ANTH 103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Environmental Degradation, Defensive Wall, Urban Planning
Document Summary
State: social and political organization, formal central government, division of society into classes. Formed on their own, usually from competition amongst chiefdoms. Tribute and taxation to accumulate resources to support thousands of specialists. Stratified into social classes (elites, commoners, slaves) Sustain towns and cities, become essential to subsistence. Emerged at strategic locations in regional trade networks. Earliest cultivation limited to valleys with springs. First states developed when one chiefdom conquered another. Ritual space with paintings, bull horns, ox heads. Priests or leaders controlling resources or food collectively. Ranked societies: individuals ranked by genealogical distance from chief. Stratification: social divisions (strata) unequal with wealth and power. After 7300 ya: exotic goods markers of status, raiding, and political instability. 6000-5500 ya: towns grew into cities and middle eastern states developed. Cuneiform: in temples, priests managed herding, farming, trade, record keeping. Smelting: high temp process producing pure metals. Gold has importance and is in royal burials. Class structure: social stratification: nobles, commoners, slaves.
