Archaeology of Ancient Civilisations: Searching for the Origins of Civilisations

A set of 10 vocabulary flashcards covering the key concepts, developmental stages, and archaeological terminology from Week 1 of Archaeology of Ancient Civilisations.

Civilisation

A large, city-based (urban) society characterised by marked social inequality and a full-time, specialised workforce, derived from the Latin civis ('to be a citizen').

Savagery

The earliest evolutionary stage in English anthropologist Edward Tylor's 1871 scheme of social evolution, defined by hunting and gathering.

Barbarism

The intermediate stage in Edward Tylor's 1871 scheme of social evolution, defined by simple farming societies.

Bands

Small-scale, usually mobile hunter-gatherer societies of 25–50 people living as extended families, such as the !Kung of southern Africa or Upper Palaeolithic hunters of France.

Tribes

Societies of 500+ people comprising several affiliated kin groups of traditional farmers, governed by a charismatic leader with 'achieved' power that ceases upon that leader's death.

Chiefdoms

Territorially extensive societies of thousands of people in sedentary farming villages, led by a kin-based ruler with 'ascribed' hereditary status who redistributes wealth and holds coercive powers.

Multilinear Cultural Evolution

Julian Steward's 1955 anthropological concept proposing that societies do not automatically follow a predetermined unilinear hierarchy (band to state), but can develop side-by-side or revert to previous organizational forms.

Pa

Fortified agricultural settlements established around 700 years ago on the North Island of New Zealand by Polynesian settlers.

Ha’amonga–a-Maui

A 40-tonne stone trilithon on the island of Tongatapu, constructed under ancient Tonga's complex chiefdom system.

Segmentary Society

A tribal social structure marked by the absence of an overarching central authority figure, where family segments or lineage groups legitimise their position through descent from honourable ancestors.