The Origins of Modern States

The transition from a world without states to a world where states are the dominant political institutions is one of the most crucial turning points in our history, and one that is fundamental to our understanding of modern society and government. This project will investigate the processes of state formation, with emphasis on the origins of the two-tiered types of administration that preceded modern federal government.

This award will examine the earliest recorded states in the western world, which appear to have been administered by both central and district governments. At the heart of the issue is the applicability of neo-evolutionary models: Are states the products of a linear evolution from simpler/non-hierarchical to complex/hierarchical political forms, or can they be the outcomes of multilinear trajectories?

And are they created by powerful agents at the top of the sociopolitical scale, or can they be affected by groups outside the top-tier palatial centers? As the training field for scores of graduate and undergraduate students, with substantial representation of women and minorities, the project will have significant value in terms of inclusiveness and education.

Finally, in terms of protecting our cultural heritage, the project will conserve, restore, and protect one of the worlds earliest state capitals and create the infrastructure for opening up archaeological sites to the general public.

Current explanations of state formation, framed in terms of neo-evolutionary theory and based on the evidence from a handful of top-tier palaces, consider that formation to be a product of the coalescence of preexisting chiefdoms. Recent theoretical advances and fieldwork have, however, shown the weaknesses of exclusive top-down approaches and the unreliability of general heuristic explanations.

More nuanced hypotheses are needed, that would define the agents and the processes behind state formation, using region- and culture-specific models and combining evidence from both top- and lower-tier centers. Through systematic excavation and detailed historical modelling, this project will produce the datasets needed to test existing and new hypotheses about state formation and operation; the results will then be contextualized within general models explaining state formation in other regions.

In terms of methods, the combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches, and the wider contextualization of specific historical models will add important new blocks to the emerging comparative framework about state formation and evolution around the world. In terms of interdisciplinarity and international cooperation, the project will serve as the vehicle for large-scale international, collaborative, multi-disciplinary research that will integrate the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.