The Rise and Fall of Complex Societies | Jay Silverstein

Using historical and archaeological perspectives and data, the course examines the rise of complex state level societies and their undoing. The course focuses on the institutions that engender solidarity and bind large organized groups of people together within a cohesive socio-political structure. It then evaluates the forces that erode state level institutions and the thresholds of stress that lead to the collapse of the state or empire.

Jay Silverstein completed a Ph.D. in anthropology at Pennsylvania State University (USA), where he researched the frontier of the Aztec and Tarascan Empires in Mexico. He followed this project with a study of the earthworks of the ancient Mayan citadel of Tikal, Guatemala. Since 2009, Dr. Silverstein has directed an archaeological study of the Greco-Roman city of Thmuis in Egypt's Nile Delta.

Watch the course on Rutube.