Giorgio Buccellati 1981

“The Perception of Function and the Prehistory of the State in Syro-Mesopotamia,”
in B. D. Dillon and M. A. Boxt (eds.), Archaeology Without Limits. papers in Honor of Clement W. Meighan,
Lancaster: Labyrinthos, pp. 481-492.
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In this paper, G. Buccellati re-defines some peculiar aspects about the so-called ‘Neolithic revolution’ and the ‘urban revolution‘, recognizing how the latter and the state formation are “two Janus-like faces of a single phaenomenon […] in any discussion of early Syro-Mesopotamian history […] an area where anthropologists and humanists, historians, and archaeologists, are more likely to find a common ground” (p. 481).

Under a perspective in which “theory could only be validated if it served as an exegesis of the artifacts” (p. 481), the author presents “some reflections on the double-sided issue of the urban revolution and of state formation, by pointing to a series of factors that help explain the dynamics behind this momentous period in human development” (p. 481).

The first section of the paper deals with perceptual fragmentation, describing the distancing of the human beings from nature after the ‘agricultural revolution’, “from the perspective of how human perception was impacted by the whole process” (p. 482). This fragmentation led to the “development of a meta-perceptual dimension, whereby perception transcends the limits of the perceivable” (p. 483).

The second section describes the perceptual realignment and the role of function of societies becoming much more complex (‘civilized’), because of the increasing of cultural constructs: the human beings had to develop “the ability to coordinate the intricate web of relationships that gradually ensued” (p. 483). During this phase “;meta-perception becomes perception” (p. 485), in a process that resulted in ‘professionalism’ and marked a “<,depersonalization in human interaction” (p. 485).

The third section discusses the self-perception of human being living in cities, “breaking the barrier of face-to-face association” (p. 485), asking “how did the individual perceive the group” (p. 485). At this point, a ‘functionalization of human beings’ began (including the development of slavery), defining the ‘city’ as “a group whose solidarity is based on systemic presuppositions of broadly tensional, territorially contiguous, impersonal human functions” (p. 486).

The fourth section describes the beginning of the state, under a “fragmentation and realignment of the human group” (p. 487); this stage is characterized by the presence (and need) of a determined leadership able to organize all the functional processes.

The fifth section presents the next stage leading to the ‘industrialization‘, in a process of “fragmentation and realignment of production” (p. 488).

The sixth section introduces the development of the first writing systems, as a “fragmentation and realignment of memory” (p. 489).

The seventh section focuses on the basic topic of “the perceptual history of a ‘dead’ civilization” (p. 491), concluding that “if we can learn from the past, it is because the past was alive, and because we have access to the life it lived” (p. 491).