To understand the human predicament in the Anthropocene, it is helpful to investigate the rise, maintenance and fall of social complexity in the past. Tribal communities, early states and large empires have all been confronted with extra-human, inter-human and intra-human dynamic processes. Local and regional biogeography often played a major role (resources, threats), but in combination with technical and organizational skills and sociopolitical and cultural (elite) behaviour. Reconstructions of ancient civilzations (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus, Rome, China and others) suggest the mechanisms and contingencies in societal growth, expansion and decline. One feature is the capability to collect and interpret long-term changes or lack thereof.

The early Middle Ages is often portrayed as a time when families, not political structures, ruled. In contrast, I demonstrate that noble kinship groups and networks were integrated into institutions and ideas of a common political order. Dependence worked both ways. Kings were dependent upon major noble networks and nobles were legitimated by their roles as public actors and public warriors. Towards the end of this period, we also see the growth of a sense of responsibility for the common polity, the realm, even in the absence of kings. The chapter concludes that there was no principled opposition between kinship groups and the polity, between the aristocracy and the king – rather they were mutually dependent. However, since kinship groups were so informal, political institutions were also very informal and elusive. This teaches us that formalization of families was a key to the formalization of political structures.