Definition of State 

(characteristics)

• stratified social classes
• politcally centralized gov.
• market economy 
• full-time craft specialization
• taxation supports interior/exterior regulations
• graded court system
• variety of settlement types

Empires 

don't last more than 200 years 

• regional
• expansionary
• military 
• economics 

• Mesopotamia- Sumerian City States
• Africa- Egyptian State Unification
• Indus River- Harappan
• China- Shang
• Europe- Minoans- Greece/Roman
• Mesoamerica (lowlands & highlands)
  Lowlands- Olmec- Maya
  Highlands- Teotihuacan- Aztecs
• South America (lowlands & highlands)
  Lowlands- Moche- Chimu
  Highlands- Tiwanaku- Inca 

• Karl Wittfogel- Hydraulic Irrigation Hypothesis
• Malthus- Exponential Pop. Growth
• Robert Carneiro- Pop. Growth- Warfare- Envir. Consumption
• NeoMarxian- Class Conflict Models
• William Rathje- Regional Trade Interactions
• Multi Factor Approaches- accept various variables w/differing impacts in different areas leading to unique state formation trajectories

Karl Wittfogel 

Hydraulic Irrigation Hypothesis

(Mesopotamia)

• caused internal pressure-need more structure
• people unequal to build systems
• continue to maintain to ensure water is delivered
• leads to stratification and development of a state

Malthus 

Exponential Pop. Growth 

(J curve)

• increases until carrying capacity reached, then levels off 
• number of people  x  time 

Robert Carneiro

Pop. Growth- Warfare- Enviroment Circumscription 

• In areas of circumscribed agricultural land, population pressure led to warfare that resulted in the evolution of the state
• Environmental circumscription occurs when an area of productive agricultural land is surrounded by a less productive area such as the mountains, desert, or sea. Migration is not possible. 
• Leads to stratified social classes (winners & losers) within increasing pop. density environment 
• Application of extensive agriculture would bring severely diminishing returns.

NeoMarxian 

Class Conflict Models 

William Rathje

Regional Trade Interactions

• resources distributed over landscape (salt, cocoa, obsidian)
• need trade networks to distribute resources
• control over trade leads to social, elites, politcal control-neomarxian process
• homogenous= equal distribution
• heterogenous= uneven distribution

• accept various variables with differing impacts in different areas leading to unique state formation trajectories 

• Julian Steward & Leslie White
• Cultural Ecology (utilize landscape)
• Circumscription- increase growth (stratification)
• population growth
• class conflicts
• warfare
• trade
• subsistence technologies- irrigation, crop complexes
• religious systems

• Urban- great concentration (Teotihuacan)
• Regional- dispersed, lower pop. densities (Egypt)

Mesopotamia

Sumerian City States 

• 3,500-2,300 BC (about 500 yrs. AFTER agriculture)
• 13 politcally independent cities (Ur & Uruk-best known)
• Ziggurats(religious temples) surrounded by residential complexes
• pottery wheels, wheeled carts, metalworking (no metals locally- cooper then bronze= copper/tin alloy), Cuneiform writing (5000 BC), politcal gods-kings over each city
• Environment: irrigation river system, on alluvium fish, cattle protein sources, wheat, barely, millet, dates, olive tress, citrus fruits (etc. grown), Maritime trade control 

• irrigation/agriculture
• population growth
• trade, control over trade corridors
• warfare- politcal power controls 

Egyptian Civilization

(2,600- 1,570 BC)

overlaps Mesopotamia

• influenced by Sumerians, considered an independent state formation process
• Ecology: Nile River Vally Delta, surrounded by desert, 3 crops a year if irrigated, inedation brings soil- increases yields, wheat, barley, legumes, sheep, goats, pigs, fish, wildfowls, rushes, reeds, flax (linen)
• never developed urban centers- response to ecology
• Politically: Pharoah-ruler, god-king, power was total
• exposed to multiple periods of unification and fragmentation, each time leading to a larger reunification, until Roman take-over= ends sequence
• Period= fall apart
• Kingdoms= unified 
• hyergliphics

• Coastal States: Ghana, Mali, Songhay arose (AD 800-1,550) in response to gold, ivory, salt and slave trade
• Great Zimbabwe (AD 1,100-1,500) was an internally formed state, that developed in response to gold, ivory, copper trade with Asia along east coast 

1. Africa is rich in resources, gold, silver, iron, ivory, etc., ut these only defined as valuable by other states
2. Sahara desert natural barrier
3. Poor clay sols south of desert limited Agr. until mtals introduced, but the agr. developed on its own
4. River, liek Niger, lacked flood regimes, and/or alluvial soils, making them less productive agriculturally 
5. Diseases, malaria, tsetse fly, etc., limited areas of settlement during specific times of the year (nomadic)
6. Thus, States founded on trade in luxury goods that other civilizations wanted 

Indus Civilization 

Harappan (2,700-1,700 BC)

• Environment: Indus River Valley, irrigation required, indundtations, crops: wheat, barely, dates, melons, peas, cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, fowls, elephant bones, likely labor
• Size: larger than Pakistan today:many sites, many regional centers and 5 large cities, significant trade resources, ceadr, lapis, metal ore, ceramics
• Structure: Harappa (smaller), Mohenjodaro (larger)
• Cities: w/ water, sewage systems, residential districts, administrative centers
• Ruler NOT GOD, rather economists
• Trade: Key variable, trade seals indicate transportation of goods very large distances
• Stratification: very wide range of social classes
• Decline due to: flooding along indus, shifts in trade patterns, changes in rivers leading to rice cultivation along Ganges (1,500 BC), chronic deforestation/soil erosion, landform uplift altering river drainage

Chinese Civilization 

(2600-1100 BC)

• earliest cheifdoms known vis legends-warfare between many cheifdoms led to politcal unifciation of the 1st large regional state in China: Shang 1500 BC
• Shang Dynasty Civilization ahd 7 capital cities, along Huang ho River, best know is Xiao-Tun. Also, massive royal cemeteries between 1500-1200 BC, some with over 1,000 sacrifical burials in attendance (upside down pyramid with a cross-tomb)
• best known for: working mold process, likely fueld by constant warfare
• Decline: Shang taken force by Zhou (1100-211 BC) who divided it into a series of independent holdings
• by 221 BC, whole area re-unified by what became the Han Dynasty-they started the Silk Road trade with the west (iron added to bronze-technology)
• Dynasty: Shang, Zhou, Han

• by 100 BC SE Asia composed of ranked, centralized cheifdoms, display, feasting ritual, ancestor worship all keys, constant politcal flux, no fixed boundaries, situation in all Mekong region
• Lower Mekong: "Funan" port of 1000 rivers (Chinese name), tonle sap lake/plains (huge-small seasonal fluxuation-extreme), Homland to Khmer-speaking cultures, political situation volatile at best THEN
• AD 1-Foreign sea traders enter the picture-monsoon trade w/ 6 month layover stays, traders spoke "Mwani" a polyglot lang., trade from china, india, SE Asia, to ROman Empire
• Exchange of ideas as wekk as goods-India 200 BC Emperor Asoka, Buddhism, saw prosperity of Buddhism tied to sea trade
• created stronger support for cheifdoms to control sea trade
• AD 500: Tonle sap region starts to get unified as political/economic/religious center under God-Kings
• 
  

Angkor State 

(AD 802-1430)

• Khmer Monarch Jayavarman 2nd merged kingdoms into single state with himself as supreme King/God
• Developed bureaurcracy to oversee life of people: agr, warfare, tax collection, state religious ritual, judicial decisions, hospitals
• organzied vast building projects in agr off season: Angkor Wat, symbolic Hindu world, over 1 million ppl lived there, documents indicate leavel of labor: 306,3711 ppl from 13,500 villiages worked on WAT, eating 38,000 tons of rice per year
• Jayavarman 7th destabalized (high level corrupt) bureaucracy by assigning elite direct power in decisions. Ensuing corruption destabzlized state system.
• When Jayavarman 7th died, buddhism preaching equality, poverty and abstinence took over. Warfare became endemic.
• 1430-31 AD Angkor scaked by the Thai state, taken over by Thai, and later 1519, by Europeans
• Pol Pot, Cambodia conflict "killing fields" (work rice fields), Angkor landmined during conflict, reconstruction slow 

• developed in hydraulic systems
• trade significant factor in state craft
• form of politcal state craft varied widely:
  Harappa-merchants
  China- military
  Angkor- religion
• All started with petty cheifdoms which unified
• all dissolved via warfare, trade distruptions or ecological collapse into a period of petty local states
• this pattern of unification- fragmentation- reunification-fragmentation, is a common one is state building world wide  

Lowland: Olmec, Maya

Highland: Teotihuacan, Toltecs, Aztecs

Lowlands 

• Gulf Coast and Yucatan- limestone Kurst
• No rivers, wet, humid and swampy
• Wet/Dry Seasons

Olmec

(1500-500 BC)

Lowlands

• "Mother of MesAmerican Civilizations"
• Cheifdoms/State interface (evolved)
• Shared rituals/symbolism over large region
• Today believed: Olmec influenced civilization building a series of small kingdoms unified by shared rituals beliefs 

Olmec Sites 

San Lorenzo & La Venta

1. San Lorenzo (1250-1000 BC): dry farming and raised fields (agr. comp) along swamps, earthen mound platforms, carved colossal heads, olmec art style-weir-jaguars half human (likely hulicinogens-shaman)
2. La Venta: on small island in swamp, 120m long rectangular earthen mound, intentionally destroyed around 400 BC, evidence of high warfare 

Maya 

(0-900 AD)

Guatemala, Belize, Honduras 

• ecology: hot semi-tropical forest, limestone kurst base, no rivers, rainfall highly seasonal (rainy/dry season)
• cultural history: (300-900 AD) Classic Maya Civilization, height of politics, height of written system/calendar, warfare between sites 
• decline: (900-1200 AD) best known-Copan, Honduras, pop. growth.carrying cap. limits, nucleated pop. near center-unstable, soil eroision/agr. simulation (John Wingard), pollen data (David Rue), deforestation (Elliot Abrams-agr landuse), settlement/chronology (Freter-ambrams), human remains (Rebecca Storey), Domestic Economy (Julia Hedon), politcal records (William Fash/Linda Schele)

A. Teotihuacan (Basin of Mexico Highlands)

200BC-600AD

B. Toltecs (Tula)

700 AD-1000 AD

C. Aztecs (Tenochtitlan & Texcoco)

1200-1500 AD

Teotihuacan 

(200BC-600AD)

Basin of Mexico Highlands

• urban center (200,000 ppl) 
• contact with Maya
• Central part of the city-"Street of the Dead"
• Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
• Raised Field Agr. (Chinampas 3-4 crop per yr)
• Unclear decline

Toltecs

(700-1000 AD)

• Tula
• likely where most of Teotihuacan pop. went-they were taken over by

Aztecs

1200-1500 AD

• Sites: Tenochtitlan & Texcoco
• along shallow lakes in the Basin of Mexico
• Started wide scale Raised Fields along lakes
• Wide scale warfare, empire building
• major social stratification-capulli units
• pop. disrupted by diseases, slavery, war, plagues
• Spanish conquest 

South American State Formation

Highland & Lowland 

• Lowland: Moche & Chimu
• Highland: Tiwanaku, Wari, Inca