Download - Long-Term Social Dynamics and the Emergence of Hereditary Inequality: A Prehistoric Example from the Carpathian Basin (2012)

Kienlin�� (Hrsg.) · Beyond Elites · Teil 1

Universitätsforschungenzur prähistorischen Archäologie

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VORWORTDER HERAUSGEBER

Die Reihe „Universitätsforschungen zur prähistorischen Archäologie“ soll einem in der jüngeren Vergangenheit entstandenen Bedürfnis Rechnung tragen, nämlich Ex-amensarbeiten und andere Forschungsleistungen vor-nehmlich jüngerer Wissenschaftler in die Öffentlichkeit zu tragen. Die etablierten Reihen und Zeitschriften des Faches reichen längst nicht mehr aus, die vorhandenen Manuskripte aufzunehmen. Die Universitäten sind des-halb aufgerufen, Abhilfe zu schaffen. Einige von ihnen haben mit den ihnen zur Verfügung stehenden Mitteln unter zumeist tatkräftigem Handanlegen der Autoren die vorliegende Reihe begründet. Thematisch soll darin die ganze Breite des Faches vom Paläolithikum bis zur Ar-��

Ursprünglich hatten sich fünf Universitätsinstitute in Deutschland zur Herausgabe der Reihe zusammengefun-den, der Kreis ist inzwischen größer geworden. Er lädt alle interessierten Professoren und Dozenten ein, als Mither-ausgeber tätig zu werden und Arbeiten aus ihrem Bereich der Reihe zukommen zu lassen. Für die einzelnen Bände zeichnen jeweils die Autoren und Institute ihrer Herkunft, die im Titel deutlich gekennzeichnet sind, verantwortlich. Sie erstellen Satz, Umbruch und einen Ausdruck. Bei gleicher Anordnung des Umschlages haben die verschie-�� Farbe. Finanzierung und Druck erfolgen entweder durch sie selbst oder durch den Verlag Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, der in jedem Fall den Vertrieb der Bände sichert.

Herausgeber sind derzeit:

Jens Lüning (Frankfurt am Main)Joseph Maran (Heidelberg)Wilfried Menghin (Berlin)

Carola Metzner-Nebelsick (München)Johannes Müller (Kiel)

Ulrich Müller (Kiel)Michael Müller-Wille (Kiel)

Mária Novotná (Trnava)Bernd Päffgen (München)

Ralf Gleser (Münster)Bernhard Hänsel (Berlin)

Alfred Haffner (Kiel)Svend Hansen (Berlin)

Ole Harck (Kiel)Joachim Henning (Frankfurt am Main)

Christian Jeunesse (Strasbourg)Albrecht Jockenhövel (Münster)

Tobias L. Kienlin (Bochum)Rüdiger Krause (Frankfurt am Main)

Klára Kuzmová (Trnava)Amei Lang (München)Achim Leube (Berlin)

Andreas Lippert (Wien)

Kurt Alt (Mainz) Peter Breuning (Frankfurt am Main)

Philippe Della Casa (Zürich)Manfred K.H. Eggert (Tübingen)

Clemens Eibner (Heidelberg)��

Christopher Pare (Mainz)Hermann Parzinger (Berlin)Margarita Primas (Zürich)

Britta Ramminger (Hamburg)Sabine Rieckhoff (Leipzig)

Wolfram Schier (Berlin)Heiko Steuer (Freiburg im Breisgau)

Thomas Stöllner (Bochum)��!��"

Andreas Zimmermann (Köln)

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Contents

Conference Programme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Tobias L. KienlinBeyond Elites: An Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Hans Peter HahnSegmentary Societies as Alternatives to Hierarchical Order: Sustainable Social Structures or Organisation of Predatory Violence? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Paul RoscoeBefore Elites: The Political Capacities of Big Men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Mike RowlandsAncestors, Substances and Elites – West Africa and China Comparisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Alfredo González-RuibalGenerations of Free Men: Resistance and Material Culture in Western Ethiopia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Dieter HallerHierarchies and Elites – an Anthropological Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Manfred K. H. EggertCultural Anthropology, Archaeology and Sociocultural Evolution: Exploring Submerged Territory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Brigitte RöderBeyond elites: Neoevolutionistische Gesellschaftstypologien und Verwandtschaftsforschung als Alternative zur archäologischen Elitenforschung? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Ulrich VeitMethodik und Rhetorik in der Sozialarchäologie: Einige grundsätzliche Überlegungen zur deutschsprachigen Debatte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Andreas ZimmermannCultural Cycles in Central Europe between the Neolithic and the Iron Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Reinhard BernbeckMultitudes before Sovereignty: Theoretical Reflections and a Late Neolithic Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Volume 1

Marion Benz‘Little Poor Babies’ – Creation of History Through Death at the Transition from Foraging to Farming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Daniela HofmannBodies, Houses and Status in the Western Linearbandkeramik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Jens LüningBandkeramische Hofplätze und Erbregeln . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Johannes MüllerWie entsteht Ungleichheit? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Svend HansenThe Archaeology of Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

John ChapmanFrom the Varna Cemetery to the Tripolye Mega-Sites: New Arenas of Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

William A. Parkinson – Attila GyuchaLong-Term Social Dynamics and the Emergence of Hereditary Inequality: A Prehistoric Example from the Carpathian Basin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Tobias L. KienlinPatterns of Change, or: Perceptions Deceived? Comments on the Interpretation of Late Neolithic and Bronze Age Tell Settlement in the Carpathian Basin

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

Lorenz RahmstorfControl Mechanisms in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, the Aegean and Central Europe, c . 2600–2000 BC, and the Question of Social Power in Early Complex Societies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Sheila KohringA Scalar Perspective to Social Complexity: Complex Relations and Complex Questions . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Martin BartelheimDetecting Social Structures in the Bronze Age of Southeastern Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

James A. Johnson – Bryan HanksSociety, Demography and Community: Reassessing Bronze Age Sintashta Populations in the Southern Urals, Russia (2100–1700 BC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

Margarita PrimasNetworks and Hierarchy in Bronze Age Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Volume 2

Kristian KristiansenBronze Age Dialectics: Ritual Economies and the Consolidation of Social Divisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

Mateusz JaegerSocial Archaeology or Archaeology of Elites? Some Remarks on an Early Bronze Age Grave from Bruszczewo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Mechtild FreudenbergEliten in der Provinz – Überlegungen zu einigen reich ausgestatteten Gräbern der älteren Bronzezeit in Schleswig-Holstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

Maikel H. G. KuijpersTowards a Deeper Understanding of Metalworking Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Bianka NesselMetallurgen im Grab – Überlegungen zur sozialen Einstufung handwerklicher Spezialisten . . . . . . 423

Thomas StöllnerMining and Elites: A Paradigm Beyond the Evidence in European Metal Ages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Siegfried KurzDie Heuneburg an der oberen Donau . Ein Ansatz zur Interpretation eines späthallstattzeitlichen Siedlungszentrums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449

Beat SchweizerFürsten, Chiefs und Big Men . Oder: Dorophagoi – Basileis als Gabenfresser . Zu Eliten in den Altertumswissenschaften und Elitenkritik der Antike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

Christoph UlfDer Streit um Standards: die homerischen Epen als Diskussionsforum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

Leonie C. KochDie Frauen von Veji – gegliederte Gesellschaft oder befreundete Gemeinschaft? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483

Dirk SteuernagelThe Origins of Order: Funerary Imagery and Social Change in Lucania and Campania (4th to 3rd centuries B . C .) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509

Martin MohrKompetition und Kooperation von Gruppenidentitäten in einem intergruppalen Kontext – Die Herausbildung einer polisgemeinschaftlichen Gesamtidentität im archaischen Griechenland . 521

Patric-Alexander KreuzDie Einheit der Stadt? ‚Alternative’ Topographien römischer Städte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533

Heidi Peter-RöcherVon Hjortspring nach Nydam – Macht und Herrschaft im Spiegel der großen Waffenopfer . . . . . . . 545

Anne WiduraFrom Status to Meaning – An Alternative Approach to Board Game Objects in Iron Age Scandinavia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551

Sebastian BratherNur „Adlige“ und „Bauern“? Komplexe Sozialstrukturen der Merowingerzeit und ihre archäologische Rekonstruktion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561

List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573

12

Thursday, October 22nd

12.30–13.00 Welcome 13.00–13.30 Introduction:

Beyond Elites (Tobias L. Kienlin / Andreas Zimmermann)

Section I: Approaches and Comparative Per-spective (Chair: John Barrett and Tobias Kienlin)

13.30–14.00 Dieter Haller (Bochum): Hierarchies and Elites in Cross-Cultural Comparison – an Anthropological Ap-proach

14.00–14.30 Hans Peter Hahn (Frankfurt): Segmentary Societies as Alternatives to Hierarchical Order. Sustainable Social Structures or Organisation of Predatory Violence?

14.30–15.00 Michael Rowlands (London): Shrines, Substances and Elites – Cases from West Africa

15.00–15.30 Reinhard Bernbeck (New York): Multitudes before Sovereignty

15.30–16.00 Coffee break

16.00–16.30 Svend Hansen (Berlin): The Archaeology of Power

16.30–17.00 Andreas Zimmermann (Köln): Adaptive Cycles as Driving Forces of Social Evolution?

17.00–17.30 Lorenz Rahmstorf (Mainz): Control Mechanisms and Social Organi-sation: Four Examples from Europe and Asia between 2600–2000 BC

17.30–18.00 Sheila Kohring (Cambridge): Complex Questions for Complex Rela-tionships: Scalar Consideration in the Analysis of Material Culture and Social Complexity

18.30– Reception and Meeting of the Speakers

Friday, October 23rd

The Evolution of Executive Power, or: Traditions of Complexity?

Section II: Neolithic and Copper Ages (Chair: David Fontijn and Martin Bartelheim)

8.30–9.00 Marion Benz (Freiburg): ‚Little poor babies’ – Die Konstruk-tion von Geschichte als Machtfaktor in

frühen neolithischen Gesellschaften des Vorderen Orients

9.00–9.30 Jens Lüning (Köln): Bandkeramische Hofplätze und Erb-schaftsregeln

9.30–10.00 Daniela Hofmann (Oxford): It’s not all about Hierarchy: Some Neglected Dimensions of LBK Funerary Rites

10.00–10.30 Detlef Gronenborn (Mainz): Political Leadership in Temperate Eu-ropean Aeneolithic Societies: Archaeo-logical Interpretation and Ethnographic Analogies


11.00–11.30 John Chapman (Durham): From the Varna Cemetery to the Tripol-ye Mega-sites: New Arenas of Power

11.30–12.00 William A. Parkinson (Chicago) / Attila Gyucha (Békéscsaba): Long-Term Social Dynamics and the Emergence of Hereditary Inequality: A Prehistoric Example from the Car-pathian Basin

12.00–12.30 DušanBorić(Cambridge): Can a ‘House Society’ Social Model Work for the Late Neolithic and Early Copper Age Balkans?

12.30–13.00 Ulrich Veit (Tübingen): Methodik und Rhetorik in der Sozialarchäologie: Ein Vergleich zwischen Neolithikum- und Metallzeit-forschung

13.00–14.00 Lunch break

14.00–14.30 Johannes Müller (Kiel): Neolithic Social Structures

Section III: Bronze and Iron Ages (Chair: Ul-rich Veit and Reinhard Bernbeck)

14.30–15.00 JohnBarrett(Sheffield): From Revelation to Representation: Mechanisms of Evolving Social Com-plexity from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age

15.00–15.30 David Fontijn / Harry Fokkens (Leiden): An Archaeology of Hierarchy in Bronze Age Europe: Political Process and Ideas and Values

15.30–16.00 Mechtild Freudenberg (Schleswig): Eliten in der Provinz – Überlegungen zu

13

einigen reich ausgestatteten Gräbern der älteren Bronzezeit in Schleswig-Holstein


16.30–17.00 Heidi Peter-Röcher (Würzburg): Von Hjortspring nach Nydam – Macht und Herrschaft im Spiegel der großen Waffenopfer

17.00–17.30 Martin Bartelheim (Tübingen): Detecting Social Structures in the Bronze Age of Southern Spain

Section IV: Top-down or Bottom-up? Commu-nication and Facets of Power in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Chair: Patric A. Kreuz)

17.30–18.00 Franziska Lang (Darmstadt): Kein Raum für Eliten?

18.00–18.30 Erich Kistler (Bochum): Depowering: Kräfte und Formen der kul-turellen Gleichschaltung und sozialen Rückbindung in der Kerameikos-Nekropole Athens (1050–400 v. Chr.)

Saturday, October 24th

Section IV: (continued) (Chair: Patric A. Kreuz and Erich Kistler)

8.30–9.00 Martin Mohr (Zürich): Kompetition und Kooperation von Gruppenidentitäten in einem inter-gruppalen Kontext. Die Herausbildung einer polisgemeinschaftlichen Gesamt-identität im archäischen Griechenland

9.00–9.30 Christian Mann (Basel): Nur eine verkappte Oligarchie? Die athenische Demokratie, von oben und von unten gesehen

9.30–10.00 Beat Schweizer (Tübingen): Dorophagoi – Gabenfresser. Zu Elit-enkritik der Antike und Elitenlob der Wissenschaft

10.00–10.30 Christoph Ulf (Innsbruck): Der Streit um Standards: die homer-ischen Epen als Diskussionsforum


11.00–11.30 Dirk Steuernagel (Frankfurt): The Origins of Order. Shift of Symbol-ism in the Funerary Art of Pre-Roman Southern Italy

11.30–12.00 Leonie C. Koch (Bochum/Frankfurt): Die Frauen von Veji (Etrurien): Geg-liederte Gesellschaft oder befreundete Gemeinschaft?

12.00–12.30 Patric A. Kreuz (Bochum): Die Einheit der Stadt? Alternative To-pographien in römischen Städten

12.30–13.00 Sebastian Brather (Freiburg): Nur ‚Adlige’ und ‚Bauern’? Komplexe Sozialstrukturen der Merowingerzeit und ihre archäologische Rekonstruktion

13.00–14.00 Lunch break

Section V: Society and Economy (Chair: And-reas Zimmermann and Hans Peter Hahn)

14.00–14.30 Tim Kerig (Köln): SideEffectsofHouseholdPractices:Explaining Neolithic Societal Change through day-to-day Economic Decisions

14.30–15.00 Jacek Lech (Warschau): Studying Prehistoric Flint Mine Sites: Some Social Aspects of Exploitation, Treatment and Distribution of Raw Materials

15.00–15.30 Thomas Stöllner (Bochum): Mining and Elites: A Paradigm Beyond the Evidence in European Metal Ages?

15.30–16.00 Margarita Primas (Zürich): Networks and Hierarchy in Bronze Age Context

16.00–16.30 Bryan K. Hanks (Pittsburgh): Modelling Sintashta Social Organiza-tion in the Southern Urals Middle Bronze Age (2100–1600 BCE)


17.00–18.00 Concluding discussion

243

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between the organi-zation of social groups and the emergence of hereditary in-equality on the prehistoric Great Hungarian Plain. In con-trast to recent models that emphasize the role of individual human agents in enacting social transformations, the mod-el proposed here suggests that changes in household and settlement organization were necessary before hereditary inequality could become formalized and institutionalized during the Bronze Age. A theoretical perspective that deals not only with the role of human agents, but also the long-term trajectory of social organization in a region at multiple scales, is essential for modeling the emergence of complex-ity generally.

Introduction: Hierarchy and European prehistoryWe congratulate Tobias Kienlin and Andreas Zimmer-mann for pulling together an interesting set of arti-cles in this volume that we hope will encourage Eu-ropean prehistorians to rework their understanding of hierarchy in the Neolithic, Copper Age, and Bronze Age.Ourowncollaborativefieldprojectinsoutheast-ern Hungary (e. g. Yerkes et al. 2009; Parkinson et al. 2010)hasfocusedspecificallyondevelopingmodelsthat describe and explain the long-term patterns of social change that occurred on the Great Hungarian Plain(fig.1)duringtheseperiods.We,therefore,aresympathetic to the goals and motivations behind the Beyond Elites conference, and this, the resulting pub-lication.

As Kienlin (this volume) articulates in the intro-duction, there has been a tendency for European prehistorians to emphasize – and in some cases, to over-emphasize – thedifferencesbetween theNeo-lithic and the Bronze Age (e. g. Kristiansen/Larsson 2005), and, in so doing, to overlook the obvious con-tinuities that link the two periods. Our own research on Early Copper Age settlements in the Körös Region

of eastern Hungary has revealed several striking con-tinuities that clearly link Copper Age social practices and traditions to those of the Late Neolithic in the region (see Parkinson/Gyucha 2007). As with other parts of Europe, it turns out the lines that were clear-ly drawn between these periods appear much more fuzzy when they are approached with tighter chro-nological controls and archaeological data of wider range and finer resolution. Gradually, the relativearchaeological sequences of Thomsen, Kossina, Rei-necke, and Childe, are giving way to more compli-cated, and more subtle models that wrestle with the variation that emerges from different regions. Andour models need to try to account for that variability (Yerkes et al. 2009).

We also are sympathetic with the goals, outlined by Kienlin (this volume), of reconsidering how we deal with the issue of hierarchy in European pre-history. One of the most interesting realizations of Bronze Age research on the Great Hungarian Plain to emerge during the 20th century is how much varia-tion there is – in political and economic organization – during the Bronze Age (e. g. Bóna 1995). This has been one surprising result of the tell-based research programs initiated by scientists such as István Bóna and Ottó Trogmayer, which continues today at and around Bronze Age tells (e. g. Kristiansen 2000). Even within a small geographic area, there is significantvariation in the size, distribution, and political and economic organization within Bronze Age regional systems. Large, hierarchical, tell-based systems de-velopedintheDanubefloodplain–aroundsitessuchas Százhalombatta “Földvár” (see Poroszlai/Vicze 2000; 2005) – and near the headwaters of the Maros River – at Pecica “Santul Mare” (Pécska in Hungarian; see O’Shea in press). Contemporaneous with these were smaller, less hierarchical, systems downstream – along the Maros and in the Körös-Berettyó region (Duffy 2010). Despite this variation, it neverthelessremains thatdifferent,novel traditionsand innova-tions emerged during the Bronze Age, and in some regions these led to heretofore unprecedented insti-tutionalized hierarchical systems.

Long-Term Social Dynamics and the Emergence of Hereditary Inequality: A Prehistoric Example from the Carpathian Basin

William A. Parkinson – Attila Gyucha

244 William A. Parkinson – Attila Gyucha

Although we are sympathetic with Kienlin’s call to re-evaluate how archaeologists approach hierarchy in prehistoric contexts, we also caution him (and our fellow prehistorian colleagues) not to throw the baby out with the bath-water. The transition from more-or-less egalitarian to more-or-less hierarchical political systems was one of the most dramatic in the course of human history and prehistory. This transition did not occur everywhere, and it did not occur at the same time. But it did occur. And in Europe it happened – in several places – during the Bronze Age (Earle 2004; Kristiansen/Larsson 2005). It is, therefore, incum-bent upon prehistorians to try to model how this im-portanttransitionemerged indifferentpartsof theworld. We can discuss the appropriate methodologies and theoretical perspectives we should employ when studying the emergence of institutionalized heredi-tary inequality, but we should not dismiss it entirely.

Our article deals precisely with this issue – how archaeologists go about studying the emergence of institutionalized hierarchical systems. In our own research, we have found it helpful to incorporate multiple levels of temporal and spatial analysis (e. g. Parkinson 2006a; 2006b; Yerkes et al. 2009), and we

suggest that such an approach will permit the long-term trajectories of different regions to be com-pared without glossing over the variation exhibited between different regions. We focus on a series oflong-term changes that occurred on the Great Hun-garian Plain from the end of the Neolithic through the Bronze Age. We outline how the reorganization of households, villages, and regional communities over time eventually produced the social context within which hereditary social inequality emerged in the re-gion, during the Bronze Age. We argue that in order to understand why novel political institutions emerged atspecifictimes inthepast, it ishelpfulto identifysimilar social contexts – what John Chapman (1994) has called “Arenas of Social Power” – within the so-cial trajectory of a region when such institutions did not emerge. By identifying the relationship between different systemsof social organization at differentscales, it is possible to develop models that explain why novel social institutions emerged at some times – and not at others – within a region. Importantly, such multi-scalar models permit the long-term tra-jectories of different regions to be compared, andgeneralizations to be drawn.

Fig. 1: Location of the Great Hungarian Plain in the Carpathian Basin.

245Long-Term Social Dynamics and the Emergence of Hereditary Inequality: A Prehistoric Example from the Carpathian Basin

Archaeological background: Long-term village dynamics on the Great Hungarian Plain

The Neolithic, Copper Age, and Bronze Age on the Great Hungarian Plain witnessed several changes in the organization of households, villages, and regional communities (fig.2). Sedentaryagriculturalvillageswere established in the region at the beginning of the Neolithic (see Whittle 2007), and through the end of the Neolithic exhibited a general tendency towards nucleation,andfortification.SomeLateNeolithicvil-lages became the centers of tell-focused settlement systems (Chapman 1997; Kalicz/Raczky 1987; Makkay 1982; Raczky 1995a). This tendency towards nuclea-tion at the local level was associated with increasing regionalization across the Plain. Social boundaries thatpreviouslyhadbeendiffuseandpermeablebe-came more discrete, and actively maintained, thus subdividing the Plain into discrete regions with dis-tinct material culture patterns (Parkinson 2006a).

At the beginning of the Copper Age the tell-fo-cused systems of the Neolithic gave way to a more dispersed settlement pattern, with smaller sites dis-tributed more evenly across the region (Bognár-Kut-zián 1972; Gyucha/Parkinson 2008; Parkinson 2006b). These trends were associated with more homogene-ity in material culture across the Plain. Social bound-aries again became permeable (Parkinson 2006a). During the Early and Middle Bronze Age, there was onceagainatendencytowardsnucleation,fortifica-tion, and a return to a clustered settlement system organized around tell sites. This pattern, again, was associated with increasing regionalization, and more discrete, actively-maintained boundaries. And it was within this context, sometime during the Middle and Late Bronze Age, that hereditary inequality became institutionalized and formalized in some parts of the Plain (Bóna 1995; Kristiansen 2000).

These patterns of what Parkinson (2002a) has called tribal cycling – patterns of nucleation and dispersal at the local level that are associated with increasing regionalization and homogeneity at the macro-regional level – should be familiar to archae-ologists working on long-term settlement patterns in other parts of the world, especially to those who work with sedentary agricultural societies. In some places, like on the Great Hungarian Plain, these tribal systems gave way to ones wherein latent, or idiosyn-cratic, vertical social distinctions became more for-malizedandidentifiableinthearchaeologicalrecord.These kinds of social transformations did not occur everywhere, and the question of why institutional-ized hereditary inequality emerged in some regional trajectories and not in others is very interesting (Par-kinson 2002b).

But just as interesting is the question of why such formalized social institutions emerged at specifictimes during a regional sequence and not at others. In the Hungarian sequence, for example, the Late Neo-lithic and later Bronze Age exhibit very similar settle-ment sizes, settlement distributions, and several oth-ercharacteristics(Duffy2010).ButattheendoftheNeolithic this social context led eventually to disper-sal (Parkinson/Gyucha 2007), and in the Bronze Age it led to the development of institutionalized heredi-tary inequality. This begs the question: Why did insti-tutionalized hereditary inequality emerge during the Bronze Age, and not during the Late Neolithic?

Theoretical considerations: Scales, boundaries, and social structureAny satisfying answer to this question needs to ad-dress a few theoretical issues, including the relation-ship between economic complexity and hereditary in-equality (Clark/Parry 1990); the relationship between human agents and social structures (Bourdieu 1997; Clark/Blake 1994; Giddens 1984); and the explanatory frameworks we use to explore the emergence of new social institutions over the long-term. Today we focus ourcommentsspecificallyonhowthemanipulationofsocialboundariesatdifferentscalesinfluencedtheemergence of hereditary inequality throughout the prehistory of the eastern Carpathian Basin.

The ways people in the past chose to establish and manipulatesocialboundariesonthelandscapeinflu-enced the kinds of social changes that could be enact-ed. At the same time, the boundaries archaeologists reconstruct using material culture were themselves createdbytheoperationofspecificprocessesofso-cial interaction – trade, intermarriage, warfare – over the long term. The lines we draw on maps to iden-tify ancient social boundaries are, therefore, neither direct reflections of territorial boundaries between

Fig. 2: The organization of social boundaries within the Great Hun-garian Plain during the Early Neolithic (A), the Late Neolithic (B), the Early Copper Age (C), and the Middle Bronze Age (D).

(A) (B)

(C) (D)


specificsocialgroups,noraretheycompletelydevoidof any theoretical meaning (Parkinson 2006a; 2006b; Stark 1998). At best, they are the sum average of the amount of interaction that occurred within and be-tweendifferent sites on the landscapeover a givenamount of time. That length of time is dictated, in large part, by the chronological resolution available in a region. In prehistoric Hungary, for example, we can identify stylistic changes in ceramic assemblages over a couple hundred years, or several generations, throughout the later Holocene (Raczky 1995b; Yerkes et al. 2009).

Much previous research on social boundaries has attempted – mostly in vain – to directly correlate ar-chaeologicallydefinedboundarieswithspecificsocialgroups on the landscape (e. g. Childe 1929). More re-cent effortshave focusedonhow social boundarieswere created and manipulated over time (e. g. Di-etler/Herbich 1998), and by analyzing how bounda-ries at the regional scale related to the organization of social life at the local scale – within and between settlements – we stand to learn quite a lot about so-cial structure. This moves our focus away from trying to explain social change in terms of the dizzying ne-gotiationbetweenhumanagentsanddifferentsocialstructures and towards understanding the nature of change over the long term.

Long-term change and hierarchy in Hungarian prehistoryFrom the perspective of the long-term, what we have set out to explain here today – the emergence of in-stitutionalized hereditary inequality in the Bronze Age – can be explained by the gradual accumulation of several different kinds of social transformations,beginning at the end of the Neolithic, which led even-tually to a social context within which human agents and their personal motivations could lead to the es-tablishment of hereditary inequality. From this per-spective, an explanatory model for the emergence of institutionalized hereditary inequality on the Great Hungarian Plain must account for social changes that occurred over thousands of years, not just those that occurred during the Bronze Age.

During the Late Neolithic, several settlements on the Plain were organized into discrete clusters around large, fortified, nucleated tell sites (tab. 1).These clusters were associated with discrete macro-regional boundaries on the landscape (Parkinson 2006a; Gyucha/Parkinson 2008). But in this context, arguably ripe for the emergence of institutionalized inequality – we already see evidence of other institu-tions that are frequently associated with social com-plexity, including incipient economic specialization, intensification,andcentralization–peoplechoseul-

timately to ‘vote with their feet’ and disperse (Par-kinson 2002a; Sahlins 1972).

Some time during the Copper Age, critical chang-es also occurred in household organization so that when a similar form of regional and local organiza-tion occurred again during the Bronze Age – nucle-ated, fortifiedsites,clusteredaroundtells–heredi-tary inequality did emerge. One critical aspect of change seems to be a reduction in the size of indi-vidual households within settlements (Parkinson/Gyucha 2007). In contrast to the Late Neolithic, when longhouses, or multi-roomed houses, were clustered into groups within settlements, the Bronze Age saw the tight packing of smaller houses onto settlements.

In addition to a change in the size of the basic household unit, there was an equally important re-structuring of how households pooled resources and probably labor (Flannery 1972; 2002). Late Neolithic storage pits tend to be associated with the entire longhouse or multi-roomed structure (Makkay 1982). Bronze Age storage pits, by contrast, are associated with individual houses, suggesting more potential for smaller corporate units to accumulate resources (Vicze 1995). This setup would have encouraged more variation between households, and also would have encouraged competition between those households. Given the other developments associated with the beginningof theBronzeAge – including the influxof horses (Gimbutas et al. 1997), secondary products (Sherratt 1981; 1983), and, of course, tools, weapons and jewelry made of bronze (O’Shea 1996) – this social context lent itself to the emergence of institutional-ized hereditary inequality (see also Kristiansen/Lars-son 2005).

Tab. 1: Boundary transformations at different geographic and social scales in the prehistory of the Great Hungarian Plain.


But even in these contexts we need to be careful not to impose a hierarchical organization onto the ar-chaeological record, for much of the evidence for in-stitutionalized hereditary inequality during the Mid-dle and Late Bronze Age in eastern Hungary comes from the normative association of craft specialization – and especially the production of weapons and jew-elry in bronze and gold – with hereditary inequality. Although the hoards or caches of these items sug-geststhattherewasdifferentialaccesstothesema-terialsandsymbolsbydifferentportionsofthepop-ulation, there is little explicit evidence from either mortuary or settlement contexts for institutionalized hereditary inequality, even within those regions that yield more evidence for on-site craft specialization and exhibit a tiered regional settlement hierarchy, such as around Százhalombatta and Pécska. But ask-ing whether inequalities in the later Bronze Age were achieved throughout the lifetime of the individual or whether they were ascribed at birth misses the bigger picture, which indicates significantly more formal-ized, institutionalized, differentiation than anytimepreviously.

Modeling the emergence of institutionalized hereditary inequality over the long-termThe regional trajectory in the prehistory of the re-gion can be described as the accumulation of sev-eraldifferentsocialtransformationsthat,overtime,created a social context that eventually lent itself to the emergence of institutionalized political inequal-ity. The various changes that occurred at the end of the Neolithic – the reduction in household size and the establishment of formal cemeteries on the land-scape – can be seen as latent structural transforma-tions that eventually set the stage for the emergence of institutionalized hereditary inequality during the Bronze Age (Parkinson 2006b).

The tendency throughout the Neolithic was to-wards increasing nucleation at the local scale. After a period of settlement dispersal in the Early Copper Age, a similar tendency – towards increasing nuclea-tion – began again in the Bronze Age. Intriguingly, the cycling between these two phases or structural poses (sensu Gearing 1958; see also Fowles 2002; Parkinson 2002b) is associated at the macro-regional scale with inversely correlated tendencies towards regionaliza-tion and homogenization, suggesting increasing inte-gration at the local scale, but decreasing interaction at the macro-regional scale. Similar correlated pat-terns – in the degree of settlement clustering and the number of sites – also occur at the regional scale. But only one combination of these patterns in Hungarian

prehistory led to the successful emergence of institu-tionalized hereditary inequality – in the Bronze Age.

This focus on boundary transformations is pro-ductive because it shifts our analytical focus towards thespecificsofsocialchangesthatoccurredoverthelong term. But these different kinds of transforma-tions will be most informative when they are used to compare different regional trajectories at broadtemporal scales that are most appropriate for ar-chaeological datasets. One interesting question cent-ersaroundthetemporaldurabilityofdifferentkindsof social systems. For example, John Clark and David Cheetham (2002) have argued that most tribal socie-ties in Mesoamerica lasted only a few hundred years before institutionalized political inequality emerged. This is radically different from other parts of theworld, such as the example discussed here, where ba-sically egalitarian, tribal, systems cycled for several thousand years before hereditary inequality became institutionalized.

We suggest a productive avenue of research is to focusmoreuponthedifferentkindsofsocialcontextsthat led to the emergence of these kinds of social in-stitutions (including those that did not!), and to re-work our explanatory models to consider long-term changes in social organization as themselves playing a causal role in the emergence of novel social institu-tions. Analyses of such patterns should be conducted at multiple scales, and should attempt to identify similarities and differences in the organization ofhouseholds, villages, and regional communities over time. In this way, we will be able to contribute to our anthropological understanding of how and why hier-archical systems emerged where and when they did, and also where they did not.

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