l. The evolution of chiefdoms Timothy Earle; 2. Chiefdoms, states, and systems of social evolution Kristian Kristiansen; 3. The pattern of change in British prehistory Richard Bradley; 4. Property rights and the evolution of chiefdoms Timothy Earle; 5. Lords of the waste: predation, pastoral production, and the process of stratification among the Eastern Tuaregs Candelario Saenz; 6. Chiefship and competitive involution: the Marquesas Islands of eastern Polynesia Patrick Kirch; 7. Trajectories towards social complexity in the later prehistory of the Mediterranean Antonio Gilman; 8. Chiefdoms to city-states: the Greek experience Yale Ferguson; 9. Contrasting patterns of Mississippian development Vincas Steponaitis; l0. Demography, surplus, and inequality: early political formations in highland Mesoamerica Gary Feinman; 11. Pre-Hispanic chiefdom trajectories in Mesoamerica, Central America, and northern South America Robert Drennan.

The study of chiefdoms has moved from a preoccupation with their formal characteristics to a concern with their dynamics as political institutions. The contributors present eleven case studies examining how ruling elites retain power through control over production and exchange, and then legitimize that control through an elaborate ideology.