There are two different anthropologies – anthropology by historians and anthropology by physicists and mathematicians. The first is academically recognized social science ,whereas , the second is just emerging discipline inspired by results of cosmology of antropic (anthropological ) principle, space life  sciences, computational theory of human limits, gravitational  and quantum biology, mathematical evolution, experimental econophysics, quantum games applications,applied mathematics and …

Whether a political system is benign or appalling, to use John McCreery’s terminology, is dependent on how that system benefits you and yours.  My work is not so much about how to prevent official misdeeds, but an historical look at why it is that for most of human existence there was no officialdom and no opportunity for exploitation by one individual, cohort or class of persons with regard to the general population.  And, furthermore, I identify the key causal variable in the emergence of…

Dear Colleagues,

The Studia Sociologica journal invites authors to contribute to its next issue dedicated to Borderland, Diffusion, Transculturation. The journal is published by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland. The principal purpose of the journal is to publish international scholarly researches in social sciences to make possible the exchange of knowledge in the field. The journal also considers conceptual or…

On Savage Minds, Kerim Friedman blogged about Chinese Dragon Boat races, looking back to their putative origin in  a festival commemorating the death of poet Qu Yuan (Chinese: 屈原) (c. 340 BCE – 278 BCE) of the ancient state of Chu, in the Warring States Period of the Zhou Dynasty. Fuji Lozada comments that Dragon Boat Racing  

"is a growing international sport. Here in Charlotte, North…

Let’s look at an example from Sumer:

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Case 2.16.  The Ziggurats of Sumer 

In Sumer, ziggurats were believed to be dwelling places for the gods and only priests were permitted on the ziggurat; or in the rooms at its base and it was their duty and privilege to care for the gods and attend to their needs.  The ziggurat was a place of mystery for commoners and the…

Augmentation of Office in the Neolithic & Beyond

It is not only that office-holders throughout history have used their offices as a base to exploit others; but also that there was a natural tendency for an officer to try to increase the power of the office and its privileges once he was installed in his post.  As offices were most often filled by aggrandizers who wanted more prestige, power and property, this is…

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Innes, C. & J. E. Buchan (Eds.).  1851-1855.  Origines Parochiales Scotiae.  (2 vols.).  Edingurgh: Bannatyne Club.

IPIS (International Peace Information Service).  2002 [January].  Supporting the War Economy in the DRC: European Companies and the Coltan Trade.  Brussels: International Peace Information Service.

International Commission of Inquiry.  1998.  Final Report of the International Commission of Inquiry…

BIBLIOGRAPHY  

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Abadal, Ramón.  1949.  La Batalla del Adopcionismo y la Desintegración del la Iglesia Visigoda.  Barcelona.

Abadinsky, H.  1994.  Organized Crime (4^th edition).  Chicago: Nelson Hall.

Abramowitz, Michael & Steven Mufson.  2007 (July 18).  Papers Detail Industry's Role in Cheney's Energy Report, The Washington Post.…

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Robert McC. Adams (1966: chapter 4) made a comparison between the Mesopotamian and Aztec States, finding several similarities, especially in that both began by fabricating an elaborate cosmology to back the activities of the king and his priests and then, as the state matured, developed expansionist ideas and moved away from the regenerative cosmology and beneficent gods to a harsher militaristic sets of deities.  The actions of…

2.  IMPLICATIONS OF THE NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION

Domestication: A Revolution

Domestication of plants and animals must be seen as a process.  Hunter-gatherers would have been keen to observe natural forms and processes in the course of their economic pursuits and nudging nature here and there would have been a normal thing to do.  There are many examples of this from the ethnographic literature.  Little domesticates were…

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Case 1.7.  Comparison of Mortuary Rites in Sisalaland, Northern Ghana & the Ancient Levant

We see this ethnographically.  In my study of ritual in Northern Ghana I observed Sisala household heads officiating at rites, the opening words of which always involved calling out the names of their departed ancestors, each of whom was a previous household headman (Mendonsa 1975b; 1976;…

The Natufians of the Levant

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Case 1.3.  Natufian Reapers: A Case of Storing Foragers

Effective farming is known to have been established in the Levant about 9 thousand B.P.; but between 14 thousand and 10 thousand B.P., there emerged simple hunter-gatherers known collectively as the Kebarans.  After 11 thousand B.P. archaeologists noticed the presence of pestles,…

1.  THE PALEOLITHIC AND THE EMERGENCE OF COMPLEXITY

The Long Paleolithic

The Long Paleolithic was an enormous expanse of time.  Roughly speaking, we can take the Paleolithic to be about two and a half million years in length, starting with the development of the first stone tools in Africa.  It is all of human existence prior to the development of agriculture and herding (domestication).  This occurred in what…

Mystification

In the cases I present in this book we will see office-holders (headmen, chiefs, shamans, lairds, priests, counts, kings and a variety of viziers) creating mystifications, obfuscations, camouflages and illusions in order to fashion and maintain domination of others.  These are forms of lies that office-holders have been telling people ever since there was something worth lying about i.e., wealth and…

What is Domination?

According to Max Weber, domination is embedded in a social relationship (1978:26-28).  One person or group lords it over another person or group.  One is powerful and the other is dependent, as the power of the dominant person or group is equal to the dependence of the underling person or group (Emerson 1962).  In other words, domination is about a power-dependence relationship.  Someone or a cohort of persons has to exercise domination and…

INTRODUCTION

A Note on Political Economy  

Professor Timothy Earle (2002:1) defines the subject in this fashion, “The political economy is the material flows of goods and labor through a society, channeled to create wealth and to finance institutions of rule.”  I would put it slightly differently.  To my mind a political economy is the political institutional frame created to control the flows of goods and labor through a society.  The institutions…

Introduction

A Note on Political Economy  

The Questions at Issue

What is domination?

Theories of Inequality

Inequality & Stratification

Women and Inequality

Scripted Domination

Mystification

The Power of Ritual

Secrecy

Malfeasance in Office

Which is Normal: Cooperation or Competition?

What is Power?

Power Structures

Strategic Man

The Evolutionary…