Society Against the State in Prehistoric Cyprus? Exploring the Politics of Village Life

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Despite decades of critique, the study of early state formation remains bound up with an evolutionist narrative that situates the state as the natural endpoint of sociopolitical development. It is clear, however, that alternative political projects and trajectories were not only possible but common in the human past. Particular attention has been drawn to societies that were specifically structured to avoid following the path of state formation or being subsumed by expanding states. These “societies against the state” proved successful and durable forms of sociopolitical organization. The earliest known case of state formation—in SW Asia during the fourth to third millennium BC—now appears to have taken place within a regional context that included resistance to the process. This paper explores the possibility that an early society against the state was flourishing on the island of Cyprus, adjacent to the classic zones of early state formation in SW Asia. We use our own work at the site of Makounta-Voules-Mersinoudia to open up a series of questions about the nature of society in prehistoric Cyprus and to consider the kinds of data that will be needed to answer these questions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37620.0