Acquiring Status and Power in Transegalitarian and Chiefdom Societies

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Acquiring Status and Power in Transegalitarian and Chiefdom Societies" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In this session, we explore the archaeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistoric evidence of the multiple strategies that ambitious leaders in transegalitarian and chiefdom societies employ in order to attain and maintain social status, authority, wealth and power. Such strategies may include various ways by which political actors accumulate wealth, acquire or create inalienable or prized gifts and sacra, amass and garner surpluses for feasts, create and conduct ritual performances, facilitate collective action, orchestrate warfare, judiciously use force/coercion, and promote privileged access to supernatural powers by way of ancestor cults, secret societies, or other ritual organizations. We argue that aggrandizing leaders in transegalitarian and chiefly societies use diverse and overlapping means to garner opportunities for creating and bending social rules, as well as manipulating accepted political protocols for their own advantage and benefit. The goal is to shed light on the various means that permitted individuals to attain and maintain elevated social status in transegalitarian societies and to secure political power in middle range societies prior to the origin of the state.