Origins of Complex Societies

Recommended Prerequisites

NA

Teaching Methods

Theoretical-practical classes, using Keynote presentations. Whenever possible, when dealing with explanatory theories, definition of concepts or comparison of case studies, debates around texts relevant to those subjects will be organized.

Learning Outcomes

The program's main objective is to introduce students to the problematics related with the emergence of the agro-pastoral mode of production (Neolithic) and the origins of the state. The two processes occurred, independently, in different parts of the world. It is intended that students become familiar with the issues linked to both processes, namely the theories that conceptualize and explain them, as well as the diversity that hides behind what seems to be uniform processes. It is also intended that students be aware that neither the neolithization was an inevitability, nor did it automatically lead to the formation of state societies. For these reasons, concrete case studies will be discussed. Due to their importance in the historical process of later Mediterranean societies, special emphasis will be placed on the neolithization of Southwest Asia and the formation of Mesopotamian and Egyptian states.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. What is social complexity and what are its first traces:
1.1. The Upper Palaeolithic societies.
1.2. The transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene and its effects on human communities.
2. The emergence of the agro-pastoral mode of production (Neolithic).
2.1. Conceptualization and origins of the Neolithic.
2.2. The case of Southwest Asia:
2.3. The case of China
2.4. The case of America
3. Origins of the state
3.1. Introduction
3.1.1. Definition of the concepts of city, state and civilization.
3.1.2. The diferent theories about the origins of the state.
3.2. Case studies
3.2.1. Mesopotamia: from the ceramic Neolithic to Ur III.
3.2.2. Egypt: from Neolithic to the end of the New Kingdom.
3.2.3. China: from the Neolithic to the end of the Shang.
3.2.4. The Indus Valley: from the Neolithic to the colapse.
3.2.5. Mesoamerica: from the Neolithic to the Mayas.
3.2.6. The Andes: from the Neolithic to the Inca Empire.
3.3. Comparing ancient civilizations: similitudes and differences

Head Lecturer(s)

Ana Cordeiro de Sousa Gomes Abrunhosa

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Exam: 100.0%

Bibliography

GRAEBER, D.; WENGROW, D. 2022 — O princípio de Tudo — Uma nova história da humanidade, Bertrand Editora, Lisboa.
LIVERANI, M., 2006 — Uruk. La primera ciudad, Edicions Belaterra, Barcelona.
NAVARRO, F. (ed.), 2005 – História Universal. Ed. Salvat/Ed. Público.
REDMAN, C., 1990 - Los origines de la Civilización. Desde los primeros agricultores hasta la sociedad urbana en el Próximo Oriente, Ed. Crítica, Barcelona.
ROTHMAN, M. (ed.), 1994 – Chiefdoms and early status in the Near East. The organizational dynamics of complexity, Monographs in World Archaeol. nº 18, Prehistory Press.
WAGNER, C. G., 1999 - Historia del Cercano Oriente, Ed. Univ. Salamanca.
SCARRE, C. (ed.), 2024, The human past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies. Fifth edition, London: Thames & Hudson.
SCARRE, C.; FAGAN, B. M.; GOLDEN, C., 2021 — Ancient civilizations. Fifth edition, London, Routledge.
TRIGGER, B. G., 2003 - Understanding Early Civilizations, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.