Fissioning, Scalar Stress, and Social Evolution in Early Village Societies

Theories of social evolution have predicted that early permanent population concentrations will frequently be unstable, with fissioning the predominant mechanism for resolving intravillage conflict. It has further been suggested that village fissioning will cease with the emergence of higher-level integrative institutions. These processes have remained archaeologically undocumented. In this article I attempt to identify the village fissioning process in the Formative Period of Bolivia's Titicaca Basin. I conclude that village fissioning took place in the Early Formative, and that it ceased with the emergence of a regional religious tradition in the Middle Formative. These results confirm the utility and applicability of the evolutionary model.