The dual-processual model in ancient Greece: Applying a post-neoevolutionary model to a data-rich environment

Dissatisfaction with neoevolutionary concepts in social evolution has prompted archeologists to offer new post-neoevolutionary models to investigate social change. One concept, the dual-processual model, is salient among several because it focuses attention onto the central dynamics of exclusionary/networking or corporate strategies for obtaining power. Yet this model remains somewhat uncontextualized, with knowledge of how each strategy would work in a culture hinted at only in large concepts. This lack of contextualization hinders us from achieving the stated goals of the dual-processual model: the introduction of new cultural axes of analysis and the promotion of cross-cultural comparison. I argue here that we need to apply this model to a data-rich environment to elucidate to a greater degree how each of these power strategies operates. Classical cultures, within which post-neoevolutionary models are rarely applied, can supply this needed fine-grained context. In applying the model to the ancient city of Priene, which supplies several well-understood interactional contexts, I discern how we might define exclusionary/networking or corporate within different social contexts, how people use these strategies to gain power, and how these strategies change over time. Information from this application helps us to further the stated goals of its dual-processual proponents.