Elman Service

¶ … theories presented by Elman Service and Timothy Earle on the evolution of chiefdoms. Both Elman Service and Timothy Earle were anthropologists who wrote about the concept of chiefdoms. Service's work represents some of the pioneering efforts of Western Civilization to formally study and analyze various facects of chiefdoms. Since Earle's work came after Service's, he was able to use the latter's ideas as a starting point for comparisons and contrasts with his own.

As such, there are poignant similarities between the tenets of these two authors as related to chiefdoms, as well as critical dissimilarities. On the whole, it appears that the more modern perspective of Earle is the more convincing. It is important to realize that Service contextualized the development of chiefdoms within the wider process of socialization as it occurs within a civilization. Quite imply, he viewed chiefdom as a stage in social evolution between that of a tribe and a formal state.

Service postulated the fact that chiefdoms stemmed through a sort of regional mutualism, in which there were benefits of the chiefdom for both the leaders and the followers. The benefits for the leader were that he could amass a following under a form of centralized leadership. The benefits for the followers were that the leader could help to provide order and stability for them in way that they were able to obtain their basic resources for life.

The key tenet usually imputed to Service and his idea of chiefdom is that there was a symbiotic relationship between the leader or chief and his followers, which helped to form the basis of the chiefdom. The primary similarity between the aforementioned ideas of Service and those of Earle revolve around the basic notion of the term chiefdom and its definition.

Both authors agreed that chiefdoms arose from situations in which there was a group of people bound by familial ties in which there was a formal or semiformal aristocracy akin to a council of elders. From such a council comes forth a chief to represent the rest of the society as its leader. The critical factor is that chiefs have not necessarily earned their status, yet have had their title as leader ascribed to them.

Despite the similar recognition of both authors of what a chiefdom is and how it relates to non-industrialized societies, Earle's main thoughts on the developments of chiefdoms different from Service's. Whereas Service believed that chiefdoms were based on mutual benefit between leaders and followers, Earle posited the notion that the chief aim of chiefdoms was power. That power, of course, is actualized by the leader. Moreover, such power is represented in the form of economic resources and other resources.

Earle believes that the attainment of these resources is the principle objectives of chiefs which they use to base chiefdoms around. Such resources also include the production of labor and are closely akin to the political clout that leaders have. Earle's theory seems more plausible.