Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
This session will problematize and theorize dimensions of military organization in non-state and state-adjacent societies. The groups that we focus on include Viking raiders, Iroquoian war parties, German tribal polities during the Roman period, and other large-scale military formations “on the move.” These may “belong,” derive from, or be affiliated in some way with distinct polities but is not necessary. We are interested in comparing their makeup and structure (in a fairly open way), and also where relevant to consider how they either precipitate the formation of or transform themselves into new polities. Questions to be considered include: How does the organization and direction of militarized groups develop outside of the centralizing tendencies of states and vertically integrated societies? To what degree was the organizational and institutional basis of militarized groups integrated with or independent of territorial polities, and to what extent might militarized groups have constituted polities in their own right? How were they financed and supported, and in what ways did “warrior” identity articulate with prevailing cultural, political, religious, or ideological norms? And, finally, what role did these groups play in driving developments in the world-systems in which they were enmeshed but perhaps not recognized as full-fledged participants?
Other Keywords
Warfare •
Violence •
and Conflict •
Historic •
Ethnohistory/History •
Frontiers and Borderlands •
Historical Archaeology •
Pastoralism •
Rock Art •
Woodland
Geographic Keywords
Isle of Man (Country) •
Multi-regional/comparative •
New Mexico (State / Territory) •
Oklahoma (State / Territory) •
Arizona (State / Territory) •
Texas (State / Territory) •
Sonora (State / Territory) •
United States of America (Country) •
Chihuahua (State / Territory) •
Colorado (State / Territory)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-9 of 9)
- Documents (9)
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Comparative Multiethnic Predation in Borderland Context (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The 1847–1848 US annexation of northern Mexico is often referred to as a “bloodless conquest,” in that there was no organized military defense. Yet we see dozens of small-scale guerilla actions by units of mixed-ethnic attribution against Americans. Observers noted that their “Mexican”...
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Frontier Dynamics in the Eastern Eurasian Steppe: Examining the Unique Characteristics of Long Wall Construction and Associated Defensive Features through Archaeological Geophysics (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The eastern Eurasian steppe region was a dynamic area of contact between Chinese dynasties and pastoral nomadic communities occupying the steppe ecological zone. Between the tenth and twelfth centuries AD the situation was even more complex as the people of nomadic or seminomadic origins...
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Hillfort Horizons: Rethinking Violence and Egalitarianism during the Andean Late Intermediate Period (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Central Andes, the era immediately prior to the consolidation of the Inca Empire is known as the Late Intermediate period (LIP, ca. AD 1000–1450), traditionally seen as a "stateless" time between episodes of political centralization. Both Inca and Spanish accounts from the early...
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Military Encounters between Vascones and Barbarians in Francia and Iberia between the End of Roman Rule and the Eleventh Century (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pursuit of Basque national identity in the Western Pyrenees Mountains emphasized their linguistic isolation (i.e., last speakers of a non-Indo-European language) and purported ethnic antiquity (i.e., residents since, if not before, the Last Glacial Maximum). This overshadowed inquiry on...
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Northern Iroquoian Conflict: From Coercive Adoption to Community Destruction in a Matter of Decades (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although the cause of the enmity between the Huron-Wendat and the Haudenosaunee is unknown, it commenced in the late 1400s and intensified in the early to mid-1500s, impacting the north shore of Lake Ontario, eastern Ontario, the Ottawa Valley, and central New York. This is demonstrated...
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Predatory Polities: Viking Raiding Fleets in Ninth-Century Europe (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Viking Age was a time of upheaval and disruption across the northern world. Beginning in the late eighth century CE, historical documents attest to a surge of viking raiding into western Europe. By the mid-ninth century, predatory raiding fleets are recorded as operating across the...
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Violence as a Contested Asset and Dynamics of Warrior Ideology at State Edges: Thugs and Harmony? (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Characteristic of many states is a legal monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Conversely, in small-scale normatively egalitarian societies entitlements to wield violent force are often diffuse and informally adjudicated. State formation thus frequently involves the formalization...
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Warrior Art, Osteological Evidence of Violence, and Colonial-Era Changes in Warfare and Male Status on the Western Great Plains (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Indigenous Plains warfare is one of the anthropological archetypes of tribal war, often seen as just as much of a status-related game as real violence directed toward larger social and political ends. This view misrepresents colonial-era warfare by focusing on only one aspect social...
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Why Are We Thinking “Beyond Barbarians”? Interrogating Dimensions of Military Organization in Non-State Societies (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There are good reasons to problematize and theorize dimensions of military organization. Despite the wellspring of research on the archaeology of warfare over the last 30 years, conceptual gaps remain. Warfare among small-scale societies remains typified as total war, while the study of...