Expansionary Dynamics of Some Early Pristine States

Abstract

Immediately following on endogenous processes of state formation, many pristine civilizations expanded further by placing a variety of isolated core outposts at key junctions of their surrounding periphery. This cross‐cultural phenomenon is documented here in reference to early Mesopotamian (Sumerian), Classic Mesoamerican (Teotihuacan), Mature Harappan, and Predynastic Egyptian civilizations. The commonality in the use of outposts in these otherwise very different civilizations is explained by three interconnected factors shared by many early states. First, the expanding economies of increasingly urbanized early state polities required regularized access to nonlocal resources. Second, for their own political ends elites in less‐advanced surrounding communities would have been amenable to granting such access to early core societies. And, third, transportational constraints common to all premodern societies meant that the most efficient way to channel regular exchanges between distant geographic areas and differentially structured societies was by means of strategically positioned core outposts serving as collection points for peripheral resources and as distribution nodes for core‐manufactured prestige goods.

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