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In this article, we explore the typological distinction between primary and secondary states. We outline a methodology for exploring variability in the formation and organization of secondary states that integrates aspects of traditional neoevolutionary approaches, Marcus's "dynamic model," Blanton et al.'s "dual-processual model," and world-systems theory. We discuss the development of the Minoan and Mycenaean states of the Bronze Age Aegean and argue that they arose via different mechanisms of secondary state formation, through direct and indirect contact with neighboring societies in the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East, and Egypt. We argue that a model that measures state formation along several different theoretical dimensions encourages archaeological exploration of secondary states along varied historical trajectories, in different (pre)historic contexts.
[Keywords: states, Aegean, Bronze Age, cultural evolution]
IN THIS ARTICLE, we revisit the typological distinction made between primary and secondary states and suggest that although these types have remained poorly defined and inconsistently applied in the discipline, they nevertheless have had a significant influence on the historical direction of research into state formation. This typological distinction has encouraged study of primary state formation at the expense of secondary states, which were far more common and developed in a wider variety of social and environmental contexts. We suggest that it is useful to define states not in simplistic terms as primary or secondary but, instead, along several different spatial, structural, and temporal scales, including their position within panregional trade networks, across organizational lines, and along (pre)historic, developmental trajectories. Such an integrated approach permits similar societies to be compared cross-culturally (see Trigger 2003:15-28 for a discussion of cross-cultural comparative approaches).
Our methodological approach might best be referred to as "processualism plus" (following Hegmon 2003:217). Whereas traditional approaches to the study of states-sometimes glossed as neoevolutionary-have been rejected by some archaeologists (e.g., Smith 2003; Yoffee 2005; see Hamilakis 2002 for the Aegean specifically), we advocate an eclectic approach that draws equally from both old (i.e., processual) and new (i.e., postprocessual) schools of thought (cf. Chapman 2003; Cowgill 2004:527). The methodology we outline integrates aspects of traditional, neoevolutionary approaches that emphasize notions of hierarchy (e.g., Flannery 1995) with Joyce Marcus's (1993, 1998) "dynamic model" of state evolution, world-systems theory (e.g., Kardulias 1999a, 1999b, 2001; Stein 1999), and dual-processual approaches that...