Books by Timothy Earle

In this book Timothy Earle argues that studying chiefdoms is essential to understanding the role of elemental powers in social evolution. He studies chiefs and their power strategies in historically independent prehistoric and traditional societies and shows how chiefs continue to exist as powerful actors within modern states.

Drawing in detail on the cases of chiefdoms in Hawaii, the Andes, and Denmark, Bronze Age Economics documents how intensification of economies, surplus mobilization, and controlled distribution of both staple and prestige goods fundamentally drove the political evolutionary processes that prefigured states.

By studying chiefdoms Timothy Earle addresses fundamental questions concerning the nature of political power and the evolution of sociopolitical complexity.

This integrated collection of new and newly revised essays by archaeologist Timothy Earle represents both a personal journey and a growing synthesis of how political economies emerged in human societi