How to Avoid Getting Stuck: Hierarchy, Heterarchy, and Anarchy in Southern California

Summary

This is an abstract from the "In Defense of Everything! Constructive Engagements with Graeber and Wengrow’s Provocative Contribution" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Precolonial California was home to some of the highest degrees of linguistic and cultural diversity seen in human history. This rich variability provides an excellent example for scholars to compare historical trajectories to understand how different societies developed along different political and economic pathways. In *The Dawn of Everything*, Graeber and Wengrow compare between highly dissimilar political strategies employed in the Pacific Northwest and northern California, suggesting that some of the differences between these regions can be explained through the concept of schismogenesis. In this paper I extend this analysis to southern California. I will argue that different coastal and interior regions, while maintaining intense contact between each other, chose very divergent political pathways. While some developed hierarchical and pyramidal political structures, others chose much more heterarchical and anarchic pathways. In this paper I explore how insights from the Graeber and Wengrow’s provocative contribute can help us understand the different political and economic choices made by different ancient societies in southern California.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• In Defense of Everything! Constructive Engagements with Graeber and Wengrow’s Provocative Contribution   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38960.0