Abstract
One of the main foci of comparative research on ancient societies deals with urban dynamics. Within this context, an interesting issue is the relationship between the processes of initial urbanization—i.e., the creation of the first cities—and the transformations that led to the emergence of state dynamics. Here, we will consider two historical situations in which both processes—urbanization and state origin—were, in broad terms, concomitant: Hierakonpolis, in the Nile Valley, towards the mid-4th millennium BC, and Monte Albán in the Valley of Oaxaca, in the second half of the 1st Millennium BC. We will address, first, the available evidence for both historical situations, which will be organized into four major areas—related to demographic dynamics, forms of functional specialization, social differentiation, and conflict—allowing us to see the main innovations that characterize these processes. And second, we will propose a reconsideration of the information that relates to a specific problem: the relationship between the concentration of population in urban contexts and the processes of social hierarchization that took place within urban centers as well as between these centers and the surrounding villages. In this sense, beyond the multiple differences between the states that, in the long run, would be consolidated in the Nile Valley and in the Oaxaca Valley, the beginnings of the urbanization processes that occurred in both regions have a common characteristic, which is fundamental for further transformations: the creation of a social context whose practices exceeded the limits related to the pre-existing logic of social organization.
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Notes
I define “social logic” as the effect of social organization produced by certain practices whose principles prevail over the remaining practices that constitute that society. In a way, the notion is close to Bourdieu’s concept of habitus as “systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles which generate and organize practices and representations that can be objectively adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary in order to attain them” (Bourdieu 1990: 53). However, it tries to avoid the emphasis on structure and put that emphasis on the practices themselves. The concept of “social logic” does not imply that the dominant practice is the only thing that exists in society but one that brings the “common code” allowing the articulation of all social practices. Thus, the logic of kinship implies that what prevails in social organization is a “mutuality of being” (Sahlins 2011: 2–3) that is defined on the basis of reciprocity principles. The emergence of the state implies the advent of a strongly different social logic based on a principle of social division (sensu Clastres 1980: 204–205) that defines one pole that exerts the monopoly of legitimate coercion, and another pole which is submitted to the first.
Hoffman’s estimates (1982: 143–144; 1987: 187–191), based on the size and types of occupied areas, suggest that there were between 2544 and 10,922 inhabitants during the first half of the 4th millennium BC. Later excavators at Hierakonpolis have maintained the validity of these calculations (see Adams 1995: 31; Friedman, in Yoffee 2005: 43). Other studies, mainly based on mortuary evidence, have proposed smaller numbers, around 1500–2000 inhabitants (see Batey 2012; Harlan 1985: 233; Hassan 1988: 161). Regarding the constraints for calculating population estimates, see Moeller 2016: 9–11. In any case, for the present purposes, the precise number of inhabitants is less important than the data that suggests a sharp demographic jump.
Hoffman et al. (1986: 178) suggested the possibility that the region was colonized by groups coming from the north, who might have chosen the area because of the confluence of several habitats, the abundance of good soil and raw materials, seasonal rainfall, the existence of a (now defunct) nearby canal close to the border of the desert, and the hydraulic efficiency of the wadi Abu Suffian.
On the reasons behind this shift in the settlement pattern, several hypotheses have been proposed, including climatic deterioration, which would have exacerbated the degradation of the desert ecosystem initiated by the use of trees and shrubs for fuel and the overgrazing of sheep, goats, and cattle; an increased emphasis on alluvium-based subsistence and manufacturing activities, as well as transport for trading and raiding; the quest for security in the increasingly hostile context of Upper Egypt; and the possible development of a ceremonial complex which could have served to attract the regional population (Hoffman 1982: 132; 1984: 239; see also Harlan 1985: 225–234). Alternatively, Wengrow (2006: 82–83) relates this demographic trend to the consolidation of new forms of funerary rituals, referring to this process as the “urbanization of the dead.”
Most researchers emphasize that the central area of the Valley of Oaxaca was relatively uninhabited prior to the foundation of Monte Albán, a space that is usually interpreted as a buffer zone between the main centers of the three subvalleys (Blanton et al. 1999: 42–44; Kowalewski et al. 1989: 75; Marcus & Flannery 1996: 123–124). However, there is evidence supporting the existence of small sites in that region (Xoxocotlán, El Rosario, Colonia Las Bugambilias, Hacienda La Experimental) that would have corresponded to the Rosario phase (see Winter 2004: 32–33).
Among the reasons for the population concentration in Monte Albán, on the one hand, the strategic location of the site in the central area of the Oaxaca Valley has been highlighted. In this sense, the urban center could have functioned as the “disembedded capital” of a confederacy, in an area that facilitated access to goods, providing administrative advantages and lower transport costs (Blanton et al. 1999: 62–66; Spencer 1982: 17–24; 1990: 16). On the other hand, an alternative scenario related to conflicts between the inhabitants of each subvalley has been proposed. In this regard, the relative depopulation of the Etla arm and the rapid settlement on the previously uninhabited hill of Monte Alban, sometimes compared to a process of “synoecism,” could have corresponded to a strategy of San José Mogote’s elite against the populations of the Tlacolula and Ocotlán-Zimatlán arms, by occupying a defensible place in an area that would have been seen previously as a “no man’s land” (Flannery & Marcus 2015: 201; Marcus 2008: 28; Marcus & Flannery 1996: 139–142). Other researchers have suggested ideological reasons for the settlement: the possible migration of a religious elite from San José Mogote to Monte Albán, which could have induced a more or less voluntary movement of a wider number of followers towards the new center, interested in accessing the supranatural protection provided by the elite and willing, in turn, to subordinate themselves to the religious leaders (Joyce 2010: 130–131; Joyce & Winter 1996: 36–39).
Blanton et al. (1982: 45–55, 62–65; 1999: 72–77) have distinguished three settlement hierarchies during the Monte Albán Ia phase, and five during the Monte Albán Ic phase, inferring the existence of an administrative system at the regional level (see also Kowalewski et al. 1989: 110, 151). However, while the distinction of three levels is based on qualitatively measurable criteria (the center of Monte Albán; towns with “public” architecture and hundreds of inhabitants; and villages without “public” architecture and tens of inhabitants), the distinction of four or five levels only seems to juxtapose quantitative differences with those already indicated.
The main large-scale building at San José Mogote is Structure 19, a platform of 21.7 × 28.5 m and 2 m high, with limestone blocks weighing up to a ton, upon which Structure 28 was built, a lime-plastered platform for possible ritual purposes (Flannery & Marcus 1983b: 75–77; 2015: 119–164; Marcus & Flannery 1996: 126–128). After a fire destroyed Structure 28, a new large-scale building (Structure 14) was built, of approximately 24 × 21 m, which may have worked as a new temple platform (Flannery & Marcus 2015: 165–177).
According to the observation by Marcus & Flannery (1996: 158), “one unintended consequence of bringing together thousands of people in a new city can be an explosion of arts and crafts, especially if many of those people are forced to abandon agriculture […] Monte Albán was such an environment, and its sponsorship of craftspeople penetrated even to the towns in its hinterland.”
In the opinion of Urcid & Joyce (2014: 166), the possibility that the wall might serve defensive purposes against rival factions inside the city should not be ruled out. In the same vein, the Conjunto PNLP (Monte Albán II phase, but occupied since phase I, see Martínez López & Markens 2004: 77), in the northwest corner of the main plaza, could have acted as a control point for accessing the plaza: 27 projectile points were found inside the structure, “which suggests that coercive power was used to monitor access to the plaza” (see also Martínez López & Markens 2004: 92).
Batey (2012: 32) has proposed that net migration to Hierakonpolis could have had a negligible effect on population growth, but his considerations are based on the possibility of migration from distant regions, which seems to underestimate the impact of intraregional migration on the concentration of populations in an urban core.
For example, Buchez (2011: 32) suggests that the population decline in the village of Adaïma during Naqada IIC–IIIA1 can be considered “an exodus of population towards major cities such as Hierakonpolis.”
The specific characteristics of the processes that led to wider regional urban control are outside the scope of the present discussion. What matters most here is a consideration of the capacity for urban centers to expand a new logic of domination outside the cities.
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Acknowledgments
This paper is a result of a research project benefited from a grant of the Commission Fulbright and the Argentina’s National Council of Research (CONICET) which allowed me to have a research stay at the University of Michigan. A second award given by The Dumbarton Oaks Library allowed me to finish this article in that wonderful library. I wish to thank very much these institutions and their staffs. I am particularly grateful to my supervisors in the two visits, Dr. Norman Yoffee (University of Michigan) and Dr. Colin McEwan (Dumbarton Oaks). I am also grateful to Lic. María Belén Daizo for her help in preparing maps, as well as to the three anonymous reviewers whose comments decidedly helped to improve this article.
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Campagno, M. Initial Urbanization and the Emergence of the State in Hierakonpolis (Nile Valley) and Monte Albán (Oaxaca Valley). J Archaeol Method Theory 26, 217–246 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-018-9371-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-018-9371-5