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political integration” is also taken into account (Murdock and Wilson 1972: 256). On universality
and the fundamental role of the community from the earliest phases of human social history see,
e.g., Murdock and Wilson 1972; Artemova 1983; Kabo 1986; Butinov 2000: 75–93. On the
discussion on the point, particularly in the British functionalist and structuralist anthropology and in
the Soviet ethnography see, e.g., Bromley 1981: 181–185; Nikishenkov 1986: 133–139; Girenko
2000; Reshetov 2000. In my view, the emphasis on the fact that “autonomous communities” have
never been truly autonomous but initially formed parts of wider systems of intercommunity
interaction recently made by Stephen Kowalewski (2003), does not disregard the concept of
community in general though may profitably shift researchers’ attention from studying it “as such”
to doing it in a much more historical context, in light of its place in a broader cultural milieu. In
fact, this discussion is an “echo” of the furious debate which is in full swing in present-day
archaeology: between the adherents of the approaches which can be labeled as world-system
(“regional-interaction-based”) and particularistic (“local-community-oriented”) ones (vide stricto
Kristiansen 1998 vs. Harding 2000; see also, e.g., Blanton and Feinman 1984; Peregrine 1992;
Peregrine and Feinman 1996; Algaze 1993; Kradin 2002b). My belief is that these approaches do
not contradict but rather compliment each other (compare with the debate between the worldsystem
and civilization approaches adherents and its estimation by the present author: Bondarenko
and Korotayev 2000d; Bondarenko 2003b; 2005e: 51–57; 2005f; Bondarenko et al. 2003) and
hence, as has just been argued, the concept of community still remains valid.
4 However, Crumley does see power relations (heterarchic and otherwise) not as “a thing
in itself” but in their interaction with, and dependence on the social, mental (value system), and
ecological milieu, and legitimately builds her concept on these foundations.
5 In the meantime, I leave apart the problems I feel with Carneiro’s specific interpretation
concentrated in such “minor linguistic peculiarities” as that I would prefer to speak in the nonunilinear
vein about “processes”, not “the process” and about “types” as not synonymous with
“stages.”
6 As Elizabeth Brumfiel wrote only a dozen years ago (1995: 130), “The coupling of
differentiation and hierarchy is so firm in our minds that it takes tremendous intellectual effort to
even imagine what differentiation without hierarchy could be”. Usually if the very fact of complex
heterarchical societies’ existence is recognized (as for example, within the wholoculturalist
framework), it is considered as an historical accident, anomaly; such cultures are declared incapable
to achieve high levels of complexity and internal stability (Tuden and Marshall 1972: 454–456).
7 Remarkably, in the theory of biological evolution the transition from a more to less
hierarchical structure without diminishing of organisms’ adaptivity to the environment is not
regarded as a sign of degradation or regress (see, e.g., Severtsov 1949; 1967; Futuyma 1997).
8 The Tasmanians “… separated from the Aborigines of Australia in an early period of
their history and then were developing in isolation for a long time” (Kabo 1986: 34), actually, for
8,000 or 9,000 years (Clark, G. and Piggott 1970: 99), so they may legally be regarded as an
independent case, at least in general outline. In the respect we are interested in, this is clearly
testified by the fact that the Australians’ and Tasmanians’ overall social non-egalitarianism was
based on different backgrounds: religious-ideological (Artemova 1993: 46–54; 2000a: 56–62;