List of forms of government
59-632: Shawasha was a chiefdom in Zimbabwe . It was founded by the Chinamora Dynasty, who settled there around 1744. It became a part of the British Mashonaland protectorate in 1889. Its royal line continued to 1916. It was used as a farm for many years. After independence many people have settled in the land. There 2 schools in this land which are Nesta Junior School and Wonders Christian Junior College This Zimbabwean history -related article
118-561: A paramount chief . Complex chiefdoms have two or even three tiers of political hierarchy . Nobles are clearly distinct from commoners and do not usually engage in any 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 carrying out 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
177-578: A B.S. in Anthropology and Earth Sciences. His professors included Drs. Sidney Denny, William Woods, Charlotte Frisbie, Ted Frisbie, Alan Stueber, and Ronald Yarbrough. During college he worked as an intern for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , St. Louis District, learning from lead archaeologist Terry Norris, another veteran of the Mound 72 excavations at Cahokia. As a college student, he worked most summers on SIU-Edwardsville archaeology projects and, briefly, with
236-701: A central place for the Mississippian culture of North America. Pauketat's provocation, however, has been accused of not offering a sound alternative to the chiefdom type. For while he claims that chiefdoms are a delusion, he describes Cahokia as a civilization. This has been debated to uphold rather than challenge the evolutionary scheme he contests. Chiefdoms are characterized by the centralization of authority and pervasive inequality. At least two inherited social classes ( elite and commoner ) are present. (The ancient Hawaiian chiefdoms had as many as four social classes.) An individual might change social class during
295-450: A chiefdom as a form of social organization more complex than a tribe or a band society , and less complex than a state or a civilization . Within general theories of cultural evolution, chiefdoms are characterized by permanent and institutionalized forms of political leadership (the chief ), centralized decision-making, economic interdependence, and social hierarchy. Chiefdoms are described as intermediate between tribes and states in
354-530: A chiefdom in anthropology is by Robert L. Carneiro : "An autonomous political unit comprising a number of villages or communities under the permanent control of a paramount chief" (Carneiro 1981: 45). In archaeological theory , Service's definition of chiefdoms as “redistribution societies with a permanent central agency of coordination” (Service 1962: 134) has been most influential. Many archaeologists, however, dispute Service's reliance upon redistribution as central to chiefdom societies, and point to differences in
413-520: A complex social hierarchy consisting of kings, a warrior aristocracy, common freemen, serfs , and slaves . The Native American 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 reported on the Indian kings and kept extensive notes during what
472-513: A comprehensive, large-scale picture of the Mississippian world. He is interested in investigating such questions as the emergence of civilization, especially as we might imagine that today to have involved human and other-than-human forces. He has investigated culture areas beyond the Mississippian heartland to define what he once called his "historical processual" approach. Today, that approach has been extended to draw on New Materialist theories and
531-438: A lifetime by extraordinary behavior. A single lineage/family of the elite class 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 affect one's social status and role. A single simple chiefdom is generally composed of a central community surrounded by or near a number of smaller subsidiary communities. All of
590-422: A more theoretical approach to history. Practice theory also contributes to his understanding, that is, understanding changes in people’s habits and actions, provides an explanation for changes in the archaeological record. Pauketat stated that “... practices are always novel and creative, in some ways unlike those in other times or places...” when understood within their historical context. One method to ascertain
649-517: A much shorter time period, around three hundred years, than had been previously attributed. The ubiquity of Cahokian-derived goods across much of then contemporaneous Midwest and Mid-South U.S. has also been examined. While this distribution was most certainly due to an exchange network , Pauketat posits relations between Cahokians and other Mississippians as not being purely environmentally determined , following previous interpretations . Rather, he suggests that political relationships inspired much of
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#1733085917180708-497: A number of lesser ranking individuals, each of whom controls specific territory or social units. Political control rests on the chief's ability to maintain access to a sufficiently large body of tribute, passed up the line by lesser chiefs. These lesser chiefs in turn collect from those below them, from communities close to their own center. At the apex of the status hierarchy sits the paramount . Anthropologists and archaeologists have demonstrated through research that chiefdoms are
767-434: A political-ideological aristocracy relative to the general group. Chiefdoms and chiefs are sometimes identified as the same as kingdoms and kings , and therefore understood as monarchies , particularly when they are understood as not necessarily states, but having monarchic representation or government. In anthropological theory , one model of human social development rooted in ideas of cultural evolution describes
826-533: 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 referred to as tribes, anthropologists classified their society as chiefdoms. They had
885-414: A series of lectures, he has emphasized the importance of the archaeology of the intangible. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Pauketat championed practice-based, agency-focused, and phenomenological theories in archaeology, initiated as part of the post-processual movement in the 1980s and 1990s. These theories culminated in his 2007 book, Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions . Post-processual theory
944-527: A sudden preponderance of houses and the rapid adoption of wall-trench housing that replaced the previously common post-wall housing. Also during this time, a distinctive pattern of farmsteads developed in the uplands east of Cahokia proper, dubbed the "Richland complex" by Pauketat. The walls of houses in Richland farming settlements were set into trenches, but some post-wall and hybrid-wall forms were discovered. Initially considered an example of cultural resistance,
1003-442: A variety of ontological or relational approaches to history and humanity. Whatever the theoretical underpinnings, Pauketat has always relied on hard data and artifacts to discover new or previously ignored information. Doing so led him to an early reconstruction of Cahokian urban history as beginning around A.D. 1050, when pre-Cahokian settlements were suddenly transformed into the large, planned community of Cahokia proper, marked by
1062-466: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Chiefdom A chiefdom is a political organization of people represented or governed by a chief . Chiefdoms have been discussed, depending on their scope, as a stateless , state analogue or early state system or institution. Usually a chief's position is based on kinship , which is often monopolized by the legitimate senior members of select families or 'houses'. These elites can form
1121-696: Is an American archaeologist , director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey, the Illinois State Archaeologist, and professor of anthropology and medieval studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign . He is known for his historical theories and his investigations at Cahokia , the major center of precolonial Mississippian culture in the American Bottom region of Illinois near St. Louis, Missouri . Pauketat
1180-476: Is engaged in transforming the research and engagement activities of ISAS, the largest archaeological organization of its kind in the U.S. Pauketat is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the archaeology journal Antiquity . Pauketat has concentrated his own research on Cahokia , an Indigenous city at the center of a large, regional Mississippian culture that extended its influence up and down
1239-611: Is now called the conquest. Some of the native tribes in the Americas had princes, nobles, and various classes 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. The Indus Valley Civilisation (3300 BCE - 1700 BCE)
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#17330859171801298-699: Is seeking to understand the larger historical implications of such performed religion. He discusses this and other theories about Cahokia's connections and influence in his Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi (2009). In an early review of this work, Pauketat's old mentor, William I. Woods, took issue with Pauketat's suggestion (on page 2) that Cahokia may have been in contact with Mesoamerican civilizations, and to his belief that they have important similarities in mythic images and religious beliefs. Woods notes that James B. Griffin, "the dean of Eastern North American archaeology," repeatedly stated that there
1357-547: The Apa Tanis as their ethnographic parallel (Berezkin 1995). Frantsouzoff (2000) finds a more developed example of such type of polities in ancient South Arabia in the Wadi Hadhramawt of the 1st millennium BCE . In Southeast Asian history up to the early 19th century, the metaphysical view of the cosmos called the mandala (i.e., circle) is used to describe a Southeast Asian political model , which in turn describes
1416-586: The University at Buffalo, the State University of New York as an associate professor. In 1998, he accepted a position at the University of Illinois, where he became a full professor in 2005. He has published numerous professional papers, book chapters, additional books, and earned a Distinguished Service award from his department. The years between the mid 1990s and the mid 2010s were filled with field work, field schools, and laboratory study. With funding from
1475-627: The Yuan , Ming , and Qing-era Chinese governments, principally in Yunnan . The arrangement is generally known as the Native Chieftain System ( Chinese : 土司 制度 ; pinyin : Tǔsī Zhìdù ). In prehistoric South-West Asia, alternatives to chiefdoms were the non-hierarchical systems of complex acephalous communities , with a pronounced autonomy of single-family households. These communities have been analyzed recently by Berezkin, who suggests
1534-686: The "dark forces" of American capitalism in 1987 is recorded in his 2007 book Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions . He earned his PhD in Anthropology in 1991. Pauketat did a one-year post-doc at the University of Illinois as a visiting researcher with Charles Bareis, and in 1992 started as an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma at Norman. During this period, he published his dissertation as his first single-authored book, The Ascent of Chiefs: Cahokia and Mississippian Politics in Native North America (1994). In 1996 he moved to
1593-473: The 19th century among certain Native American tribes. It was ethnographically documented as a competition for the losing side’s worldly possessions. After 2008, Pauketat turned to rethink religion and agency in human history, often through the lens of archaeoastronomy. Between 2009 and 2011, he worked with Danielle Benden and Robert Boszhardt (independent) to lead "The Mississippian Initiative" (funded by
1652-559: The Center for American Archaeology, a cultural resource management program based at Kampsville, Illinois . Moving to SIU-Carbondale for a Masters degree, he was a research assistant for the Black Mesa archaeological project and as assistant curator for SIU-Carbondale from 1983-1984. At Carbondale, he learned from George Gumerman, Brian Butler, Jon Muller, George Sherman, Lynne Sullivan, William Andrefsky, Jr., and Robert Rand. He corresponded with
1711-694: The Mississippi Valley and across its tributaries. He has excavated in Cahokia's grand plaza and surrounding settlements and platform mounds . He has also worked at outlying sites such as Halliday, Pfeffer, and Emerald in the uplands of the Mississippi valley. He ranks Cahokia as the prime society in the Mississippian world. The finding of similar mundane and ritual implements such as pottery , chunkey stones, and Mississippian stone statuary in locations as far afield as sites such as Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma , and
1770-540: The National Science Foundation). The trio investigated sites in western Wisconsin at sites including the Fisher Mounds Site Complex and Trempealeau , which they believe to have been a short-term Cahokian "shrine complex," mission, or colony. In Wisconsin, they found evidence that the effects of Cahokians colonizing the north country in the 11th century AD resulted in profound, long-term change in
1829-833: The National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Geographic, the Wenner Gren Foundation, and the John Templeton Foundation, Pauketat led excavations at a series of endangered archaeological sites on the margins of Greater Cahokia, including the Halliday, Pfeffer, Grossmann, and Emerald Acropolis sites. Up until 2019, he regularly taught classes such as “Introductory World Archaeology” and “Archaeological Theory". He also led
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1888-631: The annual University of Illinois archaeological field school for 17 out of the 20 years that his primary appointment was with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Illinois. In 2019, he assumed the role of the Director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey (ISAS), a subdivision of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois. As Director, he oversees the research and compliance archaeology of upwards of 100 staff and
1947-454: The basis of finance ( 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 case study, Timothy Earle observed that communities were rather self-sufficient. What the chief redistributed
2006-486: The changes of the archaeological culture, since tradition is a measure through which change can take place. With regard to Cahokia, Pauketat used practice theory to interpret the proliferation of the chunkey stone. Pre-Cahokian American Bottom dwellers were using an early form of this round disc with two concave sides as early as 600 AD. This artifact is not found outside this region until the height of Cahokia about 400 years later. The sudden popularity and proliferation of
2065-406: The communities recognize the authority of a single kin group or individual with hereditary centralized power, dwelling in the primary community. Each community will have its own leaders, which are usually in a tributary and/or subservient relationship to the ruling elite of the primary community. A complex chiefdom is a group of simple chiefdoms controlled by a single paramount center and ruled by
2124-563: The construction of a highway through Cahokia can be used to achieve the highest kind of intellectual knowledge production. Dividing up the artifacts by radiometrically dated and ceramic-seriated phases, he noted an increasing number of foreign goods as time progressed during the pre-Cahokian era. In that study, he interpreted this pattern to suggest the emergence of a new subcommunity or class of elites. In an interview with Peter Shea in 2013, Pauketat characterized his work as being about objects and their relationships to people. He insisted on
2183-461: The diffuse patterns of political power distributed among Mueang (principalities) where circles of influence were more important than central power. The concept counteracts modern tendencies to look for unified political power like that of the large European kingdoms and nation states, which one scholar posited were an inadvertent byproduct of 15th-century advances in map-making technologies . Nikolay Kradin has demonstrated that an alternative to
2242-574: The eminent professor James B. Griffin of the University of Michigan, who encouraged him to be critical of received wisdom. Pauketat earned an M.A. in Anthropology from SIU-Carbondale in 1986 and then left for the University of Michigan to pursue his doctorate. At Michigan, Pauketat worked with Professors Henry Wright, Richard Ford, John O'Shea, and Jeff Parsons, and teamed up with then-students Preston Miracle, Andrew Darling, Alex Barker, David Anderson, and John Robb. A particularly memorable field encounter that he, Preston Miracle, and David Anderson had with
2301-454: 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 category that should be abandoned, and takes as his main case study Cahokia ,
2360-578: The game pieces across the Mid-South and Southeast U.S. at this time suggests mass organization of the game played with this shaped stone. The massive plazas at Cahokia would have been an ideal setting, and large enough to accommodate all parts of Cahokian society. The organizers of the games, likely the Cahokian elite, could bring together all levels of society by using a longstanding tradition. This game tradition retained its prestige, continuing to be practiced until
2419-417: The historical influences on practices is discerning traditions , or practices with a long temporal dimension. Traditions are the forms of practice most visible in the archaeological record; they can range from an arrowhead style to the preponderance of shell-tempered pottery throughout the U.S. Mid-South and Midwest during the Mississippian era. Tracking the change of archaeologically defined traditions tracks
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2478-585: The hybrid and traditional forms were later realized to be the homes of immigrants to the Greater Cahokia region. The documented Richland complex farmsteads are estimated to have housed thousands of persons, representing a huge population shift. This shift did not originate from local inhabitants, however, as pottery styles attest. Pauketat and his colleagues noticed a great amount of artifact diversity among Richland sites, including some non-local pottery styles (“Varney Red Filmed”), and pottery-making methods of
2537-415: The importance of research into materials as the only way to understand people and their histories, if not humanity itself. While respectful of the work of historians, he yet asserts that the written record misses important aspects of the human history. He says that understanding history means exploring the materiality of the past. He describes his approach to the past as being "object heavy." More recently, in
2596-598: The incorporation of greater Cahokia. Due to the nature of American archaeology, Pauketat participated in “ salvage ” or cultural resource management early on. This archaeology removes and documents cultural material before modern development destroys it. Today, he leads the largest rescue-archaeology or cultural resource management organization in the United States. Though often much more limited in scope and time than academic archaeology, Pauketat's book, The Ascent of Chiefs... , details how artifacts in part “salvaged” from
2655-535: The king or chief Togbui Ga , the Fon people Dah , the Kotafon people Ga , and Ashanti people Asantehene . Traditional authority is a distinguishing feature in the landscape of contemporary Africa. It remains important in organising the life of people at the local level despite modern state structures. Tusi ( Chinese : 土司 ), also known as Headmen or Chieftains, were tribal leaders recognized as imperial officials by
2714-729: The local style ( shell-tempered ) that differed from the norm (thicker walls, etc.) These villages have fewer finely crafted items or ritual objects and a high percentage of workshop debris, likely indicating their purpose as support communities for the Cahokian elite. His notion of a transplanted farmer population is supported by the complete abandonment of these upland villages at the same time of Cahokia’s presumed collapse around two centuries later. Pauketat questions established knowledge about ancient North America. For instance, due to improvements in radiometric dating and new methodologies, such as identification of domestic remains, he and other researchers have concluded that Cahokia rose and fell over
2773-433: The precolonial Native world. Between 2012 and 2018, Pauketat worked with Susan Alt (Indiana University, Bloomington) on an even larger-scale investigation of upland "shrine complexes" due east of Cahokia. Over five intensive field seasons, Alt and Pauketat's teams undercovered evidence of periodic, large-scale religious events at a place dubbed the "Emerald Acropolis." Here, Pauketat verified his claims that Cahokian religion
2832-480: The presence of resources from distant locales such as the Gulf of Mexico at Cahokia, show the extent of Cahokia's historical and political connections to the greater Mississippian world. He has entangled this spread of Cahokian material culture with the effects of a pax Cahokiana , all of which contributed to Cahokia's far-reaching influence. Pauketat has used research from contemporaneous archaeological sites to formulate
2891-537: The progressive scheme of sociopolitical development formulated by Elman Service : band - tribe - chiefdom - state . A chief's status is based on kinship , so it is 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
2950-573: The state of a king ( raja ). Also see Suhas Chatterjee, Mizo Chiefs and the Chiefdom (1995). Most African traditional societies involved chiefdoms in their political and social structure before European colonisation . For an example see the political organisation of the Mandinka people in West Africa. Each clan, tribe, kingdom, and empire had its traditional leader, king, or queen. Ewe people call
3009-490: The state seems to be represented by the supercomplex chiefdoms created by some nomads of Eurasia . The number of structural levels within such chiefdoms appears to be equal, or even to exceed those within the average state, but they have a different type of political organization and political leadership. Such types of political entities do not appear to have been created by the agriculturists (e.g., Kradin 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004). Timothy Pauketat Timothy R. Pauketat
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#17330859171803068-406: The trading, as their natural environment satisfied their needs for survival. By trading, Cahokia may have been trying to bring outsiders within their sphere of influence , evidenced in the sudden large amount of Cahokian material culture found outside of Cahokia. At a more local scale, the sudden appearance and proliferation of Cahokian artifacts is coupled with housing reorganization of peoples and
3127-528: Was "absolutely no evidence for direct contact between Mesoamerica and Cahokia." C. Wesson says that Pauketat presents this theory but is not committed to proving a connection between Cahokia and ancient Mexico; rather it is one of several alternatives that he explores to provide an overview of the field. Pauketat's An Archaeology of the Cosmos: Rethinking Agency and Religion in Ancient America
3186-401: Was a critique of processual archaeology , sometimes associated by critics with postmodernism . Today, the distinction is disappearing, as all archaeologists use the scientific method for basic inference construction. Theories of identity, landscape phenomenology, and agency are now central to 21st-century explanations of the past. Pauketat advocates a more historical approach to theory and
3245-492: Was a hegemony of chiefdoms with supreme chiefs in each and a system of subsidiary chiefs. The ranks of the chiefs included ordinary chiefs, elders, priests or cattle-owners and head chiefs. The Arthashastra , a work on politics written some time between the 4th century BC and 2nd century AD by Indian author Chanakya , similarly describes the Rajamandala (or "Raja-mandala,") as circles of friendly and enemy states surrounding
3304-648: Was centered on the long 18.6-year cycle of the Moon, drawing inspiration from colleagues at Chaco Canyon, in New Mexico, and the Hopewell sites of central Ohio. Since then, Alt and Pauketat have sought to understand the relationship between religion to politics generally, at sites in Wisconsin, Mississippi, Indiana, and Illinois. Like most pre-modern religions, those of precolonial America were practiced through rituals and events. Pauketat
3363-543: Was exposed to archaeology at an early age, growing up amid family heirlooms and Native artifacts scattered about his family's property. Early on, he met Brad Koldehoff, who was similarly exposed to archaeology while growing up on the other side of their home town of Millstadt, Illinois. In high school, he took an art class from Al Meyer, a veteran of the Mound 72 excavations at Cahokia. Pauketat's enthusiasm for archaeology grew. A few years later, Pauketat attended Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville , graduating in 1983 with
3422-459: Was not staple goods, but prestige goods to his followers that helped him to maintain his authority (wealth finance). Some scholars contest the utility of the chiefdom model 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
3481-403: Was published in 2013. The previous year he also edited the volume, The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology (2012). Since then, several other volumes of his have been published. Most recently, Pauketat has written an extended treatment of the big history of North America that includes the effects of both Medieval climate change and Mesoamerica on the rest of North America. His latest book
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