Heterarchy and the Creation of Nomadic States in Mongolia: The Bioarchaeological Evidence from the Xianbei Period (AD 93–234)

Abstract

Human behavior and human societies are always complex, arguably the most complex social arrangements of any known species, and organized in an infinite number of ways. This organization often relies on cooperation, a form of human interaction that is deeply rooted and at times more useful than working individually (Coelho and McClure 2016; Mead 1937). Mead (1937, 8) defines cooperation as "the act of working together to one end," and cooperative relationships have been at the center of many ethnographic accounts of small-scale communities as well as nation-building attempts (Anderson 1983). Despite this obvious reliance on cooperation, scholars have often ignored cooperation when thinking about large groups in the past. Traditionally, anthropologists and archaeologists have focused on ranked or hierarchical systems of organization built on competitive relationships, imagining a vertical distribution of power, building from small egalitarian bands through vertically arranged states (Service 1962). This focus on hierarchy and a linear progression of social organizations diminishes the diversity of human societies, essentializes human groups in limited stereotypes, and relies on patriarchal and colonial classifications (Appadurai 1988; Henry, Angelbeck, and Rizvi 2017). The flaws in Service's descriptions of power organizations are numerous and apparent, yet this model of power persists. In 1979, Crumley introduced the idea to archaeology that organizational systems can take forms other than control hierarchies, instead suggesting that heterarchy is just as common and works in flux with hierarchy. Heterarchy is