Chiefdom Confederacies and State Origins

Abstract

A number of historical political systems of regional scale in varied locales across the globe have been described as confederacies, and some, such as those of Early Medieval Ireland, as chiefdom confederacies. In light of recent mulling as to whether some complex political systems of prehistoric and early historic North America could be considered to have been chiefdom confederacies (Pauketat 2007), this article surveys the political systems of the historic Iroquois league, Early Medieval Ireland, Late Iron Age Britain, Archaic Boiotia, Bronze Age and Iron Age Korea, and 19 th – 20 th century Western Iran with the objective of determining the essential characteristics of chiefdom confederacies. Subsequent discussion is given over to the question as to whether the states that arose out of chiefdom confederacies possessed organizational characteristics attributable to their origins in them. Chiefdom confederacies have not had a high profile in the literature of social or political anthropology, and only pop up from time to time in historical literature. This relative neglect is odd considering that, as this survey will demonstrate, they occurred among populations in nearly every culture area of the world, and once carpeted Europe. Quite possibly, not much attention has been lavished upon chiefdom confederacies because most came into existence and declined prior to the appearance of written documents in most regions where they existed. A second likely reason for their obscurity is due to an unspoken consensus among scholars that chiefdom confederacies never evolved into, or had an imprint upon the character of early states. As this study will hopefully demonstrate nothing could be farther from the truth. Indeed, it will emerge that