Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – A new global study of ancient societies is rewriting what we thought we knew about democracy. By examining archaeological and historical evidence from 31 ancient societies across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, researchers have found that forms of shared, inclusive governance were far more widespread than previously assumed.

This suggests that the roots of collective decision-making and power-sharing run deeper and are more diverse than our traditional narratives have acknowledged.

Teotihuacán. Credit: Burkhard Mücke – CC BY-SA 4.0

“People often assume that democratic practices started in Greece and Rome,” said Gary Feinman, the study’s lead author and the MacArthur Curator of Mesoamerican and Central American Anthropology at the Field Museum’s Negaunee Integrative Research Center. “But our research shows that many societies around the world developed ways to limit the power of rulers and give ordinary people a voice.”

Two Key Dimensions Of Governance Examined

In an autocracy, political power is concentrated in the hands of a single individual or a small group. Common examples include absolute monarchies, where a monarch holds unchecked authority, and dictatorships, where one leader or party dominates the state.

In a democracy, by contrast, decision-making power is distributed among the people, typically through mechanisms such as voting, representation, and public participation in governance. While elections are a common feature of democracies, they are not exclusive to them. Some autocratic leaders have come to power through elections that were formally free, even if later developments limited political freedoms or weakened democratic institutions.

A carved stone stela from Copán, a Maya city located in present-day Honduras, features the depiction of a ruler. This imagery reflects Copán’s more autocratic style of governance, in which political power was concentrated in the hands of a single, dominant leader. Credit: Linda Nicholas, Field Museum.

“Elections aren’t exactly the greatest metric for what counts as a democracy, so with this study, we tried to draw on historical examples of human political organization,” says Feinman. “We defined two key dimensions of governance. One of them is the degree to which power is concentrated in just one individual or just one institution. The other is the degree of inclusiveness—how much the bulk of the citizens have access to power and can participate in some aspects of governance.”

Feinman and his colleagues analyzed 40 cases from 31 distinct political entities across Europe, North America, and Asia, spanning several millennia. These societies used a variety of record-keeping systems, and some did not leave written documents at all. As a result, the researchers had to rely on alternative forms of evidence and indirect indicators to reconstruct and infer the nature and structure of governments in these historical settings.

“I think the use of space is very telling,” says Feinman. “When you find urban areas with broad, open spaces, or when you see public buildings that have wide spaces where people can get together and exchange information, those societies tend to be more democratic.”

On the other hand, some architectural and city-planning remnants indicate a society where fewer people concentrated power. “If you see pyramids with a tiny space at the top, or urban plans where all the roads run toward the ruler’s residence, or societies where there’s very little space where people could get together for exchanging information, those are all proxies for more autocratic cases,” says Feinman.

What Can Architecture, Art, And Urban Planning Reveal About Ancient Democracy?

The team reviewed 40 documented cases compiled over generations of archaeological and historical research, then systematically analyzed key features of each society’s architecture, art, and urban planning. For example, artwork that portrays rulers as larger-than-life figures and the presence of monumental royal graves suggest a more autocratic system. In contrast, open public plazas and infrequent depictions of rulers indicate a more distributed, less concentrated form of power.

To quantify these patterns, the study examined buildings, inscriptions, city layouts, administrative structures, and evidence of wealth inequality. Using these data, the researchers assessed how political power was shared or concentrated and identified the main factors shaping different forms of governance. They then developed an “autocracy index” to position each society on a continuum ranging from highly autocratic to strongly collective.

“Among archaeologists, there’s entrenched thought that Athens and Republican Rome were the only two democracies in the ancient world, and that in Asia and the Americas, governance was tyrannical or autocratic,” Feinman says. “In our analysis, we saw societies in other parts of the world that were equally democratic to Athens and Rome.”

“These findings show that both democracy and autocracy were widespread in the ancient world,” observes New York University Professor David Stasavage.

Ancient Lessons For The Modern World

Coauthor Linda Nicholas, Adjunct Curator of Anthropology at the Field Museum, notes that “societies also developed ways for people to share power and facilitate inclusiveness, revealing that democracy has deep and widespread historical roots. I think a lot of people would find that surprising.”

The ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan featured wide open plazas and broad avenues that served as central gathering spaces. These public areas suggest a society where communal life was important and where people may have had more opportunities to participate and express their voices within the social and civic structure. Credit: Linda Nicholas, Field Museum.

The researchers found that neither population size nor the number of political levels could explain whether a society became autocratic. This challenges the long-standing assumption that larger, more complex societies naturally produce strong, centralized rulers. Instead, as Feinman explains, “the strongest factor shaping how much power rulers held was how they financed their authority.”

Societies that relied heavily on revenue sources controlled or monopolized by leaders—such as mines, long-distance trade routes, slave labor, or war plunder—were more likely to develop autocratic systems. By contrast, societies funded primarily through broad-based internal taxes or community labor tended to distribute power more widely and sustain forms of shared governance.

The study also indicates that societies with more inclusive political systems generally exhibited lower levels of economic inequality. According to Feinman, “These findings challenge the idea that autocracy and great inequality are natural or inevitable outcomes of complexity or growth. History shows that people across the world have created inclusive political systems—even under difficult conditions.”

This broader perspective is particularly relevant today, as wealth and power are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small number of individuals. Understanding the key features of autocracy and democracy can help us recognize emerging threats and slow or prevent the rise of new totalitarian regimes.

See also: More Archaeology News

“When you do archaeology, you’re looking for patterns that contain potential lessons for the world today,” says Feinman. “Our findings in this study give us a perspective and guidance that we didn’t have before, and they’re extremely relevant to our lives.”

The study was published in the journal Science Advances

Written by Conny Waters – AncientPages.com Staff Writer