» Introduction Part II The Organizational Dynamics of Complexity in Greater Mesopotamia Gil Stein Northwestern University Stat s and Dynamics in Models of Mesopotamian Society The last two decades of archaeological and textual research have documented tremendous diversity in the ways that Greater Mesopotamian complex so eties constituted themselves as polities. This increasingly representative data base, combined with the use of more processually oriented models of social action, have led to a gradual shift in research perspec: tives from a “top-down” emphasis on managerial, structure (see, e.g. discussion in Pollock 1992:329) toward a “bottom-up” perspective on the organiza- tion of Mesopotamian chiefdoms and states. As explained in the first section of this introduction, we use the term “organizational dynamics” as a short hand for an approach that focuses on the ways that prehistoric complex societies actually functioned, rather than the formal structure of these polities. The traditional structural approach treated Mesopotamian complex societies as homogeneous, highly centralized entities whose urbanized governing institutions defined and controlled virtu- ally every aspect of economic, political, and social life. This largely implicit view derived from the historic Pretistory Press, Monographs in World Archaeolog ‘of Complety. ISBN 1-881094-07-3. The individual author ‘emphases of Near Eastern archaeology and philology. For over a century, archaeologists had concentrated on the excavation of monumental public buildings such as palaces and temples in major urban sites, Similarly, assyriologists tended to view the cuneiform archives of these centralized institutions as complete and representative records of the full range of activi ties, institutions, and interest. groups in Mesopotamian society. A classic example of this traditional perspective is the now discredited model of the Sumerian “temple-state”, which viewed early Mesopotamian society as a theocracy where ail economic and political power rested in the hands of temple priests (Deimel 1931, Falkenstein 1974; for refutations of this model see, e.g., Gelb 1969, Diakonoff 1974, Foster 1981). This urban, elite- oriented focus was perfectly understandable, given the fact that Mesopotamia is the earliest known and best documented ancient urban society However, a recent series of complementary devel: opments in assyriology, archaeology, and anthropological models of complexity have all contributed to the emergence of a fundamentally different analytical framework. Instead of viewing Mesopotamian complex societies as tightly inte- 'No, 18, 1994. Chiefdoms and Early States inthe Near East: The Organizational Dynamics12 Chiefdoms and Early States in the Near East grated, highly centralized polities, researchers have come to focus on the roles of heterogeneity, contin- gency, and competition among different sectors and. interest groups as critical factors whose interaction defined the fabric of Mesopotamian society. The orga- nizational forms of Mesopotamian complex societies emerged through the dynamic interaction of partly competing, partly cooperating groups or institutional spheres at different levels of social inclusiveness (see also Mann 1986-1-33). Reconstructions of these polities ‘combine both archaeological and textual mate- as complementary sources of information. The data from thousands of cuneiform texts recorded on clay tablets or stone monuments have been one of Mesopotamia’s greatest contributions to the archaeological study of complex societies. However, although these documents provide highly detailed information about the administrative work- ings of temples and palaces, they tell us very little about the overall organization of Mesopotamian society. It has been estimated that less than one percent of Mesopotamian society was literate (Larsen 1989). The interpretative value of Mesopotamian, textual material is further limited by the fact that documents reflect only the direct administrative concerns of the organizations or bureaucrats who recorded them. Thus, the absence of a particular group or institution from the written record bears little relation to its standing within Mesopotamian society. "Archaeological fieldwork in Greater Mesopotamia has played a major role as a complementary line of evidence to clarify the social role of these textually under-represented sectors in Mesopotamian society. Broad scale surveys of the south Mesopotamian allu- vium (Adams & Nissen 1972, Wright 1981), southwestern Iran (Johnson 1973, Wright & Johnson. 1975), the Zagros valleys (e-g. Sumner 1990) the north Syrian /North Mesopotamian steppe (Meijer 1986, Weiss 1986, Stein & Wattenmaker 1990), and south- east Anatolia (Ozdogan 1977, Whallon 1979, Wilkinson 1990, Algaze 198%; Algaze et al. 1991) have documented the ways in which patterns of rural orga- nization changed with the development of complex. societies. Assysiologists , too, have begun to recognize the importance of survey to obtain a more representa- tive picture of ancient Mesopotamian society (Brinkman 1984). Excavations and surveys by Hole (1974, 1981) have focused on the role of ancient pastoral nomads in ancient Mesopotamian society. Excavations at seden- tary village sites have produced some of the first hard evidence for rural productive systems in Mesopotamia (Wright 1969), Syria (Schwartz & Curvers 1992, Schwartz, this volume) and southeast Turkey (Voigt & Ellis 1981, Stein 1987, Wattenmaker 1987, Algaze 1990). Concurrently, a series of anthro- pologically-oriented excavations and intrasite analyses of urban centers have done much to docu- ‘ment the spatial patterning of residential, economic, and administrative functions (Pollock 1990; Stone 1990; Algaze et al. 1992, Weiss et al. 1990); neighbor- hood organization (Stone 1987); craft production (Nicholas 1990; Blackman et al. 1993); and the organi- zation of urban food supplies (Zeder 1991). Other analyses of intrasite patterning in the distribution of seals and sealings have had great success in clarifying, the degree to which ancient Near Eastern administra- tive systems controlled the circulation of goods and labor from the fourth millennium onward (Ferioli & Fiandra 1983; Frangipane & Palmieri 1989, Rothman 1988; Rothman & Blackman 1990; Wright et al. 1980, 1989; Zettler 1987). ‘This combination of textual and archaeological analyses has led to the emergence of a more heteroge- neous model of Mesopotamian society, one that eschews a focus on formal institutions, arguing, instead for a concer with mapping the distribution of, more fluid variables such as political, ritual, or economic power (Yoffee 1979; 1993; Edens 1992), productive systems, and administrative practices (Rothman, this volume). This emerging research orientation fits well with recent theoretical develop. ments in both processual and post-processual archaeology. In particular, theoretical frameworks that emphasize culturally specific notions of inten- tionality /agency (see e.g. Hodder 1991), inequality (Paynter 1989, McGuire & Paynter 1991) gender roles (Pollock 1991, Gero and Conkey 1991), the emergence of social forms through competitive negotiation of systems of meaning (Miller and Tilley 1984), and conflicting social strategies (Adams 1978; 1982; Brumfiel 1992; Clark and Blake 1993, Spencer 1987, Wright, this volume) can all provide useful insights into the organizational dynamics of Greater Mesopotamian complex societies. In this more fluid, conflict-based model of society, the archaeological patterning we observe does not reflect a unitary, deliberate social structure, but is instead most accu- rately understood as the cumulative, unintended long-term consequences of short-term, decision- making by multiple, opposing local groups. In other words, the role of stochastic processes needs to be built into our models of both social organization and long-term trajectories of evolutionary change. ‘Once we explicitly recognize the differences between the roles, interests, and strategies of central- ized elite institutions (the palace and temple sectors) on the one hand, and those of textually under-repre- sented groups such as women, urban commoners,craft specialists, village-based farmers, nomads, or the inhabitants of the “peripheral” steppe and mountain areas on the other, it becomes possible to develop far more realistic dynamic models of how Mesopotamian complex societies developed, functioned, and declined. At a more general level, the co-existence of these non-congruent, and often conflicting, social strategies also forces us to rethink the traditional model of state societies as highly centralized, homoge- neous, and monolithic political systems. The Limits of Power in Complex Societies Archaeological models recognize the limits of central power in chiefdoms (see, e.g. Earle 1991, Spencer 1987), but generally have an implicit view of the state as being all powerful. By counterposing chiefdoms and states as discrete categories, archaeolo- gists have tended, perhaps, to overestimate the degree of centralization and power of the latter, To avoid the risk of making these analytical categories seem more real or concrete than they are, it may be useful to model the differences between chiefdoms and states by focusing on a series of continuous variables shared by both, As noted in the first part of this introduction, Blanton and his colleagues have suggested that we think of states as societies whose organization varies along three main axes: a) scale (size or the number of functional units)—“the number of people ineorpo- rated into the society, and/or the size of the area involved” b) complexity—the extent of functional differentiation between social units, and ) integration—the interdependence of units (Blanton et al. 1993:13-18), This three dimensional scale of organizational vari- ation gives us a shared set of variables that can be used to compare different descriptive models of social complexity. Although several researchers have discussed the relationship between population and socio-political organization (e.g. Carneiro 1967), few archaeologists to date have focused on the roles of “scale” or the related issue of boundaries in the orga- nization of chiefdoms or states (for exceptions, see Kowalewski et al. 1983, Feinman, this volume). Analyses of complexity and integration in Old and New World complex societies suggest that there is marked cross-cultural variation in both the adminis- Introduction Part II 13 trative structure and the ideological, economic, or Political strategies used by elite groups as instruments of rule. However, despite this diversity, virtually all ‘complex societies share an inherent tension between the opportunistic, centripetal tendencies of a chiefdom or state as a political institution /govern- mental structure (Wright 1977, Adams 1981:76-77) and the centrifugal tendencies of the other sectors of the broader society (see e.g, Adams 1978, 1982; Yoffee 1979:21), Consequently, instead of viewing states as all-powerful, homogeneous entities, it is probably more accurate to characterize them as organizations operating within a social environment that, for a variety of reasons, they only partially control. This alternative model sees Mesopotamian states as generally operating sub-optimally, unable to attain or maintain their desired levels of power, authority, legitimacy, and control over the wider society around them. When Mesopotamian states pursued maxi- mizing strategies aimed at extracting large, consistent surpluses from the countryside (Adams 1978), these attempts tended to be short-lived, unstable, and vulnerable to collapse from both internal and external stresses. In particular, they often resulted in environ- mental damage that limited the very agricultural potential they wished to enhance (Jacobsen 1982, Stone 1977). As a result, the centralized authorities of these polities would more commonly have been forced to eschew optimizing strategies in favor of what Herbert Simon called “satisficing” strategies (Simon 1959). The state’s “satisficing” strategies would have focused on survival, self-perpetuation, or social reproduction, while attempting to expand or increase its control on an opportunistic basis, when- ever local political circumstances permit it. State institutions faced limits on the exercise of their powers both within the urban centers and in their attempts to extend control over the countryside. Some sectors of society, such as nomads, lay completely outside the purview of the state's core concerns. Other sectors of society may have fallen partially within the boundaries of the state's core concerns, but this does not necessarily mean that governmental institutions were able to control them. Village communities in the hinterlands surrounding, Mesopotamian cities are a good example of this latter group. As just one sector within an unevenly inte- grated social landscape, the Mesopotamian state institutions were often forced to duplicate the activi- ties of other sectors, in order to provide for their own core concerns or survival needs. For example, the palace sector appears to have operated as a large, autonomous household, producing its own crops, animals, and utilitarian craft goods through its control ‘over “attached” specialists (Stein and Blackman 1993),14 Chiefdoms and Early States in the Near East rather than obtaining them through exchange with independent craft specialists or food producing village communities. This duplication of economic activities and institutions reflects poor integration of the different sectors of society. It is essentially a kind of “dual economy” characterized by a high degree of sectorial autonomy. One pole of this dual economy, that of the centralized urban institutions, is prominent in both the textual record and archaeological evidence from large scale public buildings in urban contexts. By contrast, the villagers, nomads, independent craft specialists, and other urban commoners who form the ‘opposite pole of this dual economy are almost invis ible in the cuneiform documents. These latter groups generally emerge only through archaeological research focused on village communities, urban resi dential quarters, craft production, exchange systems, and survey work to elucidate regional economic patterns, ‘Thus we see in Mesopotamian states a high degree of social, political, and economic heterogeneity. The extent and forms of power exercised by the state differ widely by context, and vary in space. We can see this tension between centripetal and centrifugal tenden- cies in the organizational dynamics of Mesopotamian complex societies at several key scales of analysis: relations between groups within an urban center, at the regional level in the relations between centers and their hinterlands, and at the inter-regional level in the interaction between urban societies and distant, rurally based groups. Centripetal Tendencies: Integration and Centralization ‘The temple and state “sectors” were the primary forces of integration and centralization in ancient Mesopotamian society. These centralized institutions attempted to extend administrative, political, and economic control over villages in the surrounding countryside in order to gain access to the surplus labor, agricultural goods, and pastoral products which were critical for the survival and social repro~ duction of Mesopotamian elites. Centripetal integrative strategies of this sort may have been exer- cised by the newly emergent temple institutions of southern Mesopotamia as early as the 'Ubaid period (ca. 5500-3800 BC—see Stein, chapter 3, this volume), and accelerated rapidly with the development of the first Mesopotamian state societies during the succeeding Uruk (ca. 3800-3100 BC) and Early Dynastic (ca. 2900-2350 BC) periods, Thus, for ‘example, Johnson (1987) suggests that Uruk elites at Susa centialized ceramic production as a way to break. the economic autonomy of villages on the Susiana plain, thereby drawing the latter into urban-based exchange networks. Similarly, several researchers have argued that the need to control trade routes and access to critical raw materials or prestige goods was the primary reason for the establishment of Uruk “colonies” in neighboring areas of the Zagros, North Syria, and southeast Anatolia (see e.g, Stitenhagen 1986, Algaze 1989b, Henrickson, this volume). The centralizing strategies of Mesopotamian elites can also be seen through their attempts to control the production and citculation of high value ot high pres tige goods - what Brumfiel and Earle (1987.5) have called “politically charged commodities” whose possession and display were critical to the state's ability to tax, wage war, provision itself, or claim legit- imacy. A variety of textual and archaeological evidence suggests that Mesopotamian elites and centralized institutions therefore went to great lengths to control the attached specialists (Costin 1991) who produced high status or high value commodities - mainly metals (Archi 1982; Nissen 1986, 1988:82-83), textiles Jacobsen 1953; Zaccagnini 1983), and semi- precious stones (Pinnock 1986, 1988; Mariani 1981). Not surprisingly, gold, silver, copper, lapis lazuli and carnelian comprise the key prestige goods in the sixteen “royal tombs” of the Early Dynastic “Royal Cemetery” at Ur (Woolley 1934, Pollock 1983) ‘The centripetal drive of Mesopotamian elites can perhaps be seen most dramatically in the rapid urban growth of the city of Uruk/Warka during the Early Dynastic I period (after 2900 BC). Adams’ survey data from southern Sumer suggest that Warka grew from its earlier size of 100 hectares to 480 hectares through ‘process of “urban implosion” in which all villages ‘within a5 km radius were abandoned and their popu- lations brought inside the city’s newly constructed walls. This appears to have been done to protect the dependent rural workforce from raiding by rival city States, while insuring urban elite access to, and control over, their labor. The Early Dynastic urbanization of Uruk/Warka was thus a deliberate elite strategy of population agglomeration carried out “to increase the economic well being and offensive and defensive Strength of a very small, politically conscious super- stratum” (Adams 1972-743; see also Adams 1981 82-84) Centrifugal Tendencies: Autonomy and Conflict However, the centralizing strategies of elite institu- tions were counterbalanced by opposing strategies of autonomy and resistance in other “sectors” ofMeso potamian society. As noted above, the critical role of these non-governmental social spheres has often been minimized due to their under-representa- tion in the textual record. Thus, for example, the importance of the Mesopotamian rural sector had traditionally been ignored since village land transac- tions were rarely recorded, especially in the third millerinium BC, except for those few occasions when the centralized institutions purchased village hold- ings. By examining the rare textual references to these purchases, assyriologists such as Gelb (1969) and Diakonoff (1974) demonstrated the existence of a large, relatively autonomous rural sector, which coex- isted, but rarely interacted with the palace and temple sectors of early Mesopotamian states. Complementary lines of archaeological evidence fully support this, more balanced picture of center-hinterland relations in the chiefdoms and states of Greater Mesopotamian complex societies. Conflict and competition character- ized Mesopotamian society at virtually every scale of analysis, from urban households up to the level of inter-regional interaction between the urban zones of the alluvium and less urbanized areas such as Syria, Anatolia, the Zogros, and the Persian / Arabian Gull. Within the cities themselves, the state may have controlled the production of prestige goods, but did not or could not monopolize the specialized manu facture of everyday utilitarian goods such as cerami (Stein and Blackman 1993). Similarly, there substantial evidence to support the idea that “private” entrepreneurs engaged in local or inter regional exchange independently of state controlled merchants, even under the highly centralized regime of the Akkadian empire in the later 3rd millennium BC (Adams 1974, Foster 1977, Westenhotz. 1984), In virtually all economic spheres - agriculture, pastoralism, craft production, and exchange - the Mesopotamian state appears to have operated a dual ‘economy which duplicated (at a different scale) the activities taking place in the broader society around it. This duality, autonomy, and general lack of fungi- bility between different spheres of value (Adams 1974) suggests that Mesopotamian complex societies were surprisingly heterogeneous and poorly inte- grated as economic entities. Different groups within Mesopotamian urban society also competed for power and prestige through the manipulation of symbolically important items of material culture. Thus, Pollock (1983) has argued that changing patterns of raw material use and ornament style in the Ur Royal cemetery reflect a process of “competitive emulation” in which lower ranked groups sought to raise their own status by imitating the prestige goods used by higher ranking groups. Introduction Part 15 Competition was fierce among elites as well. Wright's analysis of strategies of control in the chief doms of the late fifth/early fourth millennium BC Susiana plain emphasizes the conflict between the centralizing goals of paramount chiefs and the struc- tural tendencies toward fission and usurpation by nominally subordinate elites (Wright, this volume). Even in later periods, the Akkadian state faced stiff resistance from local elites and temple institutions in its attempts to impose centralized political control over all southern Mesopotamia, The Akkadian king ‘Sargon’s appointment of his daughter Enheduana to be chief priestess at the temple of the moon goddess Nanna in Ur apparently represented an attempt by the palace sector to co-opt and dominate the temple sector of Mesopotamian society (Postgate 1992:41), Autonomy and competition apparently character- ized center-hinterland relations as well. Zeder (1991) argues that even highly centralized urban polities such as Banesh Period Malyan were unable to control the systems of pastoral production in the surrounding countryside; state control was limited to the actual distribution of animal products once they were already within the city, Adams (1978) suggests that southern Mesopotamian cities had only a limited and fluctuating degree of control over the rural sector, and that the instability in this relationship stemmed from the urban and rural sectors following, fundamentally different economic and social strate- gies. In this view, urban centers pursued “maximizing” strategies aimed at generating and mobilizing consistent surpluses to feed large urban populations of non-food producers in the centralized institutions. By contrast, the rural sector followed “resilient” strategies, which sacrificed high produc- tivity levels in return for economic flexibility, autonomy, and the ability to survive in a constantly shifting, unpredictable social and ecological environ- ment, Risk averse, conservative modes of economic decision making would appear to be characteristic of resilient agricultural and herding strategies in the countryside (Adams 1978, Redding 1981, Stein 1987) At the regional level, the tendencies toward compe- tition and conflict were reflected in the pattern of warring city states that formed the basic building blocks of Mesopotamian society on the southern allu vium (Adams 1981:248-252). To judge from literary texts, victory stelae, and other documentary sources, inter-city conflicts arose from a variety of causes, including(but certainly not limited to) disputes over land, labor, access to irrigation water, and trade disputes. This conflict was endemic, and reached its peak in the Early Dynastic period - the heyday of the Sumerian city states. Intervals of unification and inte- gration into larger polities such as the Akkadian, UrIIL, or Old Babylonian states appear to have been short-lived exceptions; Mesopotamian society was “decomposable” (Yoffee 1988:67) in the sense that the system almost invariably reverted to a mosaic of competing, small scale polities. Finally, at the broadest scale of analysis, relations between what some researchers call the “core” area of the southern alluvium and “peripheral” zones such as the Persian/Arabian gulf (see Edens, this volume), Syria (Siirenhagen 1986), Anatolia (Algaze 1989b; Frangipane and Palmieri 1987), and the Zagros (Henrickson, this volume) reflected a basic conflict ‘over access to trade routes and resource zones for crit- ical raw materials. Mesopotamian history from the eighth millennium BC onwards shows repeated efforts, to gain access to or control the resources of its high~ Jand neighbors to the north and east. Depending on the resources and the relative balance of power with the neighboring resource-rich regions, Mesopotamian communities and later polities gained access to these resources through a variety of strategies including private or administered trade (Adams 1974, Larsen 1976, Foster 1977), large scale gift exchanges between, allies (Zaccagnini 1987), raiding or tribute extraction (Jankowska 1969), and outright imperial conquest (Larsen 1979). By the third millennium BC, Kohl (1987) argues that the Near East and adjacent areas formed a series of overlapping “multiple cores” in a variation on Wallerstein’s world system model (Wallerstein 1974), ‘The available evidence suggests that the structure of this interaction changed as the Mesopotamian core region developed increasingly complex forms of socio- political organization (see, e.g. Edens 1992) ‘This sprawling multi-level system was held together in cultural terms by an overarching ideology of “Mesopotamian-ness”, which involved jointly held conceptions of religion, kingship, concepts of social stratification, and probably an urban-centered world view (Adams 1981:248, Oppenheim 1977, Yoffee 1988: 59-63) which was shared to differing degrees by the people of Greater Mesopotamia, depending on their position within this constantly shifting social land- scape. The tension between centrifugal conflict and centripetal tendencies toward integration created in Greater Mesopotamia a dynamic system of parallel, partially overlapping, and often competing social spheres, whose modes of interaction varied widely in time and space. ‘Towards a Dynamic Model of Mesopotamian Complex Societies ‘The authors in this volume examine the organiza- tional dynamics of Mesopotamian complex societies 16 Chiefdoms and Early States in the Near East at several different scales of analysis that effectively crosscut the social matrix of Greater Mesopotamian complex polities: individual households, non-kin institutions such as the palace and temple “sectors”, administrative /urban centers, and larger scale regions, The chapters cover three main phases of socio-political development and in Greater Mesopotamia: a) the earliest development of complex societies or chiefdoms in the fifth-fourth millennia BC, as seen in the related Ubaid, Susa A, and Bakun polities in southern Mesopotamia, Khuzistan, and the Zagros (papers by Berman, Stein, Sumner, and Wright); b) the emergence of urbanism, complex administrative systems and the fourth millennium BC interaction of urbanized state societies with neighboring, less devel- oped regions during the Uruk period (papers by Hole, Henrickson, and Rothman); ¢) the development and functioning of urban-based territorial polities—city states and “empires” in the third and second millennia BC (papers by Wattenmaker, Zeder, and Edens). Schwartz's chapter emphasizes the developmental disjunc- tions between the chiefdoms in early 3rd millennium North Mesopotamia and the contemporaneous, more urbanized city states of the south. ‘The concluding chapter by Feinman discusses the effects of scale and boundaries as key variables struc- turing both the organizational dynamics and developmental trajectories of complex societies. ‘The focus on organizational dynamics has several advantages as a strategy for research into the origins, operation, and developmental trajectories of complex societies in general. By broadening our view to place the chiefdom and state within the broader context of society as a whole, we can develop more realistic models that recognize heterogeneity and competition as endogenous sources of developmental change. Dynamic social tensions of this sort are of particular importance in marginal environments such as that of Mesopotamia, in that relatively minor ecological stresses can trigger large scale social changes due to the inherent instability of the system (see Hole, this volume). Translating a theoretical concem with orga~ nizational dynamics into effective archaeologicalresearch designs requires several shifts in analytical strategies: 1) better integration of both macro (eegional) and micro (intra-site) level perspectives on political and economic organization. This requires that we put into practice our rhetoric of the last decade calling for a combination of rigorous survey, for truly representa- live sampling of horizontal exposures in larger urban centers, and for the excavation of rural settlements. 2) In examining these macro-and micro-levels of ancient complex societies, we need to look much more closely at variation in patterns of production, exchange, and consumption of different goods or forms of value. In doing this, we must remember that the identification of specialized production in the archaeological record is merely the first step. Once identified, we need to map patterns of economic activity to look for “nodes” of power where some forms of value circulate or accumulate, while others do not. Both positive and negative (presence and absence) evidence is important in this regard, because gaps or asymmetries can be as important as localized abundances of different goods or forms of value in identifying these nodes of power. Equally important in this micro/macro- mapping is the need to compare the patterns of circulation for different goods or forms of value, Differential or asymmetric movements of labor, subsistence goods, utilitarian crafts, and luxury items within a regional system can provide some of the best evidence for the unequal distribution of power relationships within a complex society. Introduction Part 47 3) A focus on organizational dynamics requires that we go beyond simply demonstrating that a certain level of administrative complexity existed in the past. The recognition of heterogeneity and competition requires that we trace the limits of centralized admin- istrative power, so that we can identify those contexts, in which it was or was not exercised (see, e.g. Rothman,-this volume; Rothman & Blackman 1990, Sinopoli 1988; Stein 1987). This last concern dictates that, whenever possible, we integrate textual and archaeological material as complementary data sources. However, at the same time we must recognize the circumscribed cognitive, institutional, and ideolog- ical domains of the texts as documents that provide only a partial picture of ancient Mesopotamian society. ‘The shift in focus from static, top-down models of homogeneous centralized states toward a dynamic, bottom-up model of heterogeneous polities provides a much more realistic perspective on social process. The organizational dynamic model’s explicit concern with multiple, overlapping, and partially competing social spheres helps explain the synchronic variability we see in each of the time periods discussed here, while also providing the epistemological basis for delineating internally generated processes of evolutionary change. This framework has considerable potential value for the analysis of complex societies in both Mesopotamia and other parts of the world, References Cited Adams, R. McC. 1972 Patterns of Urbanizati mn in Early Southern Mesopotamia. 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