Geiger, Gebhard. "The Concept of Evolution and Early State Formation." Politics and the Life Sciences 3, 2 (February, 1985):163-171.
[Two commentaries and author response, pp. 172-181]
Introduction. The emergence of the state and similar forms of large-scale, stratified society from the matrix of primitive egalitarian social relations poses a problem sui generis for political anthropology. On the one hand, since the Neolithic, hierarchical stratification and political domination have evolved in a relatively short time from the patterns of kinship bonds and ephemeral leadership characteristic of primitive society (Service, 1975; Carneiro, 1978). On the other hand, the extent of the division of labor and of hierarchical stratification in even the most primitive corporate political groups is significantly greater than the found in egalitarian bands and tribes. This difference lends support to very specific explanations such as the theories of cataclysmic sociocultural change of political anthropology (Service, 1975:15).
Today, archaeologists and ethnologists widely accept that the establishment of multicommunity chiefdoms with hereditary rank order, theocratic rule, and certain primitive patterns of centralized administration preceded the formation of the earliest states (Flannery, 1972). Acceptance of this position has simplified the investigation of the origin of the state considerably. Since the state is a territorial organization with a highly centralized government, a professional ruling class, and repressive law, investigation now concentrates on the transformation of chiefly authority and theocratic domination into political power as an institutionalized sanction (Service, 1975).
However, the detailed processes which brought about this transformation still remain a matter of controversy among anthropologists. Present-day theories on the origins of the state can be classified into those that invoke evolutionary, biological categories (e.g., Carneiro, 1978; Alexander, 1979) and those that imply sociocultural relations and processes exclusively. Other hypotheses present state formation in terms of "prime movers" such as irrigation, warfare, or population growth (For a review see Flannery, 1972), in contrast to synthetic, multivariate approaches which exclude monocausal explanations (Flannery, 1972; Webster, 1975; Wright, 1977).
I suggest that the rise of stratified society fits into a general evolutionary scheme that encompasses the emergence of structurally stable patterns in the prebiotic and the living world. Part of the conceptual framework I have applied in this analysis is borrowed from biophysics and evolutionary biology and is reinterpreted with reference to human social interactions. I argue that the evolutionary approach to primary state formation is consistent with the "systemic" position in political anthropology. The position views the origin of the state as the result of a complicated interplay of various social, cultural, and ecological factors. These factors are treated as random variables whose actual specification of and impact on social structures depend on particular historical and spatial conditions. Complex stratified societies may gain historic significance by virtue of their a posteriori cohesiveness and stability, and not through the operation of social "prime mover mechanis ms," which, in any case, must be assumed to be indeterministic. The formation of the primordial state from less complex social structures was promoted by the transformation of the patterns of intraspecific aggression in human beings into specific modes of institutional repression.