Edited by Danika Parikh

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Archaeology of the Origin of the State: The Theories

By Vicente Lull and Rafael Mic
2011. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Hbk. 320 pp.
ISBN: 978-0-19-955784-4

Reviewed by Sebastian N. Becker

Department of Archaeology and Anthropology
University of Cambridge

hy and how states emerged are questions that have received much
attention in archaeology. They also form the starting point for Lull
and Mics Archaeology of the Origin of the State: The Theories. For anyone
expecting a comprehensive review of archaeological case studies the
subtitle comes as a proviso: the book is mainly a theoretical one in which
the authors promote an explicitly Marxist approach to the study of early
states. They deconstruct how archaeology has defined and studied the
State by reviewing the disciplines intellectual entanglement with various
strands of Western thought, primarily those deriving from philosophy and
anthropology. As such, the book is part of a corpus of recent literature
which, inspired by Marxist and postcolonial theory, has critiqued the way
in which archaeology has approached the State both conceptually and
analytically (for example Chapman 2003; Pauketat 2007). Where then lies
the intellectual contribution of the book, and how is it organised in terms
of its contents?
Archaeology of the Origin of the State consists of two parts. Part I is
a comprehensive summary of the philosophical and anthropological
theories which, according to the authors, have had a lasting impact on the
ways archaeologists have defined and studied the State. Its eight chapters
take the reader on a journey through more than two millennia of Western
thought. The journey begins with Plato and Aristotles notion of a moral
unity, epitomised in the polis (Chapter One); from there it takes the reader
to the Christian idea of individual salvation and obedience (Chapter Two),
and the Renaissance conceptualisation of the State as the guarantor
of political order and authority (Chapter Three). The journey continues
through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for which the authors
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distil three main views of the State (Chapters FourSix): first, the State as
the custodian of individual security; second, the State as a social contract,
ensuring the preservation of individual rights and property; and finally,
the State as the institutionalisation of human rationality. The journey
concludes with a comprehensive review of Marxs notion of the State as
a historically contingent condition (Chapter Seven) which the authors
identify as the point of departure for research into the origins of the State,
pioneered by nineteenth century evolutionism (Chapter Eight).
Part II (Archaeology of the State; Chapters 911) critically reviews
the theories and methods which archaeologists have used to study
early states since the twentieth century. Chapter Nine summarises the
intellectual and historical context in which archaeological research on
the State developed. It begins with a summary of Childes definition
of the State, presenting the suite of socio-material proxies on which it
was based. From there it proceeds to a critical review of more recent
research into the origin of the State, turning first to processual and then
to post-processual approaches. The authors criticize the former for
drawing on evolutionary-typologizing theories, according to which the
State constitutes the most sophisticated (i.e. adaptively efficient) form
of human existence. They argue that this approach reifies the State as
an ideal socio-political condition, thus obscuring the socio-economic
inequalities on which it is based. Post-processual approaches, on the
other hand, with their focus on agency, meaning and ideology are seen
as the product of neo-liberal thought, of an idealist ontology (page 230)
which, according to the authors, tends to ignore the material conditions
that foster both the emergence and functioning of the State. This review
forms the background for Chapters 1011 which introduce Lull and Mics
Marxist conceptualisation of the State as a system that safeguards the
relationships of economic exploitations between classes by the use of
force (page 246). The book concludes with a synthesis of this Marxistinspired position, arguing that the authors analytical focus on economic
exploitation (page 247) produces a more realistic insight into the origins
of the State than the supposedly subjective, politically and ideologically
laden theories of both processual and post-processual archaeologies.
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Whatnew insight does this book offer? Did not Chapman (2003:
188) already emphasise the need for a materialist rather than idealist
archaeology, whilst warning of the real danger that we are trying to fit
our archaeological research on past societies into existing evolutionary
typologies. (Chapman 2003: 196)? The books main contributionthe
reason why it stands out from similar literaturelies in its comprehensive
review of Western thought on the State. Part I provides a comprehensive
review of how theories and definitions of the State have changed over
the last two millennia. Unfortunately, due to the authors dense style
of writing this review is, at times, rather difficult to follow. Moreover,
the book as a whole, but particularly Part I, would have benefited from
illustrations or tables to summarise the rather complex theories it reviews
and critiques.
These formalities aside, Archaeology of the Origin of the State can
also be critiqued on more conceptual grounds. To begin with, the
argumentative relationship between Parts I and II remains rather
obscure. The theories discussed in Part I are not critiqued in terms of
their applicability to the study of material culturethe empirical basis
for any archaeological conceptualisation of the Statebut are primarily
reviewed in terms of their argumentative logic and socio-political
implications. An explicit connection to archaeology and material culture
is only made in Part II where Lull and Mic set out to deconstruct the
intellectual heritage of processual and post-processual archaeologies of
the State. In this respect, Part I could easily form a book of its own, albeit
one not necessarily situated within archaeology.
More importantly, the book has failed to convince me that Marxism
holds the key to free archaeology of its interpretive dependence
(page 229) on other disciplines, notably anthropology. The authors
main argument is that the materialist perspective entailed in Marxism
produces objective knowledge about the nature of early states which
is resistant to the interpretations in the minds of ideologically (in)
formed archaeologists (page 229). However, is this argument in itself not
ideologically laden? And should we agree that archaeology can unravel
the sincerity of the material evidence (page 270) in spite of always
being part of socio-political agendas? Finally, do generalisations such as
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States arise to preserve and establish certain dissymmetrical economic

distribution systems (page 238) not defeat the authors contention that
archaeologists need to abandon a priori definitions of the State in favour
of more empirically oriented research into its material manifestations?
My main critique of the book is thus directed at its uncritical, if not
tautological, premise that a Marxist-inspired archaeology can somehow
unearth the real (i.e. objective) nature of early states as a result of
being intrinsically materialist. The argument is tautological because it
presents Marxist archaeology as, simultaneously, both innocent and
politically proactive: the former in the sense of producing an unbiased,
pristine interpretation of the archaeological record; the latter in the
sense of subverting dominant discourse on the State by exposing it as
a product of socio-material contingencies. This kind of reasoning results
in a rather monothetic view of the State as an oppressive hierarchical
system, thus ignoring the various non-hierarchical relationships that play
out within it (Ehrenreich, Crumley, and Levy 1995). Moreover, Lull and
Mics argument renders the study of symbols, rituals and other cultural
phenomena redundant in that their existence is entirely predicated upon
the legitimisation of socio-economic inequality. More than 30 years ago,
the social anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1980: 122) pointedly summarised
the theoretical reductionism entailed in this kind of perspective: Political
symbology is political ideology, and political ideology is class hypocrisy.
Thus, can I recommend Archaeology of the Origin of the State? The
answer is yes and no. For anyone seeking a comprehensive review of how
the concept of the State developed in Western thought, Part I provides
a convenient point of departure. However, the books uncompromising
promotion of a Marxist archaeology of the State, whilst emphasising the
important role material culture should take in our conceptualisation of
the latter, fails to live up to its own promise: instead of providing a more
realistic, i.e. nuanced and textured view of the State, it slots its material
manifestations into a meta-narrative of inequality, oppression and
exploitation, in short, into the Marxian notion of a never-ending class
struggle.

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References
Chapman, R. 2003. Archaeologies of Complexity. London: Routledge.
Ehrenreich, J., Crumley, C. and Levy, J. (eds) 1995. Heterachy and the Analysis of Complex
Societies. Arlington: Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological
Association.
Geertz, C. 1980. Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Pauketat, T.R. 2007. Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions. Lanham and Plymouth: AltaMira Press.

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