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rarely considered in general works on social evolution (Blanton et al. 1996:
2; Marcus and Feinman 1998: 8–9), especially in those written by the scholars
thinking within the unilinear typology paradigm.
So, the polis was a heterarchic community-matrix-based complex
society. As well as, for example, the generally analogous to it Roman civitas, it
keeps within the paradigm of evolutionary pathway outlined by Korotayev
(1995c:67–68): indeed,
there are… grounds for doubting the correctness of the
widely accepted essentially unilinear scheme of sociopolitical
evolution “community (local group) – chiefdom –
(complex chiefdom) – early state – mature state”. One of
the possible alternatives [is] “(relatively) simple
community sovereign community with a well-developed
internal political structure civil community (polis)”,
where “civil community” may reach (according to many
indicators of general social evolution) levels of
development comparable with (or even exceeding) those
typical for many chiefdoms and early states…
Thus, Korotayev bases his constructions on contrasting cultures that
followed the pathway of political centralization and authorities’ surmounting
the society to cultures that elaborated further and perfected democratic
communal backgrounds and corresponding institutions of self-government.
Such a classification is no doubt congenial for the present writer who considers
the division of cultures into hierarchical and heterarchical as fundamental one.
However, both the “classic” and Korotayev’s schemes are merely logical
models. Not in every particular historical case at all, not in every culture
throughout its period of existence, any of the respective schemes realizes in full
extend and without intersections with other evolutionary series (see Blanton
1998).
The Benin evidence can make the general picture of socio-political
evolution more versatile. As a matter of fact, the ancient polis – a volunteer
and equal in rights integration (synoecism) of autonomous in their internal
affairs neighbor communities into a supercomplex civil community and the
society of the Benin type are respectively heterarchic and homoarchic
“paraphrases” of each other (Bondarenko 1997c: 13–14, 48–49; 1998d; 2000c).
The differences in the socio-cultural foundations – the community type,
economic backgrounds (plough and hoe agriculture respectively), in the
historical pathways of formation, etc. resulted in crucial differences in the
realization of communal principles in the Greek polis and in Benin.
For example, the polis order is based on private property (including
that on land) while in Benin it was incredible. If in a ripen polis the source of
power and legitimate lawgiver was the people, in Benin those were ancestors in
whose name the heads of socio-political units of different levels spoke and