking.
was greater
accompanying grave goods
and amount
of
equipment
spouted
jars
still
consisted of a
vessels,
few large
with no weapons or
and the
like.
of wealth
character of
copper stands or
trellis
wealthier
burials.
yet each of
unaided.
A somewhat
later
It is
known most
though contemporary
finds at Kish
The Evolution
100
of
Urban Society
were not connected with "royal tombs." Of them, about oneeighth lacked metal or stone objects of any kind, while an additional 751
for dating,
remains
slightly
of
itself
only
symbols of
On
its
vessels,
silver, large
numbers
of well-made stone
lazuli,
and
and bronze
tools
and
an assortment which
Leonard Woolley (1934,2:164) somewhat offhandedly characterizes as "typical middle class." In all, 434 of the graves at
Sir
objects of gold
and
silver, a
if all
In sum, insofar as grave goods reflect the general distribution of wealth, there
social
differentiation in
elite that
of
to
of
is
It
latter,
graded
turn,
in
10]
off
gradually
to
at
interesting to
is
Ur with the
any metal
at
concentration of wealth
this
Of 94 recorded
al-Ubaid.
site of
contrast
all,
and no grave
would seem,
was a
dependency
rural
it
much
of
its
Whether
this
tionand, indeed,
how much
rural popula-
in
view of the exclusive concern of Mesopotamian archeology heretofore with the greater aesthetic appeal,
cities.
Large numbers of
villages
in
which most
Sumerian
of the classical
located.
near the
fields
that
many
than
the
Early
or
is
more
pattern
were
it
is
at least possible
into larger,
centuries
city-states
temporary structures
to
Akkad,
differs
Sumer
of
do occur
may have
right through
On
Dynastic period,
the
little
initial
tion.
The Evolution
102
of
Urban Society
by a
some
and
on
various strata.
who
were
social hierachy
who
slaves, individuals
seemingly were
owned
numbers even by some ordinary artisans, agriculturand minor administrators. Their economic role was a
in small
alists,
much more
richly
in
it is
to the blinding of
war
remains open.
While
institution
it
was
first place,
distribution
even
we have
if
the gross
just
noted
all
AND CLASS
KIN
Moreover,
thread.
slaves
103
exchange of
this
which characterized Mesopotamian urban society as distinguished from preurban society, so to characterize the institution as insignificant, accordingly would misrepresent its
importance as a factor in development.
is
and
spectrum of alternative
Old World,
reflect a polarization
possibilities.
Finley
Legal,
social,
wide
political,
dependence or subservience may overlap and contradict one another, but there was a cumulative
and economic
movement
criteria of
bottom of the
it
is
"free-
that
it is
the group
it
is
problem
have
just discussed,
much
The Evolution
104
of
Urban Society
in this light,
the controversy between Soviet economic historians characterizing early state society as "slave" society and Western specialists
insisting
respects
substance.
The
so-called "shub-lugals,"
eighty in the
of
whom
in
status
is
gangs
of the
Bau temple
or estate,
rolls that
it
clear that
Two
upon
who assumed
his
same
same
overseer.
By
the
time of the Bau archive at about the end of the Early Dynastic
period, shub-lugals
labor service.
The
estate.
There
are indications that further control over the group was main-
many
of
There are other groups that basically resemble the shubalthough differing in their economic position and appar-
lugals,
heavily
armed
shield-
and spear-bearing
as
105
More ambiguous are the posiand sag-apins. Engars have been described
"clients" and "free peasants," but in any case both
of engars
tions
variously as
can at
titles
least
hierarchy;
social
rations
and allotments of
it
must be
number
Lagash may have been involuntarily transferred from the city ruler Lugalanda to his successor, Urukagina.
of shub-lugals in
Clearly, there
series of
was not
And
available, particularly in
it is
view of
their disproportionate
especially temple
and palace )
estates
emwith
is
correct, as
much
at all
as two-thirds
still
was not
it
does seem
whom
I. J.
to
adscript!,
private plots were not held in alodial tenure but were subject
to certain forms of entailment.
ferred, as
They could be
some
examples
at
sold
and
trans-
Shuruppak, but
relationship to a superordinate
3. Gelb 1964. But cf. Gelb 1965: 240-41, where the closeness of the
comparison is reconsidered.
The Evolution
106
Urban Society
of
this
back
scribe),
(field
it
multiples of 2.5
known
is
the so-called
dis-
The purchase
of 250 or
Umma,
by Enhegal
if
not
all
of
Lagash amounted
is,
to
and those
them
official of
made by members
many
of landownership in the
hands of
of concentration
state officials
during at least
But that
is
worked by
their
new owner.
KIN
acquisitions before the
and the
AND CLASS
wide conquests
107
of the
Akkadian period,
And
archives of a considerable
owned and
num-
it
trend in
managed
of large, directly
Of
still
officials of the
and
these,
larger order of
were the
just cited
holdings.
in fact
is
is
one of
Now,
as
we have
Bau temple
to the
been shown
community
as
of a particular
virtually
to
some doubt
god
or a temple hierarchy. 4
way
Bau
to the service
kilometers of arable land under the direction of an administrative official responsible to the wife of the
Lagash
known
city ruler,
much
less is
be
Of
course, the
much
larger total.
management
it
total.
The Evolution
108
of
Urban Society
own
was an area
subsistence.
of
By
largely
that also
was cultivated on
behalf of the city ruler and his wife by the shub-lugals, but,
again largely by
members
can be accounted
amounts of
officials
whose
relative proportions
for.
centrally
supplied with
plowing.
for
managed
recorded.
is
an oikos
in the classic
Weberian
was, in
fact,
known
and
services.
Although
opment
may be
counted
for,
little is
presumably
in
economy,
it
services, as early
strands
in
we
this
I
dis-
believe
by no
be followed only
end
Its
indirectly, in the
gradual emergence of a
109
of a relatively impover-
more
clearly
we
can
more and
stratification
be reserved
Here our
major concern
is
and access
to land.
who seem
have been
to
the later Early Dynastic and Akkadian periods. There has been
somewhat
Leo Oppen-
(1964:74-75).
Were
this really
the case,
Mesopotamia at
we
think
it
and prerogatives
way
Dynastic period
to special behavi-
from
is
We may
are
themselves
record
all
we
At any
Mesopotamia seem
to
have
The Evolution
110
of
Urban Society
estates that varied greatly in
in
and
were declining
ties
corporate control,
in the relative
it is
likely that
amount
they
still
of land
under
had very
their
large areas
at their disposal.
remember
new
But
it is
important
were not
ones.
latter.
As
in the case
and labor
tural features.
and
and the
service, clientage,
least at times
army
forms at
were readapted and retained as important strucAs Julian Steward observes, this is only common
by the
more complex
assumed.
as the
is
when
much more
is,
as
total configurations"
specialized,
(
1955:51
Mexican system
).
of
known,
having been studied and debated since the early days of the
discipline
by
Second,
its
power and
KIN
AND CLASS
HI
And,
third, there
is
simply
less
information
Although
we know
to
from
mod-
erately
in
fill
dis-
on the extent of
social differentiation
in
successive periods.
drawn
as
many
we
encountered
toward
at
can be
it,
statification to
which the
refer.
developmental trends
Even on
may be
its
line of divinely
prerogatives.
nobility,
While these
pillis,
or
members
were
of
the
political
and
(1941:
The Evolution
112
90-91
),
"
by
virtue not of
Urban Society
of
to Cortes
(1952:96),
we must
those
in
early
recognized between patrimonial lands, which belonged privately to the king as a result of inheritance or conquest,
and
would be
clerk,
it
is
own
use at times as
to temples
much
Still
as
other
and schools
support of
some cases
and they
reverted to the crown in the event of the death of an owner
without heirs. However, they were subject to sale, and the
produce from them could be appropriated by their noble owners
Private lands
were
also held
by the
nobility. In
entail,
113
of Azcapot/aleo in
fall
1430
and best
(1867-80:
1,
were
first
79-80)
tells
latter
who had
common
fields
only one plot was set aside for each calpulli. Paul Radin
was an innovation,
but, even
if
not,
thenceforward assumed
it
embarked.
It
served to
and
to provide
by more than
and
made up
in the
in warfare.
were
later repressed
main
and excluded
of
Although beneficiaries
tended to become
aris-
commoners who
when
the frontiers
an intermediate
stabilized. Also of
status,
of merchants.
nobility, they
must postpone
state.
were
closely
Accordingly,
we
was grouped
in calpullis, as
we have
title to
strati-
agricultural lands,
The Evolution
114
and that
Urban Society
of
many of
minimum
territories in
As the persistence of
oriented
vertically
(i.e.,
stratified)
mock battles.
Monzon (1949:29), argue from
Some
we
tion
between a
classes.
and a
stratified society
However, the
class society
distinc-
seems to be
in
there
is
latter.
at
it
arises
it
is
in
the
tradictions.
Mesopotamian
on medieval
earlier settlers
who
macehuales organized
cultivated the private
agricultural estates)
fiefs.
of
who
on
to serfs
could be sold with those lands but not separated from them.
AND CLASS
KIN
115
who
as
we have
owed
seen
in
it,
their subjugation to
its
in
The queston
of
the size
of
the
mayeque population
it
is
bears on
to decline in at least
its
Conquest do seem to
endogamous
to
calpullis, or at least
be organized into
once had been
so.
Both the periodic breaking-up of private lands through purchase and the formation of
importance of kin
ible,
ties
out of impov-
and
is
little
life
as a
payments
to the lord
were handled
as
who
failed to
organizations
among them.
The Evolution
116
in
Mesopotamia,
early
their
absolute
said to
is
Urban Society
of
some
as
differed
It
from the
an unlimited condition
classical
ol
on their requisition as
eases,
whose
was only
somewhat more impaired than that of the mayeques and similar groups. Slaves are reported to have been engaged, alongside other workers, in the cultivation of private lands. However,
and constituted instead a
soeial category
status
in the construction of
purposes
is
it is
is
no reference
to their
in the
the prehispanic
New
World,
was
concentrations
these
although even in
in
is
it
the
commodities,
of
this
supplant "free"
in
have
the
number
of slaves
the
stratification
even
But
if
if
we
so,
make
may be
it
was
increas-
How
this a
in
within the
of tribute, includ-
probable trend
quantitative terms.
117
whether
political structure.
surplus product
went only
and
hands of the
award
of
their attached
stratification
within
the latter and would help keep in check the independent powers
of the nobility.
To hazard
a larger
comparison of slavery
is first
struck
economy, their
and economic elites of the society, the absence of abrupt discontinuities between slaves and numerous other groups of
impaired social status. Beyond these similarities, however, are
suggestions of an important underlying difference that may be
traced also in the origins of the nobility and of their control
over land.
We
ployed
at least a
estates as semi-
made
available in sufficient
numbers
of slaves in
By
effect.
Aztec nobility
in origin
and
The Evolution
118
of
Urban Society
and
captives
elaboration,
may have
to their
is,
tells
were housed
us that
all
the nobility,
was
larger
all avail-
we must assume
Meanand
but
at
known from
work teams
all,
role
open to the
we
which
is,
of course,
merely another
way
of asserting
to
between
119
stratification
as
model and
stratification as
inter-
viewpoint of
stratification,
is
it
not too
much
to describe early
estates in the
kin groups
still
in
many
respects at
along class
lines.
IV
PARISH AND POLITY
THE RESTRUCTURING OF STRATIFIED CLANS ALONG CLASS LINES HAS
a vital but indirect relation to the growth of the state. Older,
were replaced
and all-encom-
by more functionally
specified, authoritarian,
requirements
societies.
of
increasingly
and
large
complex
model that the newer ones needed only to readapt and syswas the case in connection with the extension
of the traditional labor and tribute system from within the
calpullis to meet the needs of the emergent Aztec state. But
an analysis of the state, and of the class system on which it
was based, nevertheless are more than complementary approaches to the same unified reality. Their paths of development obviously intertwined and reinforced one another, but
a
tematize; such
in important respects
duce a dramatic
simile,
its
own. To
is
intro-
far in
the action of
whose claims
terms.
to leadership
Shrines
World
at
in religious
least,
Gordon
Willey
120
fact,
(Braidwood
for the
and
New
Willey
ment
of settled village
somehow chosen
there
is
little
life.
may be
121
community
in worship,
period in Mesopotamia.
it
it
may be
argued, are by
is
it
even in
stylized,
component or indeed
its
for
monumental
entirely conritual
settings
than
whose
known temples
dominance
of
of the religious
from other
be merely assumed.
On
all
who have
periods.
life at
Why
should
this
and complexity. As
it
intelligible
lie
moral framework
end a
pattern
have
The Evolution
122
of
Urban Society
ritual expression
mit its participants to find their way around in it. The temple
system provides both a simplified model of Balinese social structure
and a schoolroom in which the kinds of attitudes and values necessary to sustain
Although
are inculcated
it
it
is
work
all
the specific
in
name
tamia the
common on
of
even the
the
goddess
earliest
Uruk
Inanna,
seals,
whose symbol
may be
is
derived from
The etymology
of
deny the
attribution
the
deities
city to
emerge out
creation epic,
The name
Miguel
known
earliest
Sumerian
of the
sheep, and of
1.
of
Civil, personal
communications.
123
This
phenomenon corresponds
religions
for example,
name, Tlaloc.
an owl, and a shell, and Rene Millon (n.d. ) observes that "he
was apparently conceived not solely as a god of rain but as a
god of life, of living things, a life-giving god." Whatever the
precise attributes of this conception, in each instance there
reflected a pervasive
fertility of
Although harder
ico
is
fertility,
whose
asso-
at
in anthropo-
and conceals
a considerable underlying divergence. In Mesopotamia the
earliest representations of Inanna apparently were in terms of
it is
a gross generalization
human
were
realistically portrayed.
Very
were
also represented as
be said unequivocally
shortly,
in at least
deities, as
we
all
The Evolution
124
ordinary
human
who
of
Urban Society
appetites, failings,
Teotihuacan suggests that the gods were more remote and awe-
some in their powers, more closely identified with the demoniaand animal attributes with whose masks and features they
were clothed, and surely less human either in their relations
with one another or with man. The beginnings of propitiatory
cal
human
even
sacrifice,
if
yet,
anthropomorphic forms
we
may
to explain, the
eras.
Since in
deities
seems to
less clearly
pomorphic
human
haps
this
trend
is
associated not so
much with
anthro-
figures, per-
the elaboration
perhaps
it
became necessary
Powerless as
as
little
of individuality for
of
difference that
which portraiture
man might be
reflects
more
"rational,"
priest-
economic
brought to a sanctuary
in aggregate
be attained, a
community and
to
its
parent
complementarity
re-
125
way and
central
Mexico
this chal-
latter,
attention
is
it
necessary to
enormous growth
of temples
as
architectural
(but only in the complex, reified calculations of an external observer) to have been very nearly equivalent to their
tion, or
again
genesis
is
may
likely to
contribution
nities, as
it
would
insist
on
is
consumpthat their
by the temples
commu-
ganization
somewhat more
The Evolution
126
of
Urban Society
according to one authority, the labor force required for the sub-
Anu
structure of the
years.
to
ded attached
and
by an enclosure
wall. The hypothesis of a progressive detachment of the personnel of the temple from direct involvement in the life of the
community herein finds considerable support.
After making due allowance for the far greater emphasis that
tended to be
Protoliterate temples
it
all
other contemporary
were the
The
it
is
first
was extended
of gods.
lists,
including
lists
knowledge of
it
would
also
Temples
also
On
the part
whom
confined,
would have
seem
to
life.
127
be denied,
it
also
It
after their
On
is
scale.
Glyptic
From
maintained uniformly high standards of workmanwere never surpassed and displayed what Henri
Frankfort (1939:23) describes as a "creative power
such
that we meet among its astonishingly varied products anticipations of every school of glyptic art which subsequently flourthe
first,
ship
it
that
seem
ritual
to
its
it
was only
seal impressions
was extended
economic uses
to secular
finest early
else-
work
itself to
it
is
interesting to note,
who was
his super-
visor.
offering rituals
community
and
many
as a whole.
other cult
While representations
activities
of the participants
of
The Evolution
128
Urban Society
of
And even
and
whose authority
titles
size,
least in
hierarchy
the
is
changed
title
in
Akkadian and
its
Dietz Edzard
it
later times,
Even
office
but
temple
in relation to the
Our
cials
One
difficulties are
who occupied
of those
example,
is
offi-
tablets, for
be distinguished
cinct at
almost
Uruk accounts
fifty
any rate
list
individuals,
presumably
is
more
perhaps more
in-
It is
under-
in
for
current employ or at
fish.
129
the
in,
Bau
Having developed
many
ing to prevent
in
in
such a
of the
private estates.
So
far,
we have
The
major gods
in the later
back
to a time
re-
in particular cities
closely identified
districts
pantheon were
time must have ended early, since the later myths are con-
members
of the
pantheon as a
The head
of that
symbol of
political control
and
tary means, of
which there
is
no trace
but in the establishment of interconnections between the administrative staffs of different temples as they sought to sys-
tematize a
common
common
administrative problems.
In this sense,
known forms
been found
it is
of writing
were not
localized; an
example has
its
southern extremity.
in the north)
it
and
at
Uruk. At
The Evolution
130
of
Urban Society
first
we know
any
size
than
is
its
theocratic
km.
Its
at
its
maximum)
that
is
entirely foreign to
sq.
Mesopotamia.
enclosed courts,
ment
its
main approaches
are on
as
magni-
We
em-
mastery of dramatic
tude of
its
more
familiar ground
when we
all
are
it
seems
may
social,
and
still
political idioms.
both ceremonial and residential structures (the so-called "Ciudadela," but possibly there are similar enclosures around each
of the
still
131
orated? Are they residences for an inordinately larger priesthood than Mesopotamian cities ever knew? Or perhaps the
palaces of an aristocracy drawn from an immensely wider hinter-
many
fied,
of
Or do we exaggerate
whom
strati-
many
and
cities
similar questions
servants?
depend on
The answers
studies
still
to these
under way at
Teotihuacan.
The
favor of viewing a
the
Moon
as
in obsidian.
one of
More
generally,
"Classic" period as a
whole
it
is
still
characterized by
and
mundane
use,
much more
we
which were
and
demand
was
copper, precious metals, lapis lazuli, stone, and cedar wood. But
there are also suggestions of differences, which recall the less
Aztec
elites
jects exhibit a
character of the
do not advance
in
of their material.
tivities
strictly acquistive
Nor
is
The Evolution
132
of
Urban Society
As
in Protoliterate
rela-
occupation of the
site
leadership
in orientation.
still
un-
its
and
offerings
must have
more strongly
Armed
politicomilitary nature.
figures
is
Maya
in the
also evidence
stela
by warriors from
Somewhat
later,
central
in
weapons began
to
make
their appear-
ance in Teotihuacan murals. Military orders of warriors, including those of the Eagle and Jaguar as well as others,
find their
way
now
also
may
133
power and
by the
organization composed of
rise in
the
one.
The
be
sure,
falls
as
its
Proto-
But the
essentials
power of politically
fragmented Toltec groups, on the one hand, and in the increasof the trend, culminating in the rise to
This
assertion
difficulties.
of parallelisms
same
admittedly
is
in
each case.
not without
fall
many
sites
in
the
The Evolution
134
In spite of these
and
its
close.
of
difficulties,
Urban Society
We
interplay of retarding
and accelerating
its
complex
at different
of a
is
its
contradictory
transitional position
between
Aztec
times.-
Perhaps
new
rior aristocracy
litically
who,
if
its
But
its
The
and continuity of whatever political control acwas exercised by the capital, is left unclear by the vague,
semilegendary references to which the historian of the Toltec
period is limited. The beginning of the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca speaks of twenty towns or ethnic groups constituting the
hands and feet of "Great Tollan," and the known position of
some of these towns or groups in later times suggests that the
realm may have extended to the Gulf Coast in the modern
states of Veracruz and Tabasco. On the other hand, there is
effectiveness
tually
their
some
localities as
Toltec
ment
its fall.
135
state-
one sea
toward the end of that dynasty's hegemony, with
dissolution having been caused in part by an uprising
to the other"
its final
As
in
may
its
ruling groups
no longer deriving
king, nor
essential traits
"its
celestial warrior-gods"
of the Eagle
priest-
but from
societies, associated
with the
now became
armed no
bows and arrows, the
probably newly acquired from nomadic peoples to the
north.
of
which the
alternatives
propounded by W.
it is
between these
office.
The
figures are
The Evolution
136
of
Urban Society
not relevant for us here, save that they seem to reflect a schism
latter,
who succeeded
practice of
war and
sacrifice.
But
is
shift
away from
sacerdotal or di-
may be
more appropriate
in-
to their
be regarded
as deities themselves.
Here
of
is
its details,
profitably can
Mesopotamia. Perhaps
it
it
may be
in
many
dominated by theocratic
were
as
new
militaristic
The
conquest. As
S.
ascriptive groups.
The sequence
of
development
in
Mesopotamia of a po-
obscure
in
and
many
details
is
137
Throughout most of
the Early Dynastic period the extent and character of the conquests of individual Sumerian city-states remain as elusive as
Lord
a lord of
Uruk and
between
mountainous
allegori-
myths and
is
late,
epics,
Hence
Mesopotamian developments
titulary.
Early Dynastic
and a
II
forces in nature
and
a god's demesne.
for
Subsequent
literally
management
"great
were
of the
temple estate as
retained.
man" and
The term
thus
for king
essentially
was
secular
office also
in
assumed
cult responsibilities
The word
literate
title
it
paramount po-
is
thenceforward.
third
was
title,
It
is
not necessarily
The Evolution
138
of
Urban Society
title,
some
en,
and may
city-states.
also
The term
it
may have
abundance that
it
declined
And
hegemony
of
own
lifetimes, to
be
sure,
but Lugalbanda
and Gilgamesh were posthumously elevated to this role. Moreis no reason to assume that the frequent assertion
over, there
by
rulers of divine
of
to
epithet.
A
first
per-
by
at
Kinglist.
Tula,
is
tion of kingship to
surely suggest a
institu-
common tendency
to
buttress
the position
and
powers.
So
tially
have dealt only with the transformation of essentheocratic authority into political rule. But the fragfar, I
139
came
occur on Protoliterate
texts,
many
we know
of
its
activities
almost
tellers
to
tales that
surround a
nucleus of historical fact with semilegendary episodes concerning kings of the Early Dynastic
II
and
III periods.
it
significant
is
as to
characteristically,
and even
it met in
response to a situation of
traordinary powers as
More
the gods
all
its
Such
crisis
ex-
It
under
their ens
was composed
of the
it
would
authority
among
political
powers
until
By
epics
is
one
in
earlier
war
The Evolution
140
of
Urban Society
leaders
had succeeded
tion of
in
to.
Furthermore,
all
economic
by the
all
palace,
the available
activities as-
monuments, and,
response.
At
least
in part
initial
it
also ap-
'cites'"
(Falkenstein 1954:
810).
Such a process
is
man who
is
unnamed
it
persisted.
entity,
although literary
by Enmerkar
to
urban framework.
come
was still constrained to share with an assembly his decisionmaking powers concerned with warfare. Gilgamesh, although
holding his
141
office
war with
ceeded in imposing
Kish.
an early literary
effort,
convoking an assembly
litical force.
The
killing of a
among
the Aztecs:
The
ruler
would
call
together
all
as
of the
it
this
fully consti-
its
initial
distribution
new
and
The Evolution
142
of
Urban Society
The
is
Portilla
same
of Aztec
1959:11)
can
process.
erected not only between the nobility and the commoners but
between the king and the nobility. Duran tells of elaborate
regulations to this effect promulgated by Moctezuma I (a.d.
Moctezuma
II
1502-
Many
service alone.
calpullis, reportedly
completed the
chief to
were put
transition, as
what seems,
to death in a
to all intents
"from an elected
150).
Given the
in
spite
of the
it
is
elaboration of court
life.
partially excavated at
Eridu and
and possibly
Accompanying these monumental, functionally specialized residential structures were other buildings, for the most part not
143
An account from
late
Early Dy-
nastic Lagash, for example, notes that "the houses of the ensi
(and) the
fields
(palace) harem,
the fields of the
ment
and complexity.
of considerable size
I texts
servants,
harem
official is
people.
On
political
personnel
lists
lists
we
grouped under
their respective
reed-weavers,
clothworkers,
was
foremen were
leatherworkers,
and perhaps
staff at
him
the
before
were
periodic em-
its
the
center,
masons,
and, since a
We
men
are told
ate bread
daily.
great
Moctezuma
II in
Tenochtitlan was
in
Texcoco
much
is
of this
at
much
zoo.
The palace
of
smaller, probably as
that island
capital,
but
its
The Evolution
144
of
Urban Society
be
said to
in con-
ment were
administrative
and
artisans'
with a permanent
ported by
lugals
own
its
by
staff of
individuals
make
clear that
we
are dealing
offerings
to earlier), estates,
lists
from temples
(e.g.,
the shub-
whose lands
By
contrast, the
Mexican
districts,
each of
On
his
members
personal service to
least the
Moctezuma
to limit
at
same
direction.
quests of the
all
itself as
in
some
the coninstances
up
145
thus reason to
more
them.
Burial practices constitute another tangible aspect of royal
to
The
Ur
"royal tombs" of
known
not
a conspicuous
to seventy or eighty
members
war
drawn by oxen,
servants crouched in attitudes of personal attendance all were
present, together with large stocks of costly, beautifully worked
objects, which today number among the principal treasures of
three of the world's great museums.
As a result of the accidents of discovery, or the effectiveness
drivers
of post-Conquest looting,
their
vehicles
Upon
I's
is
funeral:
was accorded the appropriate oball the kings and lords of the
region attended them with offerings and presents. According to
their use and custom they killed many slaves and retainers in the
belief that they might serve him in the after life, and they buried
him with a great part of his treasures [Duran 1867-80:1,253-54].
the death of this king he
as this,
The
The Evolution
146
Urban Society
of
by the king and his immediate entourage for the social forces
committed to military expansion as a policy is strikingly evident
in
it
head of his
on weaponry
includ-
we
inscriptions
ical
and personifying
whole force
many
is
perhaps
units of the
Bau militia are directly stated to have been mustered under his
command, while the responsibility for army personnel assignments seems to have rested with
units
the
are timid or
at
one point to
who have
call
domestic respon-
who
fifty
he characteristically
of Agga's armies
sailing
down on Uruk
in
the face
their longboats:
us smite
it
with weapons." 2
2. Pritchard 1950: 45. For an up-to-date critical overview by a number of specialists of what has been called the "Babylonian national epic"
see Garelli 1960. This discussion implies a rather discouraging estimate of
the potentialities of the literary genre as a whole for any but the most
cautious and sophisticated attempts at historical reconstruction.
147
The frequent
of war,
council because of
his
may have
enormous extension and elabora-
origin, the
reputedly 20,000 or
day period
in
ential
was provided by
tic attitudes
war prisoners
in his capital.
more sacrificed by
young general
moment
way
came forward
to exhort the
crowd
in
as well,
terms reminiscent
of Gilgamesh
"What
is
this,
been deprived
Mexicans?
What
Have you
come to some
and
let
us
better understanding
coward
as to
must be stressed again, however, that the close relationship of kings with military activities and with relatively autonomous, essentially political, centers of power in the society
It
many
vital
ways,
With the
institutions
initiative
a further illustration of
The Evolution
148
of
Urban Society
or disappearing
specialized,
but,
instead,
tending to become
total configura-
tion
who dominated
he was thought
and that
to
his role
it
is
now
was
that
increasingly
had come
to
new
deities
and
it
was
al-
its
onset
is
uncertain.
"he
who
other
to
breaks the
members
enemy land
of the
be viewed not
as a single reed,"
and most
this
Soden 1953:32-33].
In both areas, again, the principal temple of a town be-
came
identified as the
key redoubt of
its
political
autonomy and
is
community, and
of the
149
in
numerous
resistance
from the
attestations
end of
was
An
at least
Umma
an
inscription of
all
men
ri-
rivalry
latter is
evidence but
Lest
it
may
much
earlier.
Entemena
of
Lagash
it
may be noted
that
also
Umma
as
an indemnification
may be somewhat
same ruler's subsequent admission that the men
had seized a storehouse containing 270 tons of grain
While
this
claim
inflated, the
of
Umma
surely
is
not.
Elsewhere
we
Umma
by Eannatum
and of the unsuccessful efforts of the former's son and successor to escape from this burden and to reclaim territory that
had been lost. In fact, the whole long history of rivalry between Lagash and Umma, extending over more than 150 years,
in grain
on Enakalli of
The Evolution
150
of
Urban Society
fields
along
whose mean-
duties
may have
the deity
fare,
human
is
it
interests in
mind
Behind the
protagonists
had
their
own
as well.
two
cases, there
were
also differences
as a
human
dained
that recognized
no universal order or
stability.
city's
communicaworld view
difficulties of
it
in single encounter,
was
at least
we have
In Mesopotamia, by contrast,
The cosmology,
was
then,
open-ended and
had
self-enclosing
in doubt,
and
to
and
the
men
of
Umma,
lamenting the
fall
of divine injustice in
of Lagash,
one fashion:
Lagash had been destroyed, comThe hand which was laid upon him
Offense there was none in Urukagina, king of
after
he
shall
cut
off.
sin
upon
his
in
151
particularly
as
those
spread to encompass
prehended
in the
own powers
be-
"Could
I
Or
again, there
is
Naram-
him
oracles:
"Has a lion ever performed extispicy, has a wolf ever asked [advice]
from a female dream-interpreter? Like a robber I shall proceed
according to my own will" [Oppenheim 1964:226-27].
were the
and with
status of the
epic,
significant
aspiration,
after
their
tells
pride and
restored.
The
And
Mesopotamian family
all,
human
was
mal or outlaw,
In relation to
human
of dynastic
irreversible
shift
velopment of the
mated when
it
as
society,
tualizations
state
no longer represented
god
of his city:
The Evolution
152
Urban Society
of
That he deliver not up the orphan and the widow to the powerful
man, this covenant Urukagina made with Ningirsu [Jacobsen
1963:480].
as well as the
first
partial justice to
steps
toward a conception of
which the
entire
body
service,
abstract, im-
of citizenry
was equally
subservient.
Similarly, Zurita observes of the tecuhtli, appointed
by the
Thus these
lords
were appointed
to serve the
whom
the
commoner
(p. 103).
esses within
perils
ately
pendent,
territories.
The
153
we must
developments,
hostilities.
political
be found
in
Mesopotamia
as a
were
the Akkadian
control
territorial
product of
is
its
rapid de-
not an entirely
it
implies a de-
dence.
Many
features
we
tend to
is
no convincing
associate
with
evi-
empires
its
itself.
at
is
least
of
territorial exten-
some preliminary
undeniable.
steps
consideration of
the nature and extent of these steps in the two areas will
The evidence on
which
its
its
ar-
administrative framework
city-states.
Only a
is
And
omen
texts has
been
The Evolution
154
Urban Society
of
for
historical
reconstruction.
assistance,
little
are
much
known
we
to a
Akkad Dy-
alluvial plain of
lower Mesopotamia
firmly established
of the
Sumerian
cities in
it
was imposed
a pattern
much
now
basis of
domination
now be extended
was claimed
to
outward. As early
ruler of Purushkhanda.
and per-
155
surely farther
of
in
the region
still.
Akkadian control
we have
power and
ter-
The
on the
similarly inspired,
were directed
common
much
to
royal
demand
and
or under
The official status of the dam-gar, or merwhose hands it was placed, is suggested by
chant-agents in
their inclusion
on
lists
serves, they
official
as
W.
F.
who occupied
The Evolution
156
by a number
of persons
on the eve of
by the dam-gar
Urban Society
of
were beginning
an adjunct to their
as
it
development of
likely.
to
be handled
official position.
in the available
In spite
Akkadian
this
and
still
closely interdigi-
two
sons,
secutively,
was
essentially repeated
by
and by
his grandson,
on
we
geographical descriptions: the cedar forest, the silver mounthe tin (or lead) country, the silver mine. Repeatedly
tains,
victories
offerings
of
merce.
com-
city,
in
some
through
its
in the palace
gate,
and
of
how
this
wealth rose
like
water
3.
157
is
of a local governor
towns
in
have tended to be
it
may
political
thinly
distributed,
intervals as
collection of tribute.
somewhat
different picture
emerges when
The
we
consider
Sumerian
capital of
city-
Agade
cities,
to
their
non-urban
tribal,
origins.
If
many
and
lines
indications of an absence
dress, religion,
conscious
in speech,
Akkadian
hitherto
marginal
district,
We
for
example, of
in-
This step
may presuppose
to
The Evolution
[58
Urban Society
of
omens
which Sargon
In
mentioned speaks of
is
One
his
on every
peasantry
to
following
defend
among
certain
approaches
the
to
An unprecedented emphasis on
1963:10).
new kind
the
capital
(Gadd
at
consideration
in
the
same objective
acquisition
of royal
its
ben-
eficiaries,
sessed.
set-
side, sug-
favored groups of
of the
having
At
least
some
and
garrisons,
officials
of the realm
seem
to
name
as a resident of
of
the capital.
With
all
these innovations,
continuity of control
it
to
have
two
sons,
murdered
in
with the
Sin, or
cities
immediately
at
cipitate retreat
from claimed
the
the
title
of "King of the
final
frontiers virtually
Sharkalisharri
encompassing
only the epithet of "King of Agade." After his death, apparently also in the palace conspiracy, the further decline of
is
159
there were four contending claimants for the throne. This was,
in short, a state
whose
rulers
and made
significant administrative
in the direction
But
in
The Aztec
realm also exhibited a loosely knit quality seemingly in contradiction with the
iards
immense armies
it
of booty
its
capitals re-
from among
their allies
Tenochtitlan
scribed,
shows,
largely
the
and
strength
militaristic,
in
certain
culturally
pre-
terms
of
territorial
it
bonds and
passed be-
and,
was supposed
to
much
of
it
to
all,
The Evolution
160
of
Urban Society
Not
surprisingly,
Texcoco was
of a military aristocracy
in
by Tenochtitlan
in-
suc-
Mexico, including the relationship between the ultimate regional distribution of products received in tribute, on the one
Whatever
products.
this
relationship
may have
in functional terms
unprecedented
crisis
but formally
intact,
apply sys-
were
had
to
reprisals
accompanied by
were
elites
There are
and
refer-
161
officials
admin-
istrative positions or
entirely
among mem-
in
political
for
controls
and
tories
spite
of this
thinness
relative
in
the density
as tribute,
new
demand
of the
for
was
It
of
terri-
upon
domination through
terror,
probably lay
difference
crucial
Mexican
in
elite,
the
effect.
essential
A more
absence
of
during the
final
works
in the Valley of
group within
to
supremacy at
if
Mexico
furnish
least
a
of
not of a particular
it.
was cut
its
at-
The EvolutUm
162
Urban Society
Of
On
trition
form found
least
at
control
territorial
well.
as
Matricula dc Tributes as
(lie
in
in
closer
were devel-
was applied
it
at
begun to
peoples unrest of which
Diaz (1960:1,
1.48)
rapacious de-
in
the
first
impres-
upon
the mainland.
relatively rapid
(lie
increase of the
population
Moreover,
if
it
had con-
for tribute,
still
movement
centrifugal
The
limits of
Aztec
territorial control
the
As Robert
11.
Barlow's (1949)
studies have
in retaining.
shown
in
detail,
is
remained
and
east,
while
relatively stable. In
dered
futile
were allowed
and
war prisoners
victims,
sacrificial
easily
accessible
to
163
the
captal.
Even
was not
is
also
forcibly brought
between
main body
this
The
essentially chivalric
it.
seem
to war-
have
been substantially replaced with more implacable and de-
Moctezuma
was
there
little
I.
to
However,
in
the con-
means
We
certain.
torial control,
if
anything, to
this
is
sources?),
again
only
reflection
of
closely
differences
our
in
man
trade
was followed by
tribute, that
is,
case,
it
would
If really
the
were
heavy enough even on the peripheries of Aztec military controlto eliminate all potential surpluses that otherwise might
have served
as trading objectives. It
numbers
is
of a reduction
The Evolution
164
lowland commodities
like
of
Urban Society
lands,
tangential
and centrifugal
unrecorded processes of
sources deal.
Hence
it is
the goals of
instances in
it is
of merchants,
even
or
make
it
Not
surprisingly,
them
as
(1950-:
we
this
mili-
like Ahuitzotl
(1486-1502) addressed
many important
perquisites
of nobility
by the time
of the
is little
had begun
were
lists.
From them we
is
learn, in
possible for
regulated intervals.
The
165
types
at
amounted
to
perhaps
estimated
the enormous
media
of
only strengthened the autocratic features of the political structure but also heightened class
and urban-rural
stratification
tion unfortunately
However,
it
its
power
suggestive of the
is
of the palace
under
an estimate
of the salt,
as any,
sumed within
that institution.
of the
Thus
city rested
characterization
on
also
tribute"'
applies
of the cacao,
to
is
only reasonable to
whole economy
that "the
it.
50 per cent
(1956:96.
Agade
106'.
still
Whether
this
remains entirely
uncertain.
If
we
contrast the
more general
at
and-tribute systems, with only limited tendencies toward centralized administration, stands out immediately.
seem
to
imply
somewhat
The
differences
greater degree
may be no more
in reality
much more
of
the land in
The Evolution
166
of
Urban Society
it would not be
somewhat greater involvement of
an economic managerial role. The
if
were
there
hand, after
al
all;
they
ment
and construction
of royal stores
of aqueducts
upon occasion
and
irriga-
Mexican
economic
state
invest-
its
its
followers.
If'
there
is
a difference at
all,
in other words,
it
is
A more
tary
and economic
patterns. In the
by wide expanses of difficult terrain, and communications were further impeded by the
absence of navigable waterways and domesticated animals for
transport. Military activity accordingly assumed a predominuclei of settlement were separated
major centers
had
depend exclusively on higher levels of skill, organization,
morale, and numbers than their neighbors could muster.
The pattern the rulers of Agade inherited from the Early
so the successful Aztec pursuit of an expansionistic policy
to
may
also
effectiveness
in advance.
lines of
defense
To judge from
the
and destroying
167
Pre-
and pack
Sumerian
crucial
cities
Furthermore,
the Mesopotamian armies were more differentiated and professional in character than
Sumerian muster
and representations of
rolls
battle
suggest
may be
an
of soldier-vassals
bound
it
may be doubted
of the phalanx
source of
have
it
The
or could cast
it
into
weapons
less expertly.
carriers,
of subject peoples
upon
whom
or
no economic
justifi-
indentured service,
sacrificial cults
was if
functional/'
agricultural
business
The Evolution
K)N
of
>i
1 *
succeeded
they
il
Urban Society
of
ol
itself,
reasonable extension
i
last
at
Forging a managerial,
ol
reached pro-
elite
ol
<>l
problems),
transportation
In*
agriculture
business,
thai
in
become an important
agriculture
one. n
reason that
for that
is
the activities and position of Aztec merchants are so interesting and critical. Representatives ol a group that so often lias
have begun
since
In
the
chases probably
upward
reflect
pendence On
In
e)l
But
te>
anel
employment from
at
it
were
production
e>l
in
this
recombined or put
te>
ease
anel
e)f
groves
e>l
at
relatively
landholdingS
estates
by
producing
families
ne>t
other duties
times
e>l
se
Protoliterate
least
tlu
larger estates
the
in
dictate an earlier
same" direction:
the'
in
onward
canals
agriculture as a
anel tribute.
combined
agricultural
ticular
seems certain
it
ol
particular
trend
Such pur-
warriors.
dawning awareness
more durable
trade
it,
of the
greater and
in
Or of traders as a class
members
king only (o
conspicuously successful
to
or
nobility
to
was given
land
iliat
the
large
were
new
4
,
consolidated,
and
closely
ol
tie
networks of
their
elate
anel
every
be
behest
communities
e)r
shifted
te>
to a par-
irrigation
gardens; by centrally
Facilities
animals; and
for storage,
L60
agricultural
equipment, and
Large-Scale dis-
sacrifice,
in
the distant
ol
far
or tor the
many
capital
whether for
the
pro-
primary
human
carriers
by boat
in
a (enter
diversion of labor.
their
entrenched
weakness
in
it
strength
and
continuity,
ol
rather
than
any
V
CONCLUSION
IN
WHAT MUST ALWAYS BE A PROCESS OF SELECTION AND EMamong many details, valid and accurate for some
phasis from
this
essay
innovative,
were fundamentally
there
is
characteristically
similar,
which
is
"civilized"
societies
a one-for-one correspondence in
all
But
and
similar cases
it
is
is,
productive of insights at the level of understanding the individual historical sequence, to proceed at times from a generalizing,
trastive
As was indicated
lution
earlier,
alternative forms of a
"ramp" or a "step"
in
sequence
see above, p. 17 )
and C,
respectively,
genetic"
170
CONCLUSION
MILITARISTIC
THEOCRATIC POLITIES
Figure
4.
171
CONQUEST
POLITIES
STATES
as
polar abstractions
as
by curve
It
B, in
sarily the
most
more accurate.
the same paradigm is not neceshistorically
With
may be
applicable to
if
we
focus on such
artistic
achievement,
The Evolution
172
Urban Society
of
in
and administrative
elites;
economic networks of
The
etc.
tribute,
as
is,
strikingly similar.
Whichever focus
digm,
we
of study,
choose to follow,
it
Protoliterate
Uruk
and monumentality of
archi-
of Teotihuacan
stylistic virtuosity
and
to.
literate
forward in Figure
CONCLUSION
trade,
and
seem
tribute
173
two
areas,
and they
also can
Figure
4.
be
at least
paradigms given
"ramp" of the
alternative
is
as close
on the other
hand, there were more marked periods of political fragmentation, discontinuity in occupation,
and decline
integration
intensified
and
whether B or
of the
is
the
more plausible
as
alternative expression
an
isolate.
However,
an intermediate alternative
distinctively
different,
"step"-like
like
process
reconstructed in C.
There
course of development followed in the two areas, and the objective of systematic
be
sure,
latter.
We
have
dealt,
of a single,
whose
from
specific
their
forms and
effects
historical contexts. In
The Evolution
174
of
Urban Society
built
around a common
whose
essential features
may
still
elude
us. In that
sense
The foregoing
perial systems?
among
the
tion
were
its
relatively
and
to foster
urban
all
its
its
its
its
rapidly,
emphasis on the
institutions
were the
ities
in
self-conscious,
periodically
mained
re-
networks.
differences
assumed
CONCLUSION"
acterized by a
We
discover
common
anew
175
tems
(e.g.,
bands
>.
kinship)
Not merely
as
(e.g.,
article of faith
it
hunting
but as a valid
applies equally
of
human
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ZURITA, ALONSO DE
1941
los senores
y ma-
la historia
INDEX
Acolhua domain (see Texcoco)
Acosta, J. R., 135
Acosta Saignes, M., 88, 114
Adab, Mesopotamian town, 83
Agade, Mesopotamian capital,
153, 155-58, 165, 167
Agga, ruler of Kish, 146
Armillas,
Army
44
chinampa, 43, 52, 53, 76
135-36,
38,
66, 72-74
56, 66-
76, 104
productivity, 41-42, 45
Lagash, 82
122-23
Barbarism,
52, 168-69
79
or estate (see
Lagash)
ruler,
147,
164
Al-Ubaid, Mesopotamian arche95, 101
13,
Barth, F., 58
Bau temple
swidden, 43
site,
1, 6,
ological
162-
Bancroft, H. H., 36
Mexican
146, 159-60,
166
Ashnan, Mesopotamian deity,
122
Azcapotzalco, Mexican town,
141, 147, 159
64,
Ahuitzotl,
134
Mesopota-
61, 72,
P,
organization,
Calpixque, Mexican
162
77
185
official,
144,
Index
L86
Calpulli,
Mexican
113-17,
86-94,
L39,
142,
144
Dub-sar-gan,
Chapman,
(
iluClicn
C, 163
A.
li/i'i,
archeological site
in Yucatan, 134
Chichimecs, Mexican hunter-
gatherers, 61-63,
90
Mesopotamian
106
scribe,
Dumuzi, Mesopotamian
49, 122
Duran,
deity,
Spanish chronicler,
1).,
21-23
Mexican town, 133
Civil, M., 33, 57
Civilization, 1, 9, 12-14, 20
Chinese
(
civilization,
Iholula,
J.,
65
2, 35
115
Cortes, Hernan, Spanish conqueror and chronicler, 34,
77, 112, 118, 144
(.'raft organization and speciali-
Cook,
S. F., 71,
lor,
26, 27,
29
Edin, Mesopotamian pastureland, 49, 70
Edzard, 1). O., 103, 128
Egyptian civilization, 21-22
lusenstadt, S. N., 16-17, 136
Flam, principality in southwestern Iran, 154
Elites,
44
En,
zation,
10,
16,
title
I.
137, 156
Diaz del
Castillo, Bernal,
Mesopotamian
Enakalli, ruler of
ruler,
162
28
Dilmun, modern Bahrein Island,
154, 155, 156
Umma, 149
Span-
Dibble, C. E., 62
Diffusion, 20,
of
128, 137-38
Cultural ecology, 8
Mesopotamian
deity, 129,
148
Enmerkar, ruler of Uruk, 137,
140
Ensi,
title
ruler,
Entemena,
of
Mesopotamian
137-38
ruler of Lagash,
149
NDEX
187
127
Gudea, ruler
Guilds
69
Mexican, 112, 114-15, 117-19
Etana, ruler of Kish, 138
Evolutionary change, 7, 8, 16
Evolutionary parallelisms,
8, 24,
142,
75
of Lagash, 85,
138
and specialization)
Gurush, member of Mesopotamian status group, 105
Guti, Mesopotamian border
159
principality,
Hadley,
J.
W.
107
B.,
Harding, T. G., 4
Harlan, J. R., 38
19, 40,
Finkelstein,
M.
Finley,
66
J. J.,
I.,
Huitzilopochtli,
Mexican
deity,
154
103
74,
76
52
Im-ru-a,
Flannery, K. V., 41
Folk-Urban continuum, 14
Food-Producing Revolution, 3941
Frankfort, H., 127
Fried, M. H., 21
Frontiers, 60, 61, 62, 72,
154,
Mesopotamian kin
group, 85, 88
Inanna, Mesopotamian deity,
122, 123, 148
Indus
civilization,
Itzcoatl,
Mexican
21-23
141
135
ruler,
Functionalism, 16
Gadd, C.
152
Jemdet Nasr, Mesopotamian
Geertz, C.,
150
146
121-22
Gelb,
50, 85,
J.,
Garelli, P.,
I.
J.,
archeological
95, 107,
38,
town in Jordan,
39
Jimenez-Moreno, W., 135
Jericho, ancient
105
Girsu,
site,
128, 129
(see
Lagash)
Grave furniture, as index
Kaminaljuyii,
to
archeological site
Guatemala, 132
Kasdan, L., 82
Katz, F., 89, 165
in
Index
188
Khafajah, Mesopotamian archeological site, 95, 97,
Lambert, M., 99
Land, redistribution, 57, 65,
104, 107
tenure, 54, 56-57, 63-65, 8384, 87-88, 104-7
Leach, E. R., 54
Leacock, E. B., 4, 6
Leemans, W.
Leon
F.,
Portilla,
155
M., 142
Lu-pad,
official of
Umma,
17
principal-
155, 156
Maguey map, 65
Maine, H. J. S., 79
Manishtusu, Mesopotamian
ruler, 84, 106, 156, 158
Marad, Mesopotamian town, 84
Market trade and marketplaces,
52-53, 89
Marriage patterns, 81-82
Mashdaria texts, 50, 144
Mash-en-kak, Mesopotamian
"commoner," 97
Maya civilization, 24
Mayeque, Mexican of subordinate status, 114-17, 144
Meluhha, principality or region,
155, 156
Merchants, 88, 89, 98, 113, 141,
154-57, 160, 163-64, 168
Mesopotamian
plain, ecological
166-67
population, 71-72
166
population, 71-72
Linton, R., 54
Moctezuma
I,
Mexican
ruler,
97
Lugal,
106
99
title
ruler,
of
Mesopotamian
137
Moctezuma
II,
Mexican
ruler,
105
Lugalbanda, ruler of Uruk, 138
Lugalzagesi, ruler of Uruk, 149,
151
29
Monzon, A., 114
Morgan, Lewis Henry,
36, 79-80, 93-94
10,
4-7, 11,
INDEX
Multilinear evolution (see Evo-
189
Political
differentiation
and
in-
lutionary parallelisms
Mumford, L., 78
Murphy, R. F., 82
Mesopotamian
Ningirsu,
deity,
138
Nippur, Mesopotamian town,
129
Nisaba, Mesopotamian deity,
W.
H., 36
Mesopotamian, 97,
127-29, 137
Mexican, 130, 132
origins, 120-22
Pritchard, J. B., 146, 151
Prescott,
Priesthood,
150
Nobility,
111-13,
117-18,
142,
134-36
men)
Nonoalcas, Mexican ethnic
P.,
"Ramp" metaphor,
17-18, 170-
73
group, 63
Oikos, 108
Oikumene, 21
Opler, M. E., 4
Oppenheim, A.
109, 151
35,
60-61,
128-29,
"Orthogenetic" change, 6
164-65
Petrie,
J.,
38
W. M.
F.,
21
12
role of,
Representational
148
Perrot,
10, 30-31,
124
Rimush, Mesopotamian ruler,
156-58
Royal tombs, 99-100, 145-46
Russell, R.
Sag-apin,
J.,
71
member
of Mesopota-
Index
190
mian
Stratification,
110, 148
status or occupational
group, 105
1, 6,
Sharkalisharri,
Shub-lugal,
Mesopotamian
principality in western
Mexico, 162
Technology, role of,
member
of
Mesopo-
144, 146
Tecuhtli,
member
status group,
40-
Mexican
152
of
156
Mesopotamian archeological site, 106, 125
Tempelwirtschaft, 81, 107
Temples, Mesopotamian, 107,
Syria,
Shuruppak, Mesopotamian
town, 48, 81, 83, 85, 95,
102, 105, 118, 143, 155
Sippar, Mesopotamian town, 83
Sj0berg, A., 81
Slavery, Mesopotamian, 96-97,
102-4
Mexican, 115-17
Tell
Social
Tenochtitlan,
organization,
characteri-
Uqair,
49
Mexican, 120-21, 130-32,
148-49
Mexican
36,
23, 26-36
142-44, 147,
J.,
6, 9, 12,
41
Soustelle,
16,
158
ruler,
10,
Mesopotamian, 93-110
Mexican, 110-19, 165
Sumugan, Mesopotamian deity,
122
Survivals, 5
Susa, town in Elam, 143, 158
Symbiotic regions, 19
105, 114
script!,
7,
13
Schneider, A., 81
Serfs, metoikoi,
social,
64, 164
14,
71,
74,
89,
capital,
114,
139,
159-60, 163,
165, 173
151-52
154-59
Mexican, 90-94, 144-45, 159-
65
and "second23
"Step" metaphor, 17-18, 170-73
Steward,
States,
"pristine"
ary," 21,
J.
"Textual" approach,
2, 35,
36
INDEX
pretation, 2, 21-24, 31-36,
191
Urban
11
Tezcatlipoca, Mexican deity,
59-63
Urban
136
revolution,
19,
Guatemala, 132
Mexican official, 147
Tlacopan, Mexican town, 159
Tlaloc, Mexican deity, 123, 148
Tlatelolco, Mexican town, 53,
71, 89
Tlatoani, term for Mexican
ruler, 111
Tlaxcala, ethnic group and prin-
east
Valley of
of
26,
121,
125,
172-73
Tlacaelel,
cipality
15-
9-12,
7,
Urban
settlement,
7,
9-10,
16,
Urban societies, 3, 5, 9
Uruk, Mesopotamian town, 70,
96,
122,
125-26, 128-30,
Torquemada,
icler, 65
J.,
Spanish chron-
Trade, long-distance, 10, 49, 5152, 82, 103, 113, 124, 132,
154-56, 163-64
Traditions, great
War
and
little,
13,
129
See also
Army
organization
Women,
100
Woolley, C.
L.,
Writing,
7,
132
159-60
Tula, Mexican town, 36, 62, 63,
133
Uku-ush,
mian
member
of
Mesopota-
status or occupational
group, 104
Umma, Mesopotamian
106, 149, 150
town,
87,
91,
147, 152
92,
111-12,
141,
Man
The
Washburn
modern human
time in the
first
known
man
what
is
of
men, demonstrating
complex roots
its
in the
evolutionary process.
man is
Since
the Old
must
a primate
World simian
also
mam-
this
what we know
apes,
is
dependent upon
of the behavior of
and much
is
monkeys and
is
based upon
in studying
them. Addi-
book
of this
provided by
many
kinds of
in association
with
The
this
picture of early
volume
that of a being
is
time of Neanderthal
behaves
much
who
at
is
least
by the
motivated and
ments
may any
book contains
and
longer be underestimated.
full
bibliographies,
an index,
Sherwood
L.
Washburn
is
The
299 pp.
Professor of
Also from Aldine
The Pivot of the Four Quarters:
a preliminary inquiry into the origins and character
of the ancient chinese city
Paul Wheatley, Professor of Geography, University of London
It
has
become
for a theory of
clear that
no single urban
site
all
presents a
Nummary
cities,
by these
cities
602pp.
am
York, and
Fordham University
impressed with the thoroughness of the survey and the lucid presen-
problems in the
field
of African studies
is
together. Since
work makes
the present
variety of studies
J.
tant achievement."
urban food-producing
civilizations.
"A
rare
and impor-
W.
book have
and excommunity. The concept is considered in both Western and non-Western settings and in tribal, developing,
and urban societies. 370 pp.
of this
S.
Wabash
Ave., Chicago,
III.
60605
"*