Lecture 28: Early Power Structures
wealth, which created new opportunities and temptations for would-be
leaders. Whenever complexity increases, new coordinating mechanisms are
needed, like the nervous systems in multi-celled organisms. Like modern
families, Paleolithic communities could deal with conÀ icts face-to-face,
or simply by splitting. In early Agrarian villages, relations were often less
personal and splitting was more dif¿ cult because households had invested
labor and resources in crops and farmed land. Leaders were needed to
resolve disputes within the community or with neighboring communities.
As communities expanded, their gods generally became more magni¿ cent
and specialist priests took on the role of communicating with them. Their
privileged relations with the gods gave them inÀ uence and prestige that
could be parleyed into real power. In large communities, new tasks arose
such as garbage collection, wall building, or the maintenance of temples
and irrigation systems. These, too, required leadership. The appearance
of specialists, such as warriors or artisans or scribes, made it necessary to
organize exchanges of goods and services between them and the groups that
produced the food and other resources they needed. The ¿ rst rulers ruled
because they could offer services to those they ruled. So power relations
arose as a form of symbiosis.How were leaders selected? Some acquired followers through their
charismatic personalities or their skills in dispute resolution, warfare,
organization, or mediating with the gods. As communities expanded in
size, ideas of kinship began to be used to create hierarchies of birth. In
large communities, those who traced descent to founding ancestors (real orThe Stonehenge in Britain is a modest example of “monumental archaeology.”Corel Stock Photo Library.