Bondarenko Dmitri M. Homoarchy

ББК ********
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This study has been supported by the Russian Foundation
for Basic Research (project # 06–06–80459)
Bondarenko Dmitri M.
Homoarchy: A Principle of Culture's Organization. The 13 th – 19 th
Centuries Benin Kingdom As a Non-State Supercomplex Society. – Moscow:
Editorial URSS. – 184 p.
ISBN 5–
Until quite recently, cultural evolution has commonly been regarded as the permanent
teleological move to a greater level of hierarchy, crowned by state formation. However,
recent research, particularly those based upon the principle of heterarchy – “... the relation of
elements to one another when they are unranked or when they possess the potential for being
ranked in a number of different ways” (Crumley 1995: 3) changes the usual picture
dramatically. The opposite of heterarchy, then, would be a condition in society in which
relationships in most contexts are ordered mainly according to one principal hierarchical
relationship. This organizational principle may be called “homoarchy”. Homoarchy and
heterarchy represent the most universal “ideal” principles and basic trajectories of sociocultural
(including political) organization and its transformations. There are no universal
evolutionary stages – band, tribe, chiefdom, state or otherwise – inasmuch as cultures so
characterized could be heterarchical or homoarchical: they could be organized differently,
while having an equal level of overall social complexity. However, alternativity exists not
only between heterarchic and homoarchic cultures but also within each of the respective
types. In particular, the present article attempts at demonstrating that the Benin Kingdom of
the 13 th – 19 th centuries, being an explicitly homoarchic culture not inferior to early states in
the level of complexity, nevertheless was not a state as it lacked administrative specialization
and pronounced priority of the supra-kin ties. The Benin form of socio-political organization
can be called “megacommunity,” and its structure can be depicted as four concentric circles
forming an upset cone: the extended family, community, chiefdom, and megacommunity
(kingdom). Thus, the homoarchic megacommunity turns out an alternative to the homoarchic
by definition (Claessen and Skalnнk 1978b: 640) early state.