Who decided which person would be king, thus initiating a dynastic claim?
Were there any peripheral communities, not tightly associated with or controled by a large polity, that might have elected to place themselves under someone they identified as kingly for whatever reason?
These are good questions, Trevor, and I’m probably going to provide more information than you were really looking for, but I’ve been laid up with a cold for a couple of days and am bored, so am probably going to spend too much time on it.
Large polities that could said to qualify as having a “king” were the evolutionary result of the growth of smaller polities that had “Big Men” as leaders. See my citation of Demarest’s explanation of the different levels of social complexity (from my website)
Box 2 Traditional typologies of “level” of political complexity in human societies
Traditionally archaeologists and anthropologists sought to classify ancient or modern societies in order to facilitate comparison and discussion. The most popular traditional typologies have been those proposed by Morton Fried based on the degree of stratification, i.e. social inequality, in societies, and by Elman Service based on the degree of political and economic integration of societies.
Service: integration typology
Bands: small, loosely integrated groups of hunters and gatherers that possess a common territory in which they move nomadically. They have few differences in wealth or status and are characterized by reciprocal economic relations. Integration is through kinship or marriage.
Tribes: Larger societies, often with agricultural and/or pastoral economies, living in permanent (sedentary) locations. Tribes are often multi-settlement societies integrated by theoretical descent groups and voluntary association organizations (for example, warrior clubs, religious cults, fraternal organizations, etc.)
Chiefdoms: Often larger societies in which social integration is facilitated by the existence of prestigious leaders who direct warfare and storage or redistribution of food. Individuals are ranked in their status according to their degree of kinship relationship to the chief. Chiefdoms sometimes have ceremonial centers as the focus of religious activities, redistribution, and social integration.
States: Societies with highly integrated, organized, and centralized leadership with a governing body or rulers. The power of the ruler is backed by coercive force, law, and/or religious sanctions.
Fried: stratification typology
Egalitarian societies: Simple societies with as many positions of status as there are people to fill them. Wealth, status, and power are acquired, not inherited. There are relatively small differences in wealth, and economic relations are reciprocal in nature.
Ranked societies: Societies in which there are fewer positions of status than individuals to fill them. In some cases there are a fixed number of offices, but the competition to fill them is not entirely hereditary.
Economic differences are somewhat restricted by expectations of redistribution by the societies’ leaders.
Stratified societies: Societies in which positions of status are fixed and largely hereditary. A class structure and coercive force maintain these differences.
[The state]: A special function institution of some stratified societies that legitimizes stratification through governing bodies, laws, and police structures to maintain internal order and control class conflict.
Current debate on evolutionary typologies
More recent discussion in archaeology has been highly critical of such universally applied typologies, since they ignore many characteristics, mask internal variability in societies, and, arguably, impose an ethnocentric, evolutionary scheme. Others argue that these designations are useful in practice, if only as loose, broad, comparative designations.
Alternative approaches include multivariate assessments of societies based on many different variables, including degree of inequality, heterogeneity, centralization, and other traits. Many contemporary “postprocessual” theorists reject linear evolutionary typologies of any kind as stereotyping and potentially racist generalizations that pigeonhole societies into a Western materialist presumed hierarchy of development.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?), in the case of the rise of Maya civilization, such typological, terminological, and epistemological debates seldom arise; the data on the early development of lowland Maya civilization is currently so poor that it virtually defies synthesis and interpretation. The earliest Preclassic societies in the Maya lowlands are identified primarily by ceramic deposits. The first sites with public architecture (eg Nakbe and Cerros) were left by societies that were already at a fairly high level of complexity (however that might be designated). Here terms such as bands, chiefdoms, or states are used as only very broad, convenient descriptive terms.
I highlighted what I think is the most pertinent information for this discussion. From the description of social complexity given within the bulk of the Book of Mormon commentary, these polities would have been at a state level. This is important to understand because this means the Book of Mormon polities would have been among the most large and powerful of the time period, not some minor polity that existed and faded away without impacting the larger culture (which LGT requires).
Of course, at Nephi’s arrival, we would not be discussing a state. Initially, when he took “all who would go with him”, he would have been talking about a very small group of people, and who knows what they would have meant by electing him their “king”. Such a small group would have not had any social discrepancies nor the population that would require social organization. I would be forced to assume they’re just choosing him as their shaman. Of course it is quite possible that some small group that wasn’t attached to any larger polity would choose their own shaman based on their own impression of his spiritual power. This is somewhat counter to the basic organization of ancient Mesoamerica, however, as by this point the social organization seemed to be a powerful religious center that had smaller, satellite polities that were under its purview, although they may have had their own minor leaders. However, I’m sure it wasn’t impossible that some small polity in the middle of nowhere could have been unattached. So at initial point we’re just talking about the illogic of a group of people, even unattached to a larger polity, would not only accept but embrace the group of Judeo-Christians and determine that the Judeo-Christian leader would be an appropriate shaman for them without a conversionary experience to Judeo-Christianity (as well as the miraculous “gift of tongues” that would enable them to communicate). Not only is this extraordinarily unlikely in the first place, but the idea that such a miraculous conversion could have taken place
without mention in the Book of Mormon text is even more unlikely. The authors of the Book of Mormon explicitly state that their purpose is to convert people to Jesus, and they wouldn’t mention this most miraculous conversion??? Riiiight.
Now, the second point at which Nephi was made king was more problematic. Because of the description of socially inequities listed by Jacob, they had to be attaching themselves to a pre-existing polity. This is why Sorenson suggests Kaminaljuyu. At this point in ancient Mesoamerican history, with our current knowledge base, not many polities in Mesoamerica were this complex, either, hence the necessity of choosing a precocious, powerful polity. A very small group of unattached individuals such as could possible occur at meeting point one would not experience the social discrepancies described for a very, very, very long time, (many hundreds of years) unless they joined with another pre-existing, more complex and advanced polity. As I already mentioned, Kaminaljuyu already had built an irrigation system. From my website:
From Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World by Lynn Foster, page 307:
By 700 B.C.E., Kaminaljuyu had constructed an irrigation canal fed by a nearby lake. In the rainier tropical lowlands, however, massive irrigation systems were not usually necessary, although arid northern Yucatan could have used them, if only they had had the water to do so. Small-scale systems of ditches and drains have been identified at many sites in the southern lowlands; canals sometimes encircled sacred centers such as that at Cerros, serving perhaps both agricultural and defensive purposes.
From the same text:
Kaminaljuyu
One of the most powerful Preclassic cities, Kaminaljuyu occupied the highland valley now occupied by Guatemala City. Situated only 20 kilometers (12 miles) from one of the most important obsidian sources in the Maya region, Kaminaljuyu grew from a small Middle Preclassic Period settlement into the dominant city in the southern region during the Late Preclassic. Its construction included extensive canals and earthen pyramids; its rulers were buried in some of the wealthiest tombs then known; and its art included many stelae in the Izapan style. At the beginning of the Early Classic Period, the city contracted and was depopulated until the central Mexican city of Teotihuacan probably conquered it in the fourth century C.E. and used it as a base for its trade operations in the region. The city was occupied into the Postclassic Period, but after the Early Classic period, it never rose again to be a major power. It was abandoned by the time of the Spanish Conquest. (p 109)
New centers emerged in the central Guatemala highlands at this period (middle preclassic), probably because the flat plateaus became more habitable due to diminishing volcanic activity. All these new settlements were well situated for trade. Kaminaljuyu in the Valley of Guatemala, for example, could control nearby obsidian sources, but it was also in an enviable position to command trade between the Caribbean and the Pacific coast through the river routes in the Motagua Valley, and through the highland pass down to the Pacific. Cacao, obsidian, and jade were part of the valuable trade that would expand in the Late Preclassic, making Kaminaljuyu flourish into one of the most important cities of that period. By 700 B.C.E., Kaminaljuyu already had constructed a major irrigation canal, and by 500 B.C.E., it began carving freestanding stone slabs called stelae. (page 30)
Kaminaljuyu grew from a small center in the Valley of Guatemala in 500 B.C.E. to a capital city dominating the terminal Preclassic period. Although the sprawl of modern Guatemala City has destroyed much of the ancient site and made a careful reconstruction of its development impossible, Kaminaljuyu in its final phase (Early Classic) was a city of more than 200 earthen and adobe-plastered mounds in contrast to approximately 80 at Izapa. The majority of the mounds dated to the Late Preclassic period. Some were 20 meters (66 feet) high and once supported adobe or wooden temples with thatched roofs. One massive structure, judging from the rich tombs it contained, must have been an ancestor shrine dedicated to deceased rulers. An artificial canal, built c. 400 B.C.E. to replace one from the Middle Preclassic Period, fed a vast irrigation system. Great platforms with temples and what may have been a palace courtyard complex were constructed; stelae, some almost 2 meters (6 feet) tall, were carved in low relief, with hieroglyphic inscriptions.
Kaminaljuyu was more powerful and wealthier than any other city in the southern region during this period. Kaminaljuyu influences can be seen at other highland sites and from the Salama Valley to El Baul and Chalchuapa. Although population estimates for Kaminaljuyu cannot be made because of the destruction of the site, tens of thousands of laborers, probably drawn from all over the valley, were necessary to construct and maintain the city.
Many archaeologists believe that the centralized power required to organize such public works would have been beyond that of a mere chiefdom. And the stelae cult probably served to glorify the rulers of such an incipient state. One tomb – Bural C in Structure E-III-3 – is the richest yet discovered anywhere in the Maya realm for the Late Preclassic Period. Its more than 300 artifacts – jade, obsidian, quartz crystals, entire sheets of mica, stingray spines (known to be used by Maya royalty for autosacrifice), fish teeth, and, of course, ceramics including Usultan-ware – certainly suggest that its occupant, accompanied by four sacrificed individuals, was a Kaminaljuyu king. The burial contents also demonstrate the extensive trade and wealth of this strategically located city. (page 38)
In response to your question, yes, for the first meeting period, it is possible that a small group could be unattached to another polity and choose their own shaman. I do not think it is possible, however, that this small group would have been
theologically unattached. The religious Mesoamerican worldview was pervasive and powerful, and had been in place for well over a thousand years. It was a very “successful” theology in terms of its influence. So this small group would have likely adhered to the religious theology of Mesoamerica, so would have had to have a religious conversion to Judeo-Christianity to elect Nephi as their shaman. (as well as the gift of miraculous communication across language boundaries)
But it is
not possible for the second meeting (ie, the founding of the City of Nephi). The second meeting, due to the social discrepancies described, had to entail joining with a pre-existing, rather powerful and complex polity. This would have been an already established polity with an already established lineage, based on the long-term evolution of a shaman into a Big Man, into a king. The idea that an already successful, established polity would suddenly convert to Judeo-Christianity and elect Nephi as king defies logic. Of course, as I stated earlier, it would be a miracle. Scriptures contain miracles, but they make quite a fuss over them. I think it is logically impossible for such a miraculous conversion to take place and for Nephi to not mention it. It would have been celebrated and even exaggerated in order to emphasize the power of the gospel, not totally ignored.
Aside from that, if a powerful, advanced polity really embraced Judeo-Christianity, then we would see the influence of Judeo-Christianity in ancient Mesoamerica. The most powerful polities had a heavy influence on the rest of the region. A powerful Judeo-Christian polity would have exerted a detectable influence on the cultural evolution of ancient Mesoamerica. This, in my opinion, is the most serious problem facing Book of Mormon apologists. LGT not only requires a limited geography, it also requires a limited influence. To justify that lack of any trace of Judeo-Christian theology in the evolution of ancient Mesoamerica, apologists must assume the stance that Book of Mormon polities were minor and not influential. However, this contradicts the social complexity described in the Book of Mormon. Polities described in the Book of Mormon had to be precociously developed in terms of social complexity and organization, given what we know about ancient Mesoamerica in general. Any polity as powerful and complex of those described in the Book of Mormon would have spearheaded the social and cultural evolution of the entire region. This is the conundrum I describe at length here:
http://mormonmesoamerica.com/holylord.htmIf my verbosity cloaked my actual response to your question, let me know and I’ll clarify.