Early Trends toward Class Stratification: Chaos, Common Property, and Flood Recession Agriculture

Abstract

In societies based on f i o d recession agriculture in arid regions, economic stratijcation, institutionalized ways of sloughing oflpopulation, and common property are particularly valuable risk management options. Using ethnographic data from the Senegal River Basin and historical data j o m the Nile Valley, I argue that tendencies toward stratijcation were inherent in riverine societies practicing frood recession agriculture. Thus, early stratijcation occurred long bejore population pressure reached significant levels and well before regional trade, extensive storage capacig, or elaborate water-management infrastructure became economically significant. The article is intended to help explain why a number of civilizations developed in arid riverine contexts. NE PU%%I,E THAT HASI3EEN 1NADk;QUATELY EXAMINED by theorists of the early 0 state is why such states often developed in arid riverine contexts. In this article I Park] EARLY TRENDS TOMXRD CUSSSTRAT~F~CAT~ON 93

Coring Lake Fati and Settlement Archaeology of the Middle Niger Lakes Region

“…It is well documented that this region has one of the most irregular and unpredictable climate regimes in the world, and that this unstable pattern has significant time-depth (Casteñeda et al 2009;Koechlin 1997;Lézine et al 2011;McIntosh 2005;Nicholson 1979Nicholson , 1994Park 1992;Petit-Maire 1986). Palaeoclimate studies of palynology (Lézine 1988), limnology (Bellouche and Neumann 1995;Francus et al 2013;Petit-Maire 1988;Talbot and Delibrias 1980), hydrology (Drézen et al 2010;Lespez et al 2011), offshore cores (Bouimetarhan et al 2009;Casteñeda et al 2009;deMenocal et al 2000;Lézine and Hooghiemstra 1990;Shanahan et al 2009), geomorphology (Mauz and Felix-Henningsen 2005;Talbot 1981) and anthracology (Bellouche and Neumann 1995;Neumann 1989) show that since the last glaciation the West African Sahel has seen no fewer than four major climate inversions.…”

Genetic Engineering, the Farm Crisis, and World Hunger

“…A hierarchical system prioritizes access to land, and the rules regulating access to common property have been encoded into local Islamic law. Prioritized access ensures that those with the specialized knowledge are those that make decisions on varieties of rice to be planted, as well as the timing of the planting (Park 1992).…”

Complex Adaptive Systems, Evolutionism, and Ecology within Anthropology: Interdisciplinary Research for Understanding Cultural and Ecological Dynamics

“…Archaeologists have recently become interested (Kohler 1992, Gumerman andGell-Mann 1994), especially for applying the non-linear, or pulsing dynamics of complex systems to understanding the collapse of state societies (Tainter 1988, Yoffee andCowgill 1988). Fewer cultural anthropologists have found use for complexity (Lansing 1991, Acheson and Wilson 1996, Park 1992, Carniero 1982, and their works often reflect the mathematical components of the model, missing the potential value of its thermodynamic and ecological underpinnings.…”

“…More recently however, advances in theory and research have greatly modified the understanding of the nonlinear dynamics and thermodynamics of biogeophysical evolution (Prigogine 1980;Wicken 1987;Depew and Weber 1995), and of ecosystems (O'Neil et al 1986;Holling 1986Holling , 1995Ulanowicz 1986Ulanowicz , 1996Odum 1983Odum , 1996a, and ecological anthropologists have just begun to make use of the new insights (cf. Adams 1988;Park 1992;Acheson and Wilson 1996;South 1990;Ehrenreich et al 1995;Gumerman and Gell-Mann 1994;Kohler 1992).…”