Archaeologists study the human past through the material remains left by ancient cultures.
This course examines the material record of the many pathways in the development of state societies, beginning with the domestication of plants and animals. As anthropologists we are interested in the processes of cultural change, and the extent to which cultural change follows similar or divergent paths in different regions of the world. There are many complex societies in the world, both past and present. Since states require the production of surplus, and in most archaic states surplus is agricultural surplus, the development of agriculture is part and parcel of understanding the development of complexity. The nature of agricultural systems affects the political economy of every society.