Bondarenko Dmitri M. Homoarchy

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heterarchic system of non-localized agnatic descent groups each of which
could produce the village head.
Though it would be completely wrong to argue that, for instance, “the
network strategy” leads to heterarchy while “the corporate strategy” gives rise
to (generally) homoarchic societies or vice versa, and though it is problematic
to dichotomize the strategies to the degree the model creators propose (as, for
example, the African evidence reveals [McIntosh 1999c: 17–19]; see also
criticism on the model in this respect at the very moment of its presentation by
several comment-makers [Cowgill 1996: 53; Demarest 1996: 56; Kolb 1996:
59] 9 ), I believe that the two approaches may be productively complementary
within the general explanatory framework seeking to propose “a suitable
behavioral theory” (Blanton et al. 1996: 1) of the socio-cultural types
variability, particularly as both of them concentrate on the dialectics of the
individual and the group, and centralization and decentralization, and attempt
“… to move beyond a typology approach…” (White 1995: 119; emphasis in
original) which from the 1980s has been more and more opposed to the
strategies approach, with favoring the latter (Montmollin 1989: 2). However,
to my mind, in this case “to move beyond” must mean “to incorporate”, not “to
reject” – I fully agree with one of the dual-processual theory advocates, Paul
Wason (e.g., Wason and Baldia 2000), that “with due caution, a typological
approach is still valid…” (Wason 1995: 25).
Establishing a link between the two approaches, being beyond the
purposes of the present, generally typological, work, 10 is a task for the future.
However, this future does not seem to be very distant but on the contrary, looks
quite observable: recently Richard Pearson (2001) has already made an attempt
to employ both of the approaches – the heterarchy (but of course not
heterarchy–homoarchy) and network–corporate strategies ones for a case
study – that of state formation on the Okinawa islands; Edward van der Vliet
(2005: 142) has pointed out, though contrary to Pearson, without elaboration,
that “… the political system of the [Greek] polis can be characterized as
heterarchical…” while “[t]he formation of the polis… [is] the result of
corporate strategies, and not of the network strategies…” The compatibility of
the heterarchy and dual-processual theories has also been recognized in general
by some students of another area far from those basing on the evidence from
which these theories were created (late-ancient and early-medieval Celts in the
first case and pre-Columbian Mesoamerica in the second) – precolonial Africa
south of the Sahara; for the first time, as to my knowledge, by Susan McIntosh
(1999c: 14–19), although with some important and just reservations, on the one
hand, and without deep elaboration on the point in general, on the other hand.
So, I believe, my optimism is substantiated, at least to some extent.
While a link between the heterarchy–homoarchy concept and the dualprocessual
theory may be usefully established within the social sciences, a link
between the former and the quite recently appeared complexity studies can be