Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State

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?