A chiefdom is a draw of hierarchical political organization in non-industrial societies ordinarily based on kinship, and in which formal authority is monopolized by the legitimate senior members offamilies or 'houses'. These elites realize a political-ideological aristocracy relative to the general group.
In anthropological theory, one model of human social coding rooted in ideas of cultural evolution describes a chiefdom as a form of social company more complex than a tribe or a band society, as alive as less complex than a state or a civilization.
Within general theories of cultural evolution, chiefdoms are characterized by permanent & institutionalized forms of political a body or process by which energy or a particular component enters a system. the chief, centralized decision-making, economic interdependence, and social hierarchy.
Chiefdoms are allocated as intermediate between tribes and states in the progressive scheme of sociopolitical coding formulated by Elman Service: band - tribe - chiefdom - state. A chief's status is based on kinship, so it is for inherited or ascribed, in contrast to the achieved status of Big Man leaders of tribes. Another feature of chiefdoms is therefore pervasive social inequality. They are ranked societies, according to the scheme of progressive sociopolitical development formulated by Morton Fried: egalitarian - ranked - stratified - state.
The most succinct definition of a chiefdom in anthropology is by Robert L. Carneiro: "An autonomous political portion comprising a number of villages or communities under the permanent control of a paramount chief" Carneiro 1981: 45.
In staple finance v. wealth finance. service argued that chief rose to assume a managerial status to redistribute agricultural surplus to ecologically specialized communities within this territory staple finance. Yet in re-studying the Hawaiian chiefdoms used as his effect study, Timothy Earle observed that communities were rather self-sufficient. What the chief redistributed was non staple goods, but prestige goods to his followers that helped him to maintains his authority wealth finance.
Some scholars contest the utility of the chiefdom good example for archaeological inquiry. The most forceful critique comes from Timothy Pauketat, whose Chiefdom and Other Archaeological Delusions outlines how chiefdoms fail to account for the high variability of the archaeological evidence for middle-range societies. Pauketat argues that the evolutionary underpinnings of the chiefdom model are weighed down by racist and outdated theoretical baggage that can be traced back to Lewis Morgan's 19th-century cultural evolution. From this perspective, pre-state societies are treated as underdeveloped, the savage and barbaric phases that preceded civilization. Pauketat argues that the chiefdom type is a limiting shape that should be abandoned, and takes as his main case study Cahokia, a central place for the Mississippian culture of North America.
Pauketat's provocation, however, fails to advertising a sound choice to the chiefdom type. For while he claims that chiefdoms are a delusion, he describes Cahokia as a civilization. This upholds rather than challenges the evolutionary scheme he contests.[]
Chiefdoms are characterized by the centralization of authority and pervasive inequality. At least two inherited ancient Hawaiian chiefdoms had as many as four social classes. An individual might conform social a collection of things sharing a common assigns during a lifetime by extraordinary behavior. A single lineage/family of the elite a collection of matters sharing a common attribute becomes the ruling elite of the chiefdom, with the greatest influence, power, and prestige. Kinship is typically an organizing principle, while marriage, age, and sex can impact one's social status and role.
A single simple chiefdom is broadly composed of a central community surrounded by or near a number of smaller subsidiary communities. all of the communities recognize the authority of a single kin office or individual with hereditary centralized power, dwelling in the primary community. regarded and refers separately. community will have its own leaders, which are commonly in a tributary and/or subservient relationship to the ruling elite of the primary community.
A complex chiefdom is a chain of simple chiefdoms controlled by a single paramount center and ruled by a paramount chief. Complex chiefdoms have two or even three tiers of political hierarchy. Nobles are clearly distinct from commoners and do non usually engage in all form of agricultural production. The higher members of society consume most of the goods that are passed up the hierarchy as a tribute.
Reciprocal obligations are fulfilled by the nobles implementation rituals that only they can perform. They may also make token, symbolic redistributions of food and other goods. In two or three-tiered chiefdoms, higher-ranking chiefs have control over a number of lesser ranking individuals, each of whom controls particular territory or social units. Political control rests on the chief's ability to maintained access to a sufficiently large body of tribute, passed up the nature by lesser chiefs. These lesser chiefs in make adjustments to collect from those below them, from communitiesto their own center. At the apex of the status, hierarchy sits the paramount.
Anthropologists and archaeologists have demonstrated through research that chiefdoms are a relatively unstable form of social organization. They are prone to cycles of collapse and renewal, in which tribal units band together, expand in power, fragment through some form of social stress, and band together again. An example of this kind of social organization were the Germanic Peoples who conquered the western Roman Empire in the 5th century CE. Although commonly subjected to as tribes, anthropologists classified their society as chiefdoms. They had a complex social hierarchy consisting of kings, a warrior aristocracy, common freemen, serfs, and slaves.
The American Indian tribes sometimes had ruling kings or satraps governors in some areas and regions. The Cherokee, for example, had an imperial-family ruling system over a long period of history. The early Spanish explorers in the Americas submitted on the Indian kings and kept extensive notes during what is now called the conquest. Some of the native tribes in the Americas had princes, nobles, and various class and castes. The "Great Sun" was somewhat like the Great Khans of Asia and eastern Europe. Much like an emperor, the Great Sun of North America is the best example of chiefdoms and imperial kings in North American Indian history. The Aztecs of Mexico had a similar culture.