So what are "Tribal States"?

**Ravenic** · 09-01-2014, 22:48

A tribal state is basically just a 'country' organized around a tribe. For example, the Arverni people are a 'Tribal State'...the Aedui are a 'Tribal State'.

It's just a political grouping of people based on ethnicity, religion, common ancestry, etc. into a loosely centralized body that has control over territory, some sort of military potential, and so on. In EB2 terms it's basically just a different culture, but in real life a Tribal State would theoretically be less centralized and less organized than the Roman Republic or a Hellenic State.

**Brennus** · 09-02-2014, 15:06

The ghost of Morton Fried rides again!

**Tuuvi** · 09-02-2014, 23:09

Originally Posted by Brennus

The ghost of Morton Fried rides again!

So, are you saying my definition of the state is outdated?

**I_damian** · 09-03-2014, 00:07

Are we not all tribal states... deep down?

A bit of 12am philosophy for you there from Damian... the 12am philosopher.

**Brennus** · 09-03-2014, 12:00

Originally Posted by Tuuvi

So, are you saying my definition of the state is outdated?

Not so much outdated, but highly critiqued. The idea that you can classify different human societies into neat categories such as tribes or states, is the result of a school of American and British archaeology from the 1960s-1980s. It was known as New Archaeology or Processual Archaeology, and held that humans operate according to scientific rules and thus when the same rule was applied to two communities they would respond in the same way.

However, since then the idea has been much critiqued and most archaeologists and anthropologists accept that human societies are too varied and different to fit into nice neat categories.

Originally Posted by I_damian

Are we not all tribal states... deep down?

A bit of 12am philosophy for you there from Damian... the 12am philosopher.

Well just look at the UK, two of its members (Scotland and England) take their names from Early Medieval Tribes.

**Friendly Sword** · 09-03-2014, 15:14

Even ancient urban states can trace the earliest structures of their existence to originally pastoral families who had some element of common leadership to help regulate grazing areas and conflicts between them. These groupings formed federative entities that would gradually coalesce into more familiar hierarchical structures in places where the adoption of fixed agricultural systems meant that there was nowhere for the 'losing' families to run.

We are all tribes.