A Case Study of Heterarchy in Complex Societies: Early Medieval Ireland and its Archeological Implications

Abstract

Early Europe provides considerable evidence of heterarchical organization. Early Medieval Ireland will be examined in this chapter. Both textual and archeological evidence of a chiefdom‐type society will be evaluated, and the combination of the two will show that texts can provide details of sociopolitical organization that may be difficult or impossible to interpret from archeological evidence alone. The conclusions are couched in exclusively archeological terms, however, because the point of the exercise is to attempt archeological interpretations of heterarchy.

Killing the Priest-King: Addressing Egalitarianism in the Indus Civilization

“…However, again, it is important to address the relationship between heterarchy and the presence or absence of a ruling class. While it is often counterposed to hierarchy, heterarchy is found in otherwise extremely unequal societies (Brumfiel 1995), characterizing the elite interactions between powerful political hierarchies in early medieval Ireland (Wailes 1995) or competition between imperial elites in different parts of the Roman Empire (Tainter and Crumley 2007). A comprehensive consideration of the relationship between heterarchy and governance is beyond the scope of this paper, but I do not think there is sufficient evidence to support the view that a ruling class of managerial elitesheterarchical or otherwise-directed the political organization of Indus society.…”

Alternative Pathways to Complexity A Collection of Essays on Architecture, Economics, Power, and Cross-Cultural Analysis

“…Because the emergence of European Iron Age political systems is a repeated cycle of balance between power from above and power from below, our understanding of this era has benefited inordinately from all theories, past and current, that deal with varied and alternative sociopolitical organization. The Iron Age is an era variously described as illustrating the "Germanic mode of production" within a Marxian framework (Gilman 1995;Hunt and Gilman 1998), as being heterarchic (Crumley 1995;Kristiansen and Larsson 2005;Wailes 1995), and as producing "corporate" polities within the "corporate/network" continuum (Bentley and Shennan 2003;Thurston 2001Thurston , 2009Thurston , 2010 or without reference to a specific theory, a kind of ideologically egalitarian, checked and balanced system ( James 1999( James , 2000Collis 1997; Hill 1989Hill , 1993. A tradition of deemphasized status and class differentiation was intermittently impacted by the aspirations of self-promoting elites who used "personal prestige, wealth, power accumulation, aggrandizement, highly individualized leadership .…”

Enduring Nations and Emergent States: Rulership, Subjecthood, and Power in Early Scandinavia

“…Because the emergence of European Iron Age political systems is a repeated cycle of balance between power from above and power from below, our understanding of this era has benefited inordinately from all theories, past and current, that deal with varied and alternative sociopolitical organization. The Iron Age is an era variously described as illustrating the "Germanic mode of production" within a Marxian framework (Gilman 1995;Hunt and Gilman 1998), as being heterarchic (Crumley 1995;Kristiansen and Larsson 2005;Wailes 1995), and as producing "corporate" polities within the "corporate/network" continuum (Bentley and Shennan 2003;Thurston 2001Thurston , 2009Thurston , 2010 or without reference to a specific theory, a kind of ideologically egalitarian, checked and balanced system ( James 1999( James , 2000Collis 1997; Hill 1989Hill , 1993. A tradition of deemphasized status and class differentiation was intermittently impacted by the aspirations of self-promoting elites who used "personal prestige, wealth, power accumulation, aggrandizement, highly individualized leadership .…”