Emergence of Premodern States : New Perspectives on the Development of Complex Societies

JEREMY A. SABLOFF, an archaeologist, is an External Professor and Past President of the Santa Fe Institute and the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania (1964) and his PhD from Harvard University (1969). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society of Antiquaries, London, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His principal scholarly interests include ancient Maya civilization, the rise of complex societies and cities, the history of archaeology, and the relevance of archaeology in the modern world.

PAULA L. W. SABLOFF, an anthropologist, is an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. She received her B.A. from Vassar College (1967) and her M.A. and PhD from Brandeis University (1971 and 1977 respectively). She has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh while conducting research in Mexico, the United States and Mongolia. A political anthropologist, her research interests have focused on Mexicans' manipulation of government land classification and Mongolians' changing ideas of democracy and capitalism. For the past five years, she has returned to her first love-archaeology-creating a database in order to compare premodern societies. She is writing papers from this database on kings' modes of risk reduction in war and the political agency of royal women.