Population, Exchange, and Early State Formation in Southwestern Iran

Citation: Wright, H. T. and G. A. Johnson (1975) Population, Exchange, and Early State Formation in Southwestern Iran. American Anthropologist 77(2): 267-289. (RSS)
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Summary: Wright and Johnson tested current explanations for the emergence of centralized institutions in Southwest Iran, and proposed that we need more complex type of explanation. According to the archaeological evidenced, there are 8 prehistoric time period of the development of organization on the Mesopotamia plain. The origin of the state was believed at the beginning of the Early Uruk period (around 4000BC.) according to the scale of settlement and settlement distribution. There are three hypotheses for the culture transformation, including population growth, inter-regional exchange, and local craft production.

The population growth hypothesis was based on the argument that population increase in an agriculture setting results in warfare, which leads to the emergence of state to administer societies which were defeated and distribute the resources. If population growth is the case, then they will find the increase of population before the state development. However, the estimation based on the relationship between area and population suggests that the population declined immediately before the development of state. Moreover, the Susiana d period, which is earlier than Early Uruk, has highest population, but there was no emergence of state.

Second hypothesis assumes that the increased rare materials from trade forced the appearance of leader or administrative organization to reorganize imported resource or develop local craft production. If trade is the factor, then they would find the expansion of trade before the state. Although there were increases in local production and intra-regional exchange, no major increase for inter-regional exchange before the Early Uruk period. The third hypothesis suggests that the development of local ceramic production is an important factor. The evidence shows that there was a specialized local administrative system and local exchange network at the beginning of the Early Uruk period, but this is more like an effect of transformation.

Although the evidence is not complete to make conclusion, Wright and Johnson think that by testing certain single variable explanation we can have a general idea about the emergence of the state. The first two hypotheses could be rejected, but each variable serve as a condition to the state formation. Wright and Johnson suggested that only multiple variable changes can lead to the transformation. They argue specialization could be viewed as a function to deal with population growth and intra-regional trade. In conclusion, they suggest four ways to future research: 1. Recover site constituents in correct proportion. 2. Recover should be based on known depositional origin. 3. Investigate the formation process of deposits. 4. Find out representative samples from each community.