ABSTRACT
EXAMINING changes in social structure is a bit like following organized motion. It is prismatic and many-sided. When a whole people moves from autonomy to subordination, from autocracy of a patrimonial sort to a bureaucracy under a monarch, the changes are vast. The real hammer blows in culture are not easily visible. Like the upper part of an iceberg, political groups are the visible parts of a changing social structure otherwise obscure and hidden beneath the waters.
