Middle Sabaean Cultural-Political Area

Korotayev, Andrey

doi:10.2143/anes.31.0.525734

Cited by 1 publication

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“…Such 'lateral' variants include, for example, highly developed tribal confederations (such as the Iroquois), super-complex caste-clan systems, as well as various developed tribal forms of some nomadic and agricultural mountain peoples (especially in the Near and Middle East and North Africa). Such polities were often 'lateral' (alternative or analogous) forms of relatively complex chiefdoms and early states and existed in their niches for quite a long time, completely replacing the state structures which eventually substituted them (for more details, see Korotayev 1993Korotayev , 1994Korotayev , 1995Korotayev , 1996Korotayev , 2000aKorotayev , 2000bKorotayev , 2003aKorotayev , 2003bKorotayev , 2006Korotayev , 2020aKorotayev , 2021Korotayev, Kradin et al 2000;Grinin 2003cGrinin , 20042012;Grinin, Korotayev 2009b, 2011Carneiro, Grinin, Korotayev 2017).…”

Section: Unilinear Approach and Its Errorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Evolution: Theoretical Aspects and General Outlines

Grinin,

Korotayev

2023

SEH

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The present article is devoted to social evolution both as a part of macroevolution and as a specific process that have led humanity to outstanding successes and heights (while creating in the meantime serious crises and major problems). The article examines important theoretical aspects of social evolution within the framework of a more general approach, which we call evolutionary studies. The authors give a definition of social evolution, examine its most important mechanisms, compare it with biological evolution, introduce the concept of social aromorphosis, and analyse the concept of unilinear and multilinear evolution. We show that only by considering the evolution as multilinear one can identify the major trends and patterns of social evolution and evolution in general. The authors view social evolution both as changes in a relatively local and not so long-term perspective and as a larger process that we call social macroevolution. In our understanding, social macroevolution is a special dimension of social evolution that encompasses a series of the most important and milestone transformations that have led to the emergence and development of the World System (and, accordingly, a theory that focuses on their analysis). The genesis of the World System and a number of its further changes are the key elements of the social macro-evolutionary process. Moreover, the emergence of the World System was not only the most important result of the entire previous course of social evolution, but also became, in a certain sense, the threshold beyond which it is absolutely necessary to distinguish social macroevolution as a special supra-social part of social evolution (i.e., the part that no longer relates to the level of only individual society). The main trends of macroevolution, such as the irreversibility of evolution, its particular direction, variability, are expressed both in the systemic features and in the transformations of the World System. The article was prepared as a part of the research work of the state task of the RANEPA.

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