| Abstract: |
The oft-studied social structure of ethnographic Bali features numerous kinds of overlapping function-specific actor groups. Understanding the emergence of this pattern should illuminate other cases where relatively mono-hierarchical "chiefdoms" developed into civilizations with different ideological, martial, managerial, and resource-possession power sources controlled by distinct institutions. Lansing's recent ethnographic and computer work suggests that agro-ecological concerns resulting from terrace placement precipitated the self-organization of a yield-enhancing autonomous "complex adaptive system" of water-temple congregations managing ricefield irrigation. This may have forced co-existing extractive polities to change and narrow legitimacy and finance mechanisms. Efforts are in progress to use landscape analyses and archaeological data to evaluate these ideas and to provide dates.
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