Chapter 9: The First Cities and States

Learning Objectives- After reading this chapter and coming to class you should be able to:
1.	Understand the general factors that have contributed to the emergence of states, and the relationship between food production and state formation.
2.	Be able to identify the key attributes of states that are characteristic of the “urban revolution,” and consider how these attributes interrelate.
3.	Be familiar with the shift from chiefdoms to states in the Middle East and Mesoamerica, and consider the formation of early states in the Indus River Valley, China, and sub-Saharan Africa. Know the main sites and periods of early state formation in these regions and be able to discuss the primary characteristics of state organization.
4.	Know how scholars have explained the fall of states, particularly the Mayan state’s collapse. 

Terms-  You should understand these terms and be ready to identify them:
Aztec
Last independent state in the Valley of Mexico; capital was Tenochtitlan. Thrived between 1325 and the Spanish Conquest in 1520.

bronze
An alloy of arsenic and copper or tin and copper.

chiefdom
A ranked society in which relations among villages as well as among individuals are unequal, with smaller villages under the authority of leaders in larger villages; has a two-level settlement hierarchy.

cuneiform
Early Mesopotamian writing that used a stylus (writing implement) to write wedge-shaped impressions on raw clay; from the Latin word for "wedge."

egalitarian society
A type of society, most typically found among hunter-gatherers, that lacks status distinctions except for those based on age, gender, and individual qualities, talents, and achievements.

empire
A mature, territorially large, and expansive, state; empires are typically multiethnic, multilinguistic, and more militaristic, with a better developed bureaucracy than earlier states.

Halafian
An early (7500–6500 B.P.) and widespread pottery style, first found in northern Syria; refers to a delicate ceramic style and to the period when the first chiefdoms emerged.

Mesopotamia
The area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now southern Iraq and southwestern Iran; location of the first cities and states.

metallurgy
Knowledge of the properties of metals, including their extraction and processing and the manufacture of metal tools.

multivariate
Involving multiple factors, causes, or variables.

primary states
States that arise on their own (through competition among chiefdoms), not through contact with other state societies.

ranked society
A type of society with hereditary inequality but not social stratification; individuals are ranked in terms of their genealogical closeness to the chief, but there is a continuum of status, with many individuals and kin groups ranked about equally.

settlement hierarchy
A ranked series of communities differing in size, function, and type of building; a three-level settlement hierarchy indicates state organization.

smelting
The high-temperature process by which pure metal is produced from an ore.

state
Sociopolitical organization based on central government and socioeconomic stratification—a division of society into classes.

stratification
A stratified society has sharp social divisions—strata—based on unequal access to wealth and power (e.g., into noble and commoner classes).

Teotihuacán
A.D. 100 to 700; first state in the Valley of Mexico and earliest major Mesoamerican empire.

Zapotec state
First Mesoamerican state, in the Valley of Oaxaca.