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Complexity in Archaic States

Robert McC. Adams

Department of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093-0532

Received July 25, 2000; revision received October 6, 2000; accepted October 26, 2000;

published online June 1, 2001

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 20, 345–360 (2001)

doi:10.1006/jaar.2000.0377, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

The concept of complexity, associated particularly with ancient cities, states, and civilizations

and their immediate antecedents, denotes qualities of hierarchical differentiation and the intricacy

and interdependency of their parts and relationships. Alike in the human and natural worlds, com-

plexity has repeatedly emerged as an overarching characterization through irregular, discontinu-

ous processes of accumulation. These led by degrees and at intervals to relatively abrupt, qualita-

tive changes. Under various constraints, contemporary archaeological research methods and

objectives have not been accompanied by an adequate recognition of the centrality of increasing

complexity as a social evolutionary tendency. Here it is argued that a focused, highly interdiscipli-

nary study of complex adaptive systems is meanwhile coming to the fore that deserves careful ar-

chaeological scrutiny. A growing convergence of interests is suggested by shared issues like histor-

ical path-dependency, the interactions of differently situated and motivated human agents,

differential returns to scale, and the range of possible, computer-generated outcomes of unpre-

dictable combinations of orderly, random and stochastic processes and events. © 2001 Academic Press

Two interrelated trends, toward increas-

ing hierarchical differentiation and toward

complexity, have characterized human so-

cial evolution since the end of the Pleis-

tocene. Yet it is obvious that individual so-

cieties have seldom if ever long sustained a

movement in either direction, let alone

both. As with its biological and ecosystemic

evolutionary analogues, discontinuities are

an essential part of the cultural evolution-

ary process. Making a case for comparable

processes affecting social systems and

ecosystems, with little more than a straight-

forward translation of the entities involved,

Holling et al. generalize that in all dynamic,

self-organized systems,

nge is neither continuous and gradual nor con-

ently chaotic. Rather it is episodic, with peri-

of slow accumulation of natural capital such

iomass or nutrients, punctuated by sudden re-

ses and reorganization of that capital as the re-

t of internal or external natural processes or of

an-imposed catastrophes. (n.d.: 2.4)

iscontinuous, rapid shifts, interspersed

uch longer spans of relative stability,

34

exist in most archaeological sequences of

regional or larger scale. Such irregularities

provide the framework for most archaeo-

logical theory and synthesis, employing the

longue durée outlook with which Fernand

Braudel has enriched the study of history—

and secondarily also of archaeology

(Bintliff, Ed. 1991).

Drawing on the example of the Industrial

Revolution, archaeologists under the stimu-

lus of Gordon Childe and Julian Steward

were already beginning to take notice of

complex, multicausal irregularities in rate

and direction by around the time of World

War II (Greene 1999). Numerous efforts

quickly began to center, as they remain cen-

tered today, on the multiple, independently

occurring examples of early food-produc-

ing and urban revolutions in both hemi-

spheres.

The study of hierarchical differentiation

has been deeply rooted in the social sci-

ences since the last century. Complexity, on

the other hand, has a more vaguely inclu-

sive, but also more obscure, lineage and

50278-4165/01 $35.00Copyright © 2001 by Academic Press

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

c

present set of meanings. Basically, it con-

veys a sense of intricacy in nature, struc-

ture, and perhaps causation. The Oxford

English Dictionary finds the root of the

word in a whole that comprehends a num-

ber of interrelated parts or involved partic-

ulars.

In archaeological usage complexity most

frequently implies “pronounced and insti-

tutionalized patterns of inequality and het-

erogeneity” (Smith 1993:5–6). Omitting rare

reference even to groups of hunter-gather-

ers, its prevailing application is sometimes

to chiefdoms but more especially to ancient

cities, states, and civilizations. Early

Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley,

North China, Mesoamerica, and Andean

South America, differing greatly from one

another in numerous other respects, stand

apart as the essentially complete roster of

the original or “pristine” members of this

latter class.

An abstraction like complexity does not

emerge immediately from raw archaeologi-

cal data. It grows by trial and error, through

analysis of many discrete settings and

through iterative testing with successively

improving methods. Levels of inequality in

status, wealth, and power come to light in

tomb furnishings, in discontinuous classes

of settlement size, domestic architecture,

and monumental construction, and in local-

ized concentrations of costly or exotic mate-

rials from distant locales. But doubts linger

about how closely gradations of control

over human and other resources corre-

sponded with these material vestiges that

survive to be detected and measured mil-

lennia later.

Measures of heterogeneity, similarly, are

in the end always somewhat speculative.

Reconstructions of relationships, connectiv-

ities, and individual differentiation or au-

tonomy require acts of creation, not deduc-

tion, from limited and ambiguous material

346 ROBERT M

residues (Smith 1994:143–144). Ancient

texts, where they are available, can play a

vital part in helping us to identify distribu-

tional patterns as signposts of organiza-

tions and institutions. But drawing signifi-

cant generalizations from ancient texts

faces obstacles not less difficult than those

confronting archaeologists.

Long preoccupied with the intellectual

resonances and aesthetic appeal of the qual-

ities identified with cities and especially

civilizations, humanistically inclined ar-

chaeologists have tended to concern them-

selves with the uniqueness of each member

of the “pristine” class as a cultural achieve-

ment, rather than with the common, unify-

ing characteristics that distinguish the class

as a whole. Anthropological archaeologists,

with a deeper commitment to the study of

cultural evolution at large, are less accept-

ing of this apparent unwillingness to seek

out the general behind a mass of particu-

lars. Seeking to avoid what can become an

endlessly elaborated, descriptive cul de sac,

most archaeologists trained in the outlook

of the social sciences today probably think

not in terms of civilizations but of early

states deriving from antecedent chiefdoms.

States are viewed as the decisive common

feature in all of the “nuclear” areas of civi-

lization’s emergence, the primary engine

behind a larger, dependent set of changes.

The overall pace of research continues to

grow and diversify ever more rapidly. That

alone, however, cannot account for the pro-

liferation of vigorous new theoretical and

methodological advances. My own surmise

is that most of these derive from external

sources—the importation of natural science

instrumentation, techniques, and perspec-

tives on the one hand, and insights and

models drawn from all across the social sci-

ences on the other. But the assimilating and

interpreting of impressively accumulating

masses of new data is still primarily di-

rected toward improving the understand-

ing of particular cases. Receiving much less

attention are synthetic and cross-cultural

C. ADAMS

approaches to an understanding of pro-

cesses commonly involved in the growth of

early states.

A

Part, but not all, of the explanation for the

failure of the theoretical dimensions of the

subject to keep pace is provided by limita-

tions of archaeological methodologies and

data. Scientific excavation, coupled with

the exacting analytical and publication

standards required if excavation results are

to advance the discipline and justify the de-

structiveness of the discovery process, is ex-

ceedingly time-consuming and expensive.

While larger than ever today, the supply of

trained archaeologists and the many differ-

ent kinds of resources they need has always

been comparatively modest. In relation to

the vastness of the remains of ancient civi-

lizations that are already known (quite

apart from what is yet to be discovered), it

can safely be asserted that in all of the “pris-

tine” areas only a minute fraction have as

yet entered into the corpus of primary, us-

able archaeological knowledge. With so lit-

tle known, the difficulties associated with

limitations or biases of existing samples are

very large.

Remains of monumental buildings and

other likely repositories of artistic, textual,

and similar “treasures” (by contemporary

exhibition criteria) have naturally attracted

disproportionate attention. Certain cate-

gories of voluminous and well-preserved

material like ceramics, having the addi-

tional importance of being sensitive

chronological indicators, almost always are

carefully studied. But even for ceramics the

determination and publication of full

ranges of variability rather than subjec-

tively selected types is rare.

Most textual as well as art-historical

sources that are archaeologically recovered

encounter not only these limitations but

others as well. Early writing systems, still in

the process of emergence, were distinctly

limited in the range of information they

could convey. And rich as they presently

became in anecdotal detail of the “dynas-

COMPLEXITY IN

ties, wars, and religions” genre, the textual

corpora originating in early states and civi-

lizations focus fairly narrowly on the views

and activities of elites. As such, they tell us

disappointingly little about wider societal,

let alone ecological, processes and settings.

Then there is a further difficulty. Con-

scious of where the greater weight of evi-

dence is ordinarily to be found, most ar-

chaeologists choose to concentrate on

well-represented periods of extensive

building activity, assured stability, and cen-

tralized control. An emphasis on functional

accounts and explanations, focusing on im-

plicitly durable institutions and system-

maintaining properties, is a natural out-

come. Treated as of lesser importance, or

even as falling outside the framework of

“scientific” analysis altogether, are the more

ill-documented, chaotic episodes of hostile

incursions and internal disruption. Yet in

terms of gross proportions of the life spans

of the societies in question, these conditions

were almost always the largest part of the

record.

The imprecision of most archaeological

dating has a similar effect. Permitting age

determinations only with fairly large mar-

gins of uncertainty, it frequently does little

to clarify the character or directionality of

cultural relationships. Sudden or short-

term processes of change go unrecognized.

Yet it is likely that they were often decisive

turning points. In large part, therefore, ar-

chaeological reconstructions of process

tend to be limited to selected, unrealisti-

cally smoothed, gradualistic aggregates.

Living continuously with insecure ap-

proximations of dates, archaeologists risk

not giving adequate consideration to some

of the more subtle losses of processual un-

derstanding that result. Within compact

settlements, careful stratigraphic analysis

of living floors has a reasonable chance of

establishing continuity and contemporane-

ity of habitation in adjacent residential

units. Whenever buildings are relatively

more dispersed, however, this rapidly be-

RCHAIC STATES 347

comes more difficult to demonstrate. Where

natural conditions of soil, precipitation, or

drainage could not support large areas of

densely built-up settlement, this means that

attempts to determine the number of simul-

taneously occupied dwelling units depends

largely on typological analysis of pottery

and other artifacts. Such attempts cannot

escape considerable imprecision. Conse-

quently, so do all population estimates and

related attempts to assess the agricultural

productivity presupposed by those esti-

mates.

What can be done to reinforce archaeol-

ogy’s chronological foundations against

these problems? There is gratifying but

fairly slow progress in extending the avail-

ability of dendrochronological and paleo-

magnetic dates. A more quickly and widely

applicable step involves simply making in-

creasing numbers of radiocarbon determi-

nations on carefully chosen and collected

samples. It has been shown that sophisti-

cated handling of large, disparate assem-

blages of such determinations can impres-

sively reduce uncertainties (Wright n.d.). In

any case, there needs to be greater aware-

ness of the interpretational opportunities

348 ROBERT Mc

that will continue to be foregone unless

greater resources are devoted to what may

seem mere chronological “refinements.”

INTERRELATED LIMITATIONS OFDATA, METHOD, AND THEORY

Mesoamerica, and more especially the

lowland Maya area, provides a brief illus-

tration of how all these difficulties intersect

with one another to limit the theoretical as

well as substantive progress of the field.

Common cultural traditions, integrative in-

stitutions, and the coercive powers of

rulership are likely to have tied the clus-

tered “temples” and “palaces” of monu-

mental ceremonial centers to outlying hin-

terlands of much smaller, more diffuse

settlements. But the degree of cohesiveness

of regions around centers remains elusive.

Smaller, outlying replications of some

monumental building types may, indeed,

imply a close, pan-community integration

of belief systems and/or a high level of hi-

erarchical control. But it also may imply, as

some Mayanists continue to argue, not a

contemporaneous phenomenon at all but

an occupation of the peripheries of the

great centers largely subsequent to an

abandonment of the cores. This is the kind

of argument that improved chronologies

could settle.

How hierarchically organized were clus-

ters of neighboring settlement (not to speak

of the greater ambiguities of more dis-

persed groupings)? To the degree that hier-

archy can be demonstrated, was it durable

or intermittent, or even oscillating in polar-

ity? How confident can we be that settle-

ments identified as contemporary on the

basis of ceramic affinities were fully equiva-

lent in their actual spans of occupation?

Joyce Marcus rightly calls attention to the

“strong propaganda component of

Mesoamerican hieroglyphic inscriptions,”

requiring us to view claims of “subjuga-

tion” with considerable skepticism. Hypog-

amous marriages of Maya princesses from

larger centers to rulers of smaller ones can

reinforce such claims, but this does not ex-

clude the possibility of arrangements en-

tered into for mutual political or economic

advantage (1992:401). In any case, the for-

mal memorialization of a relationship at a

given moment says little about either its

real content or its durability.

In what is presently known of the life

span of major Mesoamerican centers Mar-

cus finds persuasive evidence of cyclicity.

But the length of the cycles she has so far

been able to detect reaffirms the limitations

of archaeological evidence. Durable hege-

monic regimes are assumed to last for cen-

turies (in Monte Alban’s case, more than a

millennium) before giving way to rivals.

Yet on overwhelming historical evidence, of

worldwide scope, ascendancy in such hier-

archies is inherently unstable and typically

C. ADAMS

limited to a few generations at most.

A more reasonable alternative is to as-

sume that monumental centers might retain

A

their ritual and symbolic role through be-

wildering shifts of political authority

over—and within!—them. Such is known

to have been the case in the more ade-

quately documented Mesopotamian case,

where successful monarchs repeatedly

credited themselves with rebuilding tem-

ples in cities they had subjugated. Ceremo-

nial inscriptional and building activity, in

other words, need not be correlated at all

closely with contentious, fluctuating pat-

terns of territorial control. Other, more di-

rect ways are needed to work out the de-

tails of the latter. But here, as Marcus

ruefully points out (1992:394, 407), we en-

counter a serious methodological problem

with the chronological insensitivity of ar-

chaeological surveys. If the object is to de-

tect temporary, contingent patterns of im-

perial control over areas of as much as

several tens of thousands of square kilome-

ters, our ends and means are simply not in

keeping with one another.

Lacking adequate ways of answering

questions like these, reconstructions of

many fundamental aspects of social life re-

main in a kind of diffuse, speculative limbo.

These include a lot of what is at the heart of

any approach to complexity, regional popu-

lation density and measures of sociopoliti-

cal integration and of division of labor. Par-

ticularly left in a realm of conjecture are

aspects of social variability within both re-

gions and individual settlements, affecting

patterns of ethnic differentiation and local-

ized patterns of descent, affiliation, and

coresidence.

The extent to which hostilities dominated

local interaction is another largely unan-

swered question. That the ancient Maya

were at least on occasion ferociously war-

like is the formerly unthinkable but now

persuasive conclusion to be drawn primar-

ily from new inscriptional evidence and

representational art. But this is somewhat

COMPLEXITY IN

inconsistent with the apparent lack of mili-

tary sophistication and the limited evidence

for fortifications. That suggests episodic,

fairly low intensity rather than continuous

warfare with ad hoc mobilizations of mo-

bile, heterogeneous forces clashing infre-

quently in the field rather than defending

well-defined frontiers or conducting sieges

of fixed strong-points. Such a pattern is

amply confirmed by late pre-Hispanic cen-

tral Mexican accounts, which again portray

a surprising lack of sophistication in mili-

tary tactics (Clendinnen 1985). While large

Aztec forces repeatedly campaigned far to

the southeast in the Guatemalan highlands

(as may have also their central Mexican

predecessors from Teotihuacan), something

approaching a permanent, fortified frontier

was maintained only against the hostile

Tarascan kingdom to the west. Overall pat-

terns of regional integration depend, in any

case, as much on the character of these hos-

tilities as on ceremonial exchange and royal

intermarriage.

Problems involving the intensity and

synchronicity of interactions are only multi-

plied when we look beyond fairly localized

regions to Mesoamerica as a whole. Within

the limitations of temporal units still based

largely on imprecise ceramic chronologies,

George Cowgill’s (1997) impressive control

of the enormous volume of relevant data

from Teotihuacan leaves a disturbing im-

pression of his accumulating doubts over

the number and significance of the ties be-

tween that great, unrivaled city and its con-

temporaries. If Cowgill’s view prevails, cul-

tural evolution in Mesoamerica was largely

of a cellular character, with the individual

cells only marginally and sporadically in

communication with one another.

Acknowledging that my standpoint is

one of general principles rather than

knowledge of the details, this seems quite

unlikely. It would require us to abandon the

idea that what made Mesoamerica as a

whole a “nuclear” area was the extensive

role of mutual stimulation and diffusion,

RCHAIC STATES 349

with frequent, significant, and reciprocal

contacts extending in many directions.

With the partial exception of ancient Egypt,

unusually compressed by its setting into a

narrow, continuous line of settlement along

the Nile, the prevailing pattern for all other

emergent civilizations was one of “polycen-

tricity” rather than mutual isolation. And in

any case, recent research is strongly reaf-

firming that Egypt was by no means im-

mune to the stimulus of outside interaction.

In recent decades archaeological surveys

are introducing a less localized, more inter-

actional point of view. Inescapably, how-

ever, place-oriented excavations remain the

core of the discipline. While controversies

over the “earliest” village or occurrence of

some important trait may be partly linked

to the quest for publicity, they also funda-

mentally reflect this way of thinking. From

within this mind-set, it requires a con-

scious, counterintuitive effort not to as-

sume the existence of a kind of self-enclos-

ing boundary around a particular locale of

excavation, within which processes of

change are viewed as largely endogenous.

Reinforcing this natural predisposition may

also be a continuing reaction against the ex-

cesses of older, now almost completely dis-

credited, diffusionist doctrines.

The effect is to take implausibly for

granted that the most significant social rela-

tionships—even in far-flung states and civi-

lizations, and even those relationships most

tied to power, production, wealth, and ac-

cess to resources—are among kin and

neighbors. This questionable outcome is by

no means limited to site-focused excava-

tions by archaeologists but applies with

equal strength to the tradition of commu-

nity-focused participant-observation in

ethnography and social anthropology (Ben-

nett 1980:204).

My point is to question whether we can

get very far with the principle of local au-

tarky in reconstructing the emergence of

early cities, states, and civilizations. All

“nuclear” areas were of considerable geo-

350 ROBERT Mc

graphic extent and so offered multiple at-

tractive niches for human exploitation in

diverse ecosystems. Together with surely

comparable conditions in surrounding re-

gions, this ecosystemic diversity led to a

range of mutually complementary direc-

tions of specialization as a basis for ex-

change. Moreover, as Ian Hodder has

pointed out with special reference to the

growth of social hierarchies,

there is more to exchange than economic advan-

tage—even if social advantage is included in that

term. Exchange involves the transfer of items that

have symbolic and categorical associations.

Within any strategy of legitimization, the symbol-

ism of objects is manipulated in the construction

of relations of dominance. The exchange of appro-

priate items forms social obligations, status, and

power, but it also legitimates as it forms. (1982:209;

cf. Haselgrove 1987:106)

Trade and interaction thus seem likely to

have been a fundamentally creative, desta-

bilizing, sometimes perhaps even critical

force in the promotion the development of

civilization. The same argument can be ex-

tended to increasingly refined products of

C. ADAMS

specialized craftsmen, and thus to techno-

logical innovations of many kinds, whether

originating locally or at a distance.

A NEW APPROACH TO COMPLEXITY

Studies along a different, broader front of

scientific inquiry have meanwhile been en-

dowing the cluster of concepts identified

with complexity with more carefully speci-

fied significance. The subject has become a

many-stranded approach to diverse classes

of phenomena whose principal characteris-

tic is that their properties and behaviors

cannot be adequately described or ex-

plained by the interaction of a few, rela-

tively simple, law-like principles.

Computer modeling plays a primary part

in most of these efforts It enormously ad-

vances the speed of computation and pro-

vides a format of visualization that en-

hances recognition of patterning. The

consequences of basic assumptions in a

model can be very quickly deduced for a

wide array of values, helping in the recog-

nition of regularities and emergent struc-

A

tures. An important effect of simulations, in

other words, is not to mimic “reality” but to

demonstrate the surprising, often counter-

intuitive outcomes that can be generated

from multiple, parallel, interactive applica-

tions of alternative sets of simple rules. Si-

multaneously, however, simulations intro-

duce and highlight methodological and

theoretical issues that are common and in-

telligible to both the natural and social sci-

ences.

The subjects of studies falling within the

framework of this new approach can be de-

scribed as diverse sequences of change

through time that exhibit unpredictable

combinations of orderly and chaotic fea-

tures. We see the combined influence of

various feedback effects, random or sto-

chastic events and processes, and the some-

times long-term, determinative conse-

quences of coincidental combinations of

initial conditions. Especially in the case of

living and social systems that are adaptive

in character, an important causal feature

seems to be the behavioral variability of in-

dividual “agents” that systemic models can

only represent by aggregating.

This new concern for complexity high-

lights a somewhat different set of consider-

ations than is suggested by city, state, and

civilization as examples of our traditional

archaeological categories. The primary

focus of scientific attention is turned away

from ever-more-refined accounts of internal

structure and toward boldly generalizing,

transdisciplinary explanations of form,

function, and change. “High-level” as

cities, states, and civilizations may seem to

most of us as archaeological categories,

they all fall within the larger category of

“complex adaptive systems”—systems

composed of interacting agents whose

array of individual behaviors conform to

rules that can be consciously or uncon-

sciously modified through an adaptive

COMPLEXITY IN

learning process.

There are deep uniformities in complex

adaptive systems and processes of all

kinds. They serve as illuminating intercon-

nections between human social systems

and such general biological phenomena as

the adaptation of species and populations

to environmental change through natural

selection, or the immune system’s adaptive

ability to form antibodies, or the brain and

nervous system’s ability to learn. John

Ziman, an eminent historian and episte-

mologist of science, offers a penetrating as

well as critical assessment of the present

state of play within this still rapidly devel-

oping field:

Complexity is another country: they do things dif-

ferently there. It seems essential to learn an appro-

priate language for, say, characterizing a system

by the diversity of its components and their inter-

actions, for providing a natural definition of the

“function” of a “part” of a complex system, or for

interpreting evolutionary drift toward a phase

transition between “sub-critical” and “supra-criti-

cal” behaviour. This type of analysis is still far

from established as a formal theoretical discipline,

but it is very instructive in showing that function-

ally integrated, self-constructing, far-from-equi-

librium systems do have their own laws and law-

like patterns of behaviour. (2000:51)

The search for complexity as it is mani-

fested in adaptive social systems calls atten-

tion immediately to differences in experi-

ence, motivation, and empowerment

among individual agents. Reflecting learn-

ing primarily acquired from interactions

with one another, these differences are a

critical source of adaptive change. For some

of the principal pioneers of complexity the-

ory, they seem to be, in fact, the major and

most compelling ones that provide the

basis for model-building, aggregative cate-

gories (Holland 1995:10–11, 93).

The Santa Fe Institute is the principal

center wholly devoted to the new “sciences

of complexity.” Closely interacting there (as

well as under its auspices by Internet) is an

extraordinary array of ideas and talents

continuously engaged, to borrow Joseph

RCHAIC STATES 351

Schumpeter’s (1975:84) characterization of

capitalism, in creative destruction. The

Santa Fe location, initially (and still today)

c

permits it to draw upon the human re-

sources of nearby Los Alamos National

Laboratory. Simultaneously, it brings SFI

within the widely shared Southwestern

United States archaeological perimeter of

traditional expertise and emphasis.

What are the advantages to be gained by

archaeologists through this different, con-

siderably more rigorous use of the concept

of complexity? An important characteristic

of complex, adaptive systems is a recogni-

tion of periodic “path dependency,” a de-

pendence of the trajectory of change not on

the current values of driving forces alone

but on history. Unpredictability in such

cases can be followed by high predictabil-

ity, as a system becomes “locked in” and

hence insensitive to perturbations.

Path dependency can result from increas-

ing returns to scale and agglomeration. The

first cities to appear, for example, were by

virtue of their greater size and population

able to dominate a surrounding landscape

of smaller towns. Similarly, particular im-

provements in agricultural or craft tech-

nologies that had been made possible by

the new concentrations of human and nat-

ural resources in early cities could become

locked-in by urban supremacy, leading (for

a time) to a suppression of later improve-

ments made in subordinate centers. Hyper-

trophy of institutional development and in-

vestments in infrastructure can become a

kind of dead hand of sunk costs that also

impedes adaptive change. All self-reinforc-

ing processes tend to build their own infra-

structures, hence tending to lead toward ir-

reversibility. Finally, historical accidents

(e.g., fortuitous discoveries, climatic crises,

exceptional individuals) may play a major

role under some circumstances, outweigh-

ing the effects of longer-term, presumably

more “basic,” driving forces. Implicated in

the new approach to complexity is a con-

cern for all these processes (Arthur 1989).

352 ROBERT M

Evolving systems, to proceed to the most

fundamental level, cannot be understood

by isolating their components and addi-

tively assembling sets of the interactions

between small numbers of these compo-

nents. In dealing with the appearance over

time of new classes of phenomena we must

expect instead to confront the emergence of

new wholes that are different from the sum

of their parts. This is the “emergent nov-

elty” familiar to evolutionary biologists,

but detectable in the physical sciences as

well. “More is different,” as is aptly stated

in the title of a classic refutation of the ade-

quacy of reductionism as a scientific pro-

gram by physics Nobel Prize winner Philip

Anderson, an SFI founder:

The ability to reduce everything to simple funda-

mental laws does not imply the ability to start

from those laws and reconstruct the universe . . . .

The constructionist hypothesis breaks down

when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale

and complexity . . . at each new level of complex-

ity entirely new properties appear, and the under-

standing of the new behaviors requires research

which I think is as fundamental in its nature as

any other. (1972:393)

Social systems, like all adaptive, living

systems, are structured composites of indi-

vidual agents with different as well as com-

mon endowments. They interact in accor-

dance with historically derived, although

situationally reinterpreted and never en-

tirely rigid, needs, aspirations, and patterns

of affinity. Viewed through the narrow aper-

ture of a myopic search for law-like regulari-

ties, the results are likely to be baffling. But

unprecedented new patterns of self-organi-

zation typically can appear in such systems

quite suddenly, after long intervals of rela-

tive quiescence during which there are only

smaller, slowly accumulating changes. Com-

plex systems, then, will be characteristically

composed of older, fossil-like elements coex-

isting with other elements of new, emergent

levels of articulation, differentiation, and

synthesis. The multiple instances of the rise

of early complex societies are classic exam-

C. ADAMS

ples of this process at work.

How do abrupt, qualitative changes

occur? They would be difficult to explain if

A

adaptation took the form of a consistent,

uniform striving for functional efficiency.

But as economist Peter Allen observes, the

(social as well as natural) environment to

which adaptation must take place is itself

complex, differentiated, uncertain, and de-

manding:

In an evolutionary landscape of hills and valleys

representing levels of functional efficiency of dif-

ferent possible organisms, it is the error-maker

who can move up a hill, eventually out-compet-

ing a perfectly reproducing rival . . . evolution

does not lead to optimal behavior, because evolu-

tion concerns not only “efficient performance” but

also the constant need for new discoveries. What

is found is that variability at the microscopic level,

individual diversity, is part of the evolutionary

strategy of survivors, and this is precisely what

mechanical “systems” representations do not in-

clude. In other words, in the shifting landscape of

a world in continuous evolution, the ability to

climb is perhaps what counts, and what we see as

a result of evolution are not species or firms with

“optimal behavior” at each instant, but rather ac-

tors that can learn! (Allen 1988:107–108)

Qualitative change may originate as either

a spontaneous or a deliberate process. But in

either case it usually takes the form of a sud-

den perception of unforeseen possibilities in

a seemingly useless or even “erroneous”

course already in existence at the margins.

Deviants’ or error-makers’ ideas and initia-

tives, crossing some lower threshold of fre-

quency or plausibility, then are discovered

by widening circles of adopters—or are im-

posed by a handful of newly empowered

ones—to meet new, or at least previously

unrecognized, challenges and needs. In the

parlance of complexity theorists, the nonlin-

ear, largely unpredictable outcome, a more

or less organized shift by the larger commu-

COMPLEXITY IN

nity, can be thought of as skirting the am-

biguous interface between controlled and

chaotic behavior.

APPLICABILITY TO EARLY CITIESAND STATES

How does a general concern for model-

ing the irregular courses of increasing com-

plexity contribute to an understanding of

the processes by which early states and civ-

ilizations emerged? I will concentrate on

the example of southern Mesopotamia,

both because I know it best and because of

the unparalleled supplementation of ar-

chaeological evidence there by textual

sources.

Begin with the unprecedented size of its

early city-states, on Anderson’s “more is

different” principle. Positive feedbacks link

together many manifestations of enlarge-

ment of population and territorial size.

Whether or not conforming in every respect

with modern definitions of urbanism, un-

precedentedly large “primate” centers

made their appearance (as in most “nu-

clear” areas) coincident with civilization it-

self. Their superior strength was underwrit-

ten by the larger populations assembled

within them. Based on their unequaled ca-

pacities to project power at a distance were

other, related capacities to impose patterns

of authoritarian domination, labor mobi-

lization, and tribute exaction on outlying

domains.

Joyce Marcus (1998) has recently sug-

gested that for early states as a class signifi-

cant increases in scale may be the single,

most decisive variable in the whole process.

It does indeed seem that increasing scale is

a necessary—although hardly a sufficient—

condition. With increasing scale, for exam-

ple, there will appear an increasing number

of niches—of complementary subsistence

resources, of opportunities for crafts and

other forms of specialization, of luxuries

and exotics to heighten the significance of

rituals and enhance elite status, and to de-

tach social hierarchies from purely local

levels of interaction and concern.

In most cases primate center growth

seems to have been too rapid to have re-

sulted from natural population increases

alone. Hence the influx from more dis-

RCHAIC STATES 353

persed hinterlands is likely to have in-

volved an element of persuasion if not com-

pulsion. Given the constraint of relatively

c

primitive transport, at least the larger ex-

amples of the new centers could not be reg-

ularly sustained with food and other re-

sources without an element of coercion in

the form of imposed tribute or corvée labor.

So the styles and symbols proclaiming as-

cendancy had the implicit role of helping to

overawe both potential opponents and dis-

affected supporters.

Early state societies must have been for

the most part risky, transitory constructs.

Neatly “conical” models of concentrated

ruling authority are unlikely to have per-

sisted for long without being internally as

well as externally challenged, perhaps es-

pecially at moments of dynastic succession.

Permanently ranked, hierarchical patterns

are therefore likely to have alternated peri-

odically with various forms of institutional

rivalry or heterarchy (Stein 1997:7). Often

driven to extend territorial control to the

limit of their organizational and military re-

sources, they could be exposed to system-

threatening crises by even minor environ-

mental fluctuations or internal fissiparous

tendencies. But if larger state or protoimpe-

rial configurations came and went, the

early cities in which power and resources

were concentrated were longer lived. Fluc-

tuating military fortunes might favor one or

another, but as a group their superior size

permitted them to retain a superior capac-

ity to amass, defend, and deploy resources

vis-à-vis their hinterlands. This also ex-

plains why they continue to receive a

grossly disproportionate share of archaeo-

logical attention.

Partly paralleling the “more is different”

principle is what Robert Merton (1973) has

called the Matthew Effect: To him who hath

will be given more. Or specifically, the allo-

cation of rewards and resources tends to be

strongly skewed in favor of the seeker/re-

cipient who has already attained higher sta-

tus and reputation. Advantages flowed to

354 ROBERT M

the city at the expense of the smaller town

and countryside, while within cities they

were enormously concentrated in the

hands of relatively small upper strata. An

increasing layering of social hierarchies and

of the administrative apparatus was a re-

sult, accompanied by increasingly differen-

tiated roles, ceremonies, and markers of

prestige.

Coordinate with processes of political

and socioeconomic stratification was an in-

creasingly subdivided division of labor.

This led to craft and craftsmanship hierar-

chies and proliferating demands for en-

hanced, better assured supplies of exotic

goods and raw materials. Systems of sub-

sistence are also likely to have become in-

creasingly large-scale, differentiated, and

complex. Urban populations may have con-

tinued to be primarily engaged in agricul-

ture at the outset. But as they grew, the in-

creasing proportion that gravitated or was

co-opted into the crafts, service occupa-

tions, cult observances, and administrative

activities presupposes a corresponding in-

tensification and specialization within the

food-producing sector.

Andrew Sherratt (1981) has characterized

this process as a secondary products revo-

lution, and there certainly is a conceptual

coherence among specialized advances that

in the Near East were concentrated in ani-

mal husbandry. Alongside of increases in

the scale and specialized management of

animal herds were differentiation within

herds for breeding stock, meat supply, and

working stock, specialized procedures and

equipment for milk and milk products, and

the growing importance of wool and its

processing.

Whatever their earlier origins, the forma-

tion of cities and states brought a newly

emergent quality to all of these develop-

ments. It was less and less devoted merely

to serving the ends of a localized, perenni-

ally at-risk subsistence economy and was

instead primarily directed toward the new

priorities of forcibly extending and defend-

C. ADAMS

ing an enlarged population-and-resource

base, ritual elaboration, prestigious display,

and the preparation of costly, labor-inten-

A

sive articles (above all textiles) for use in

long-distance trade. Textile production, in

particular (because of its high value-to-

weight ratio), quickly took on a quasi-in-

dustrial aspect. In Mesopotamia, where we

see this most clearly in textual archives, this

involved a marked enhancement of the in-

stitution of slavery into a state enterprise

rather than a domestic one. The increasing

subjection of large numbers of women and

their dependents into this role had impor-

tant secondary consequences for gender re-

lations. These constitute a kind of “lock-in”

of the superordinate economy’s trade rela-

tions, in the parlance of complexity theory.

Technology was in general a key sphere

of increasing complexity. Internal stratifica-

tion and growing stress on an external pro-

jection of authority and prestige clearly led

to an increasing differentiation between

mundane and ritual or luxury articles. The

production of luxuries, in turn, directed an

increasing component of external trade to-

ward the procurement of precious or exotic

substances. That led to more pronounced

gradations in skill, responsibility, and sta-

tus among producers. A distinction merely

between full- and part-time specialists, long

ago stressed by Childe, now seems entirely

too simple. It may even be actively mislead-

ing (Stein 1998:10). The more recently sug-

gested distinction between independent

and attached specialists (Brumfiel and Earle

1987:5) seems more promising.

The expanded scale of territorial control

associated with early states brought other

new demands for political control mecha-

nisms. The risk-reducing advantages of en-

vironmental diversity were sought by im-

posing a degree of economic integration on

a larger region. That also imposed an en-

hanced burden of transport requirements,

much of which could be shifted to subju-

gated populations. Categories and degrees

of dependency furnished another dimen-

COMPLEXITY IN

sion of increasing complexity. Numbers in-

creased greatly, with male war prisoners as

a result of rising militarism and with

women impressed into textile-producing

activity. This must have been accompanied

by more repressive administrative innova-

tions.

Uncertainties over fluctuations in food

and other supplies were never wholly

avoidable, and were a growing danger as

population grew. In times of social break-

down or political crisis such fluctuations

could become devastating, forcing impov-

erished herdsmen or cultivators into do-

mestic dependency. Measures to offset

minor perturbations no doubt were fre-

quent. But insofar as they met with short-

term success they encouraged system

growth at the expense of heightened

fragility when the perturbations later ex-

ceeded tolerable limits (Adams 1978). In the

short run, if provisions for the mobilization

and concentration of reserves became in-

creasingly imperative with the appearance

of population concentrations of urban scale,

they were also more readily attainable with

new, urban-based forms of sociopolitical

organization.

Directing and interconnecting all of these

developments was a need for increasing

flows of information. By incorporating

growing numbers of requirements into a re-

ceived body of tradition and a corporate

memory it added new historical complexi-

ties to every level of decision-making. Writ-

ing, although not uniformly developing in

every early civilization to a stage deserving

this unrestricted characterization, thus

tends to play a decisive part in broader

technological configurations wherever it

appears. Crossing some threshold of func-

tional utility, its development inevitably led

to explosive increases in conceptual as well

as procedural complexity.

All of these characterizations of complex-

ity have a common core. It consists of the

emergence and proliferation of sets of sys-

tems or subsystems that are distinguished

RCHAIC STATES 355

from those present in simpler societies by

relatively more differentiated and ad-

vanced internal structures. Existing along-

ing internal as well as external fissures and

side one another, under conditions allow-

ing for slowly growing self-determination

(and probably self-consciousness), were

suprafamily and local community group-

ings in increasingly specialized, frequently

unstable relations with one another. Exam-

ples include—to cite only a handful:

• elites and commoners—both cate-

gories with many internal gradations—and

often factions;

• uneasily coexisting ethnicities within

larger, artificially imposed, more hierarchi-

cally managed communities;

• many new degrees, varieties, and

rankings of specialization of human activ-

ity;

• overlapping, intermittently rival do-

mains of primarily religious, politico-mili-

tary, or administrative authority;

• coexisting traditional and altered gen-

der roles, with the latter characterized by

partial replacement of kin-group produc-

tion-for-use by forms of massed depen-

dency or slavery especially affecting

women;

• forms of association and collective ac-

tivity more governed by primordial kin,

ethnic, and other ascriptive ties, alongside

others more open to individualized choice;

and,

• perhaps most generally, groups and

strategies stressing sustainability tied to au-

thoritarian control, constancy, predictabil-

ity, and the demand for steady-state opti-

mization of performance, alongside others

stressing greater resilience in adapting to

less predictable conditions, further from

equilibrium and less amenable to control,

that might require a readiness to make sud-

den, fundamental changes in structure.

Viewed over a span of time, these differen-

tiated segments, strata, or strategies are un-

356 ROBERT Mc

likely to have developed at the same tempo

or to have altered course abruptly and in

the same direction. The existence of grow-

C. ADAMS

tensions lends new significance to issues of

settlement composition, regional differenti-

ation, and boundaries.

REASSESSING THE “RAMP” VS“STEP” CONUNDRUM

I once suggested that we could think of the

emergence of complexity—or of its archaeo-

logical cognates, cities, states, and civiliza-

tions—in terms of one of two contrastive

metaphors, a “ramp” or a “step.” As an ideal

type, a ramp implies a steady course and pace

of development, a smoothly unfolding series

of complementary trends following a seem-

ingly linear path without abrupt transforma-

tions or temporary reversals. A step empha-

sizes more sudden and disjunctive changes,

an abrupt “step” upward to a new plateau of

complexity, followed by oscillations above

and below the newly elevated mean (Adams

1966:170–171). More than three decades ago it

seemed impossible to decide which of these

seemingly polar alternatives was more accu-

rate and useful, imposing the uneasy choice

of an intermediate alternative. This would

slow the abruptness of the rate of change

below that suggested by the analogy of a

“step,” making provision for some continu-

ing “ramp”-like progress as well as oscilla-

tions after the initial attainment of a new,

urban or state-like level of integration.

Returning once again to the same subject,

the basis for making a choice is of course

much altered. Excavations, often of impres-

sive scale and multiseason duration, and

with greatly improved standards of data re-

covery and publication, have multiplied in

virtually all of the “nuclear” areas where

political conditions have permitted ad-

vances in methods as well as unimpeded

access. Regional surveys, growing in

methodological rigor and increasingly rely-

ing on remote sensing data of rapidly im-

proving availability and quality, are for the

first time supporting quantitative debates

A

(still within wide margins of uncertainty)

about ancient demographic levels and cycles,

agricultural regimes, and the shifting ten-

sions and balances between life in the major

centers and in rural hinterlands. As a result,

the formerly accepted perimeters of all the

nuclear areas have been pushed outward in

virtually every direction. And earlier barriers

to communication between archaeologists

and humanistic, textually oriented scholars

are disappearing as a new generation of

young professionals moves into leadership

with systematic training in both.

None of these developments, however,

has decisively reduced the difficulties and

ambiguities of the ramp vs step choice. The

expanding geographic perimeters of inter-

action may be a partial exception. In rein-

forcing a pluralistic, polycentric under-

standing of the geographic base for the

emergence of urban and state-level soci-

eties, it may argue against the likelihood

that urban or state-like features in any nu-

clear area had been narrowly confined at

their origins to a single locus or very brief

upward step. But this is admittedly incon-

clusive evidence.

On the other hand, two other research

themes with which I have been involved

more recently seem at least partly conver-

gent in turning the search for a resolution of

the conundrum in a new direction. In the

first, retaining the same basic concern with

long-term cultural evolution, I sought out

an alternative approach involving the char-

acter and contexts of technological change

during later epochs that are at least rela-

tively much better documented (Adams

1996:xi–xvi). The second, given special em-

phasis here, explores the analytical power

of the new sciences of complexity.

The Industrial Revolution in the late 18th

and early-to-mid-19th century England was

COMPLEXITY IN

just such a phase of fundamental, acceler-

ated change as the multiple, initial episodes

of urban and state formation. As noted ear-

lier, the admittedly very broad and rough

similarity provided a stimulus and model

for Childe’s (1950) first formulation of the

idea of an urban revolution a half-century

ago. The comparison of the two is, further-

more, more apt than it would be with any of

the numerous, politically oriented revolu-

tions of the early modern to modern era.

Those latter have elements of conscious

leadership and the organization of opposing

parties and programs that are essentially

lacking in the Industrial Revolution and (to

the best of our knowledge) in early states.

One need not assume that there necessar-

ily are any deep homologies in the processes

involved in the two sides of this compari-

son. Nor is this the place to review the in-

comparably richer and more massive docu-

mentation that is available for the Industrial

Revolution than for any comparable process

of change which archaeologists may hope to

identify. But there is a broad consensus

among economic and technological histori-

ans about several aspects of the changes ac-

companying the Industrial Revolution: first,

that it was highly irregular in its impacts on

different regions and economic sectors; sec-

ond, that its growth was accompanied if not

led by an accelerating tempo of innovation;

third, that growth was concentrated in a

small number of key sectors rather than

generally distributed—the introduction of

efficient steam engines as sources of rotary

power, the mechanization of cotton textile

production, iron and steel smelting on a

progressively enlarged scale, and railroad

building. As engines of capitalist growth,

they led to growing concentrations of

wealth and a widening readiness to accept

the many risks and uncertainties of invest-

ing it in manufacturing. On the other hand,

there are continuing disputes among spe-

cialists as to just how preponderantly “in-

dustrial” and disjunctively “revolutionary”

RCHAIC STATES 357

the Industrial Revolution really was except

in retrospect. The fundamental insight is

one propounded many years ago by the

great economist Joseph Schumpeter, that

c

it is disharmonious or one-sided increase and

shifts within the aggregate which matter. Aggrega-

tive analysis . . . not only does not tell the whole

tale but necessarily obliterates the main (and only

interesting) point of the tale. (1939:134)

Essentially the same lesson emerges

from a further application of complexity

theory not mentioned earlier—one that in

important respects serves to unify and in-

tensify the effects of the whole ensemble.

The pursuit of innovation and novelty is

not a stable, uniformly distributed motiva-

tion in every social setting. Instead it is a

context-dependent emergent, stimulated by

the presence and interaction of many

forces for change like those just outlined.

Perhaps we can think of an upwelling of

activity, more or less consciously directed

toward innovation that is triggered by the

roughly contemporary crossing of some

threshold of accelerated change by a num-

ber of separate, normally independent and

fairly linear processes—e.g., craft special-

ization and the growth of elite hierarchies.

Once set in motion by a sense of new de-

mands and opportunities, a more highly

motivated pursuit of innovations would

both encourage general experimentation

with unfamiliar courses of action and un-

dermine traditional barriers to pan-societal

communication and processes of cross-fer-

tilization. Some increase in the general rate

of change would be a likely outcome. Even

if this aggregate was extremely modest (as it

is credibly argued to have been during the

Industrial Revolution), over a span of con-

siderably less than a century it could still ac-

count for nothing less than an economic

transformation. This change in tempo is pre-

cisely what Childe sought to capture by first

calling attention to what he described as an

urban revolution. And the occurrence of a

similar change in tempo can also be as-

sumed during what is often characterized as

the food-producing revolution at the time of

358 ROBERT M

the earliest onset of agriculture.

A crucial component of growing com-

plexity, in other words, was a new or sig-

nificantly enhanced capacity for strategic

abstraction in making judgments and tak-

ing action—more specifically, in formulat-

ing rules and modifying them on the basis

of experience, in weighing risks and un-

certainties within the same scale of calcu-

lation rather than considering them incom-

mensurables, in organizing associative

action more persuasively and efficiently,

and in searching out previously unfore-

seen opportunities for change and im-

provement. Translated into an archaeolog-

ical context, this is what the phrase

common among complexity theorists

“emergent capacity for self-organization”

is all about.

It is perhaps most fundamentally for

this reason that a research program focus-

ing on the unifying theme of complexity

deserves consideration by archaeologists.

Emergence is a multilevel phenomenon,

involving the convergence of many re-

lated and unrelated processes of change to

produce entirely new, unforeseen quali-

ties. Creative rather than merely additive,

it finds a classic example in the rise of

C. ADAMS

early states and civilizations—one of our

oldest, but still most rewarding fields of

study.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A brief, informal version of this paper was first

given in November 1997 at the Complex Society

Group’s Third Biennial Conference at the University of

Arizona. I am indebted to John Bintliff for encouraging

its enlargement into something more serious, a process

that has undergone several successive revisions.

Henry T. Wright and Guillermo Algaze made many

helpful and penetrating suggestions and critical com-

ments along the way.

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