Beyond Chiefdoms

..."certainly warrents careful consideration by anyone with an interest in the development of political complexity...Especially notable are what it has to say about research strategies in very large, but largely unknown, regions; the interplay between ethnography, oral tradition, and archaeological research; and the contributions regionally-focused archaeology can make to wider theoretical debates...I should stress this volume's inherent value as a representation of our growing knowledge of the diverse richness of world archaeological history." Canadian Journal of Archaeology

1. Pathways to complexity: an African perspective Susan Keech McIntosh; 2. The segmentary state and the ritual phase in political economy Aidan Southall; 3. Perceiving variability in time and space: the evolutionary mapping of African societies Ann B. Stahl; 4. Western representations of urbanism and invisible African towns Roderick J. McIntosh; 5. Modelling political organization in large scale settlement clusters: a case study from the inland Niger Delta Susan Keech McIntosh; 6. Sacred centres and urbanisation in West Central Africa Raymond N. Asombang; 7. Permutations in patrimonialism and populism: the Aghem chiefdoms of Western Cameroon Igor Kopytoff; 8. Wonderful society: the Burgess shale creatures, Mandara polities, and the nature of prehistory Nicholas David and Judy Sterner; 9. Material culture and the dialectics of identity in the Kalahari: AD 700-1700 James Denbow; 10. Seeking and keeping power in Bunyora-Kitara, Uganda Peter Robertshaw; 11. The (in)visible roots of Bunyoro-Kitara and Buganda in the Lakes Region: 800-1300 David L. Schoenbrun; 12. The power of symbols and the symbols of power through time: probing the Luba past Pierre de Maret; 13. Pathways of political development in Equatorial Africa and neo-evolutionary theory Jan Vansina.