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JAMA. 1970;214(5):905.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Carneiro¹ defines a state as "... an autonomous political unit, encompassing many communities within its territory and having a centralized government with the power to collect taxes, draft men for work or war, and decree and enforce laws." He rejects the ideas that the first states, which emerged about 4000 BC, did so on a racial basis, through the "genius" of a people, or as a "historical accident." He also rejects a "voluntaristic" origin in which the invention of agriculture led to a surplus of food, thereby enabling members of communities to devote time to other industries so that political integration followed occupational specialization. Rather, he proposes that the first states arose in prehistoric time as a consequence of force dictated by the ecology of the regions of the states' origins.

Carneiro cites, as a classical example, the development of the Incan Empire in Peru. There, as in other parts . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
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