From tribe to tribal state: three case studies

Tribes, chiefdoms and early states have been dened using specic traits by Elman Service and others (see Chapter 1). Most of these traits belong to two “categories”. e rst is the way in which leadership is organized and how it relates to the social group. e second is the social organization of the population: whether it is class or kinship based, and the various forms of segmentation and fusion that dene sections within the group.