Land-bonded society

Land-Bonded Societies are acephalous societies that fall in between lineage-bonded societies and village-bonded societies.

Land-bonded societies are strictly agrarian, excluding inherently nomadic pastoralists from society. They form from the fragments of lineage-bonded societies that merge, and their only claim to social ties is the land they occupy.

While definitively larger than lineage-bonded societies, land-bonded societies share many of the same traits, including the inability to support age-grade sets and secret societies.

As land-bonded societies grow larger, they can change into Village-bonded societies, which are able to simultaneously support age sets and secret societies, and enable them to transition to statehood.

(Based on material presented by Joseph C. Dorsey at Purdue University)