Geography>Food
Production>State Society>Technology>Money Economy>
Food production
> State Society (a society with hierarchies and specialized
functions)
--Leader
or ruler (unlike band, tribe, chiefdom: see Diamond, p. 265 in chapter,
"From Egalitarianism
to Kleptocracy in Guns, Germs, and Steel).
Originally chosen for some reason (strongest, wisest), this function
tends to become inheritable: thus Royalty.
--Soldiers
keep food supplies safe. Soldiers
serve the leader/ruler, protect stored food from neighbors and to distribute
during times of scarcity. Soldiers
are loyal to ruler.
--Priests
take charge of precious food in different ways, to propitiate the gods to
ensure future bountiful harvests, to align the people with the unseen causes
for the mysterious ways of the world: plentiful or scarce rain, good harvests
or bad.
--Artisans
arise to build agricultural tools to enhance food production and food
gathering: better digging sticks,
irrigation, ways to cut and to collect and to transport grains.
Most probably early societies combined food production with hunting.
Inevitably, artisan ingenuity turns not only to needs for better
agricultural tools but to hunting needs.
It is a short step from better weapons for hunting to better weapons
for soldiers.
Specialized work, class structure, stable location: these factors work by a multiplier effect to make the society more stable, more powerful, more located, and more able to absorb the population explosion. Ultimately, though, the population explosion demands that the society seek wider lands, newer lands, perhaps those inhabited by other peoples. One of the main ways a state society does that is through developing and implementing new technology--the consequence of the artisan class.
Geography>Food
Production>State Society>Technology>Money Economy>