ABSTRACT
Chiefdoms are intermediate-level societies, providing an evolutionary bridge between acephalous societies and bureaucratic. Service describes the worldwide distribution of chiefdoms. The circum-Caribbean chiefdoms provide case material of extensive interpolity contacts that existed over a broad arena. Work includes historical and archaeological studies. Historic and prehistoric cultures of North America provide a wide range in social complexity that is ideal for studies of chiefdoms. The evolutionary conception of chiefdoms is that they precede and presage the evolution of state societies. Despite the potentially useful historical and archaeological data base on stateless society in Africa, little work has been done on chiefdoms there because of a long-standing avoidance of evolutionary concepts by British social anthropologists. The two materialist perspectives on the evolution of chiefdoms emphasize different driving forces—the managerial theories stress the system-serving functions of the chiefs; the control theories stress the exploitative capabilities of chiefs.
