transegalitarian

Rather than attempt to revive these encumbered terms, I prefer to use Clark and Blake's (1989) term “transegalitarian” to refer to societies that are neither egalitarian nor politically stratified (“politically stratified” societies include chiefdoms with relatively fixed classes and a hierarchical settlement pattern).

[1995, Brian Hayden, “Pathways to Power: Principles for Creating Socioeconomic Inequalities”, in T. Douglas Price, Gary M. Feinman, editors, Foundations of Social Inequality (Fundamental Issues in Archaeology), New York, NY: Springer, →DOI, →ISBN, page 18

These characteristics […] match those employed by anthropologists as M. Sahlins to explain the ‘big-man’ concept⁴¹—but see⁴² for a critique. This concept, together with that of ‘aggrandizers’ in transegalitarian societies⁴³ has been used within the context of Late Neolithic and Copper Age Iberia^(44,45).

2023 July 6, Marta Cintas-Peña, Miriam Luciañez-Triviño, Raquel Montero Artús, Andrea Bileck, Patricia Bortel, Fabian Kanz, Katharina Rebay-Salisbury, Leonardo García Sanjuán, “Amelogenin peptide analyses reveal female leadership in Copper Age Iberia (c. 2900–2650 BC)”, in Scientific Reports, volume 13, →DOI, article 9594, page 2