Reinterpreting the rise of the state in Mesopotamia as a self-organizing process engendered by the interaction of interpersonal behavior and religious eschatology

Summary

Anthropologists have long used "integration theory" to explain the rise of the state in Mesopotamia. This perspective, derived from functionalism, structural-functionalism, general systems, or cultural ecology, sees state emergence as a response to problems of population growth, ecological distress, competition, warfare, or the need to organize long distance trade. Integration theory is thus "top down." That is, it posits that state governance is imposed upon a population as a social solution to one, or a series of, adaptive challenges. Largely ignored in integration theory is human agency. We propose a "bottom up" perspective that gives primacy to interpersonal interaction and religious ideology. Specifically, we posit that (a) the interpersonal behavior characteristic of irrigation agriculture in interaction with (b) the "judgmental" form of religious eschatology that is invariably present where such agriculture is practiced, engendered self-organizing or mufti-agent processes that led inexorably to the rise of the state in Mesopotamia.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage