Burying power: New insights into incipient leadership in the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic from an outstanding burial at Ba'ja, southern Jordan.

Autor: Marion Benz, Julia Gresky, Denis Štefanisko, Hala Alarashi, Corina Knipper, Christoph Purschwitz, Joachim Bauer, Hans Georg K Gebel
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
Zdroj: PLoS ONE, Vol 14, Iss 8, p e0221171 (2019)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1932-6203
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0221171
Popis: In 2016, an extraordinary burial of a young adult individual was discovered at the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (LPPNB, 7,500-6,900 BCE) settlement of Ba'ja in southern Jordan. This burial has exceptional grave goods and an elaborate grave construction. It suggests discussing anew reconstructions of early Neolithic social structures. In this article, we will summarize former theories on the emergence of leadership and hierarchies and present a multivariate model according to which anthropological and archaeological data of the burial will be analyzed. In conclusion, we surmise that early Neolithic hierarchization in southern Jordan was based on corporate pathways to power rather than self-interested aggrandizers. However, some aspects of the burial point to regional exchange networks of prestige goods, a trait considered characteristic of network based leadership. In line with anthropological and sociological research, we argue that pathways to power should be considered as relational processes that can be understood only when comparing traits of the outstanding person to her/his social environment.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
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