The Power of Ritual In Prehistory

The Power of Ritual in Prehistory is the first book in nearly a century to deal with traditional secret societies from a comparative perspective and the first from an archaeological viewpoint. Providing a clear definition as well as the material signatures of ethnographic secret societies Brian Hayden demonstrates how they worked what motivated their organizers and what tactics they used to obtain what they wanted. He shows that far from working for the welfare of their communities traditional secret societies emerged as predatory organizations operated for the benefit of their own members. Moreover and contrary to the prevailing ideas that prehistoric rituals were used to integrate communities Hayden demonstrates how traditional secret societies created divisiveness and inequalities. They were one of the key tools for increasing political control leading to chiefdoms states and world religions. Hayden''s conclusions will be eye-opening not only for archaeologists but also for anthropologists political scientists and scholars of religion.