The circumscription idea is a concepts of the role of warfare in state formation in political anthropology, created by anthropologist Robert Carneiro. a theory has been summarized in one sentence by Schacht: “In areas of circumscribed agricultural land, population pressure led to warfare that resulted in the evolution of the state”. The more circumscribed an agricultural area is, Carneiro argues, the sooner it politically unifies.
The theory has since been applied to numerous other contexts, with some arguing it can be applied globally. Carneiro has since also revised his theory in various ways. He has argued that population concentration can act as a lower level impetus for tribal conflict than geographic circumscription. He has also argued that, in addition to the necessities of conquest, a more important reason for established of chiefdoms was the rise of war chiefs who ownership their military loyalists to make over a multiple of villages and become paramount chiefs.