Doesn´t the exposition below actually prove that at least some ancient civilizations were peaceful, albeit not egalitarian sensu stricto?
Why does ritual authority precede military states? How does early complexity form without kings, armies, or overt violence — and where does that model ultimately break down?
This is a deep and very old question in comparative civilization studies, and you’re circling exactly the right fault-line. I’ll treat it analytically rather than mythically, but I’ll also flag where the mythic layer later crystallizes out of these early structures.
I’ll proceed in five steps:
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Why ritual authority comes first
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How early complexity stabilizes without kings or armies
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What kind of power this actually is
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Why and where the model breaks down
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What this tells us about later religion, kingship, and violence
1. Why ritual authority precedes military states
A. The coordination problem comes before the domination problem
Early complex societies face a basic challenge:
How do you coordinate large numbers of people before permanent coercive institutions exist?
Ritual solves this because it:
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Synchronizes behavior (calendars, festivals)
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Legitimates labor mobilization
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Creates shared meaning
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Reduces transaction costs (trust)
You don’t need soldiers if people:
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Believe participation is cosmically necessary
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Expect collective benefit
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Fear supernatural sanction more than human punishment
Ritual is cheap power: high compliance, low enforcement cost.
B. Early surplus is fragile, not worth conquering
Before intensive agriculture and storage:
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Surpluses are small and perishable
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Populations are thin
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Territory is hard to hold
So warfare yields little payoff.
Ritual aggregation (seasonal building, feasting, monument construction) yields more stability than raiding.
This is why early centers look like:
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Pilgrimage hubs
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Ceremonial capitals
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Ritual landscapes
Not military headquarters.
C. Cosmology precedes administration
Before writing and bureaucracy:
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Cosmological narratives organize time, labor, and obligation
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Sacred calendars regulate planting, harvesting, building
Ritual authority is early administration.
2. How early complexity forms without kings, armies, or overt violence
A. Power is corporate, not personal
In places like:
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Indus Valley
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Norte Chico
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Early Neolithic Near East
Power resides in:
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Councils
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Lineages
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Priest-technicians
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Ritual specialists
Not named rulers.
Authority is:
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Distributed
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Anonymous
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Embedded in practice
This makes it resilient — but opaque to archaeology.
B. Labor is mobilized through obligation, not force
People build monuments because:
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Participation signals belonging
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Absence risks exclusion
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Ritual labor is socially rewarded
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Feasting and redistribution follow
This is soft coercion, but it works.
C. Inequality exists, but is muted
Elites:
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Control scheduling
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Control ritual knowledge
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Control storage and redistribution
But:
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They don’t flaunt wealth
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They don’t monopolize violence
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They present themselves as servants of cosmic order
This is why we see:
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Monumentality without palaces
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Hierarchy without kings
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Power without iconography
3. What kind of power this actually is
It is neither egalitarian nor tyrannical.
Anthropologically, it is:
Hegemonic ritual power
Its features:
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Legitimacy precedes enforcement
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Ideology precedes force
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Symbolic capital outweighs physical coercion
This is why early elites often appear as:
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Priests
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Astronomers
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Calendar keepers
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Architects
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“Civil engineers of the sacred”
4. Where and why this model breaks down
A. Surplus becomes storable and scalable
Once you get:
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Large granaries
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Irrigation agriculture
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Long-term storage
Surplus becomes:
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Worth stealing
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Worth defending
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Worth controlling by force
Ritual alone is no longer enough.
B. Population density increases
As populations grow:
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Interpersonal trust declines
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Disputes increase
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Consensus becomes slow
Violence becomes:
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More efficient than persuasion
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Easier to centralize
C. External competition forces militarization
Once neighbors militarize:
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Non-militarized ritual centers become vulnerable
This is likely what happened in:
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Late Indus phases
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Late Norte Chico phases
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Neolithic Europe
Ritual power must either:
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Arm itself
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Collapse
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Be absorbed by military elites
D. Personal rulers emerge to resolve crisis
Kings arise when:
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Decisions must be fast
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Violence must be organized
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Accountability shifts from cosmic to human
The king is:
A ritual figure with a sword
Early kingship fuses:
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Sacred legitimacy
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Coercive capacity
5. What this tells us about later religion, kingship, and violence
A. Religion did not originate as an ideology of domination
It originated as:
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A coordination technology
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A social integrator
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A meaning system for collective labor
Violence comes later.
B. Kingship is a secondary adaptation
Kings are:
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Crisis managers
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Militarized ritual specialists
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Administrators of surplus and threat
This explains why kings everywhere:
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Claim divine sanction
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Perform rituals
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Build temples before fortresses
C. The breakdown is structural, not moral
Early ritual societies didn’t “fail” ethically.
They were overtaken by:
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Demography
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Ecology
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Competition
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Technological thresholds
Once crossed, power must harden.
6. Final synthesis
Ritual authority precedes military states because early societies need coordination before coercion, legitimacy before enforcement, and meaning before administration; early complexity stabilizes through corporate ritual power, muted hierarchy, and ideological obligation—but once surplus, population density, and external competition cross critical thresholds, ritual authority alone can no longer regulate society, and it either militarizes into kingship or collapses.
If you want to go even deeper next, we could:
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Compare this with Vedic → Mahajanapada transitions
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Look at why some ritual systems resisted militarization longer
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Or connect this to Axial Age critiques of kingship and sacrifice
You’re asking exactly the right structural questions.
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