Ranked societies are characterized by disparities in personal status
that are often accompanied by the concentration of power and authority
in the hands of a few dominant individuals. They stand between the
sophistication of developed, states and the relative simplicity of most
hunter-gatherer groups and early agriculturalists. In some places and
times they represented relatively brief phases of transition to more
complex forms of organization; in others they existed as stable forms of
adaptation for thousands of years. They are thus of great interest for
archaeologists seeking to understand the dynamics of cultural evolution.