Archaeologists working within a neoevolutionary framework consider archaic states to have been dynamic and inherently unstable systems in which ecological variability and human agency affected the longue duree. Institutional arrangements and the individuals influencing their structures should be expected to have changed over time, particularly in the case of first-generation states, which endured for several centuries.
Institutional and Hierarchical Evolution
While all archaic states possessed a specialized governmental structure, the development of and relationship between offices and institutions was not uniform. There is no reason to believe that political, economic, religious, and military institutions emerged at the same time (or in the same order), or that state institutions and the ideologies justifying them were static over the state’s developmental trajectory. Comparison of first-generation states with later ones suggests that the life cycle of a state will see a tendency toward more complex institutional organization, as well as more heterarchical interinstitutional relationships and an increasingly bureaucratic organization. Such tendencies are reflected in the proliferation of intermediate offices in state capitals and at lower-order administrative sites; the long-range (in)stability of the state comes to depend on balancing the interests of ruling elites, intermediate elites, and commoners.
Secondary State Formation
Peripheral regions are influenced by state formation and expansion, and one local reaction to external state influence is to adopt some or all of the features of centralized states. Such processes of secondary state formation may involve autonomous chiefly polities urbanizing and establishing specialized governments, but other secondary states form as state administrative centers break away from the capital to assert political autonomy. Secondary states often have populations and territories that fall within the administrative scope of a successful chiefdom; these are sometimes referred to as city-states, although many researchers prefer to employ culture-specific terms (e. g., comunidad, polis, altepetl, cacicazgo, nome) for such polities. Secondary state formation processes are expected to vary based on contingencies related to the expansion of first-generation states and the diffusion of the concept of the state. Archaeologists have not developed a distinct set of material correlates for identifying secondary state formation.
Collapse, Decline, and Conquest: The Eclipse of the Archaic State
Archaic states are arguably at their strongest while in phases of territorial expansion. Internal competition is channeled outward, while successful military campaigns bring in plunder and tribute from newly administered areas. Subsequent phases of consolidation and decline see a proliferation of elite categories, as well as the number of elites at the state capital. Over the long term, the capital and its rural hinterland may be dominated by a burgeoning and highly differentiated elite that is engaged in costly status displays, monumental constructions, and ideological communication. Elites at lower-order sites may present problems for the ruling elite over the long term. If vested with insufficient power and authority, they may fail to maintain order and deliver taxes or tribute; if given too free a rein, they may embrace local power structures and seek to break away from the central government. As local economies develop and standardize and regional exchange networks come under less restricted management, central elites will find it increasingly difficult to administer peripheral regions. Over the long term, states may collapse (a failure of central authority), experience decline (as the periphery develops and exerts autonomy), or weaken to the point where other states can conquer them (see State-Level Societies, Collapse of). States almost universally fail due to problems with self-regulation and an imbalance between food producers and elites.
World History
