Extract of contents:

Chapter 2 Fragility of Vulnerable Social Institutions in Andean States 9
Tom D. Dillehay & Steven A. Wernke
Vulnerability and the fragile state 12
Mediated political orders: succession and partition 13
The mediated state 19
Conclusions 20
Chapter 3 Why Early Cities Failed: Fragility and Resilience in Bronze Age China 25
Li Min
The first quarter of the second millennium bc: collapse of the great Longshan centres 25
The second quarter of the second millennium bc: the emergence and decline of Erlitou 28
The third quarter of the second millennium bc: the rise and decline of Zhengzhou 33
The fourth quarter of the second millennium bc: the rise and decline of Anyang 35
The first quarter of the first millennium bc: addressing fragility and resilience in the
Zhou political order 38
Conclusion 42
Chapter 4 Fragile Authority in Monumental Time: Political Experimentation in the
Classic Maya Lowlands 47
Patricia A. McAnany
Political experimentation 47
Large ‘anomalous’ aggregations 48
Preclassic Maya lowlands: E-Groups and patron deity shrines 50
Authority and hereditary rulership hybridized: southern lowland Maya experiment 52
Northern ambivalence to monumental time 54
Fragility in its many guises or how political experiments end 56
Final considerations and conclusions 57
Chapter 5 Ancient Egyptian Exceptionalism: Fragility, Flexibility and the Art of Not Collapsing 61
Ellen Morris
Dangers skirted, bullets dodged 61
Politicide, state effects and near death experiences 64
Resiliency 75
An autopsy report on Egypt’s first failed state 76
The case for re-considering the role of a climate hostile to the state 79
Chapter 6 Fragile Cahokian and Chacoan Orders and Infrastructures 89
Timothy R. Pauketat
Cahokian social and material history (ad 950 to 1250) 89
Chacoan social and material history (ad 800s to 1130) 96
Discussion 102




Chapter 7 Diversity, variability, adaptation and ‘fragility’ in the Indus Civilization 109
Cameron A. Petrie
Fragile and/or robust? (Re-)Introducing the Indus Civilization 109
Indus settlements: from village to city (and back?) 110
Diversity, variability and adaptation in the Indus context 116
Mediation of politics and power within Indus settlements: hierarchy, heterarchy
and collective action 119
Mediation of politics and power between Indus settlements: the Indus state debate 121
‘Crisis, what crisis?’; the 4.2 kya event and the Indus 122
Urban ‘stability and fragility’ and rural ‘resilience’ 125
Chapter 8 Fragile States in Sub-Saharan Africa 135
Peter Robertshaw
Three African states 137
State formation 141
Fragile African states 148
Conclusion

Hermione
Director/Moderator - The Hall of Ma'at

Rules and Guidelines

hallofmaatforum@proton.me