The Emergence of Premodern States: New Perspectives on the Development of Complex Societies

Like many other sciences, archaeology is experiencing a data deluge. The recent accumulation of accessible data on early urban societies, coupled with the re-emergence of comparative studies, puts modern scholars in a position to make significant theoretical advances concerning the key episode of human social organization that provided the foundations of the contemporary world: the formation of the state. A complex systems approach—pioneered at the Santa Fe Institute—involves fully interdis...