391 Introduction This chapter explores long-term processes in the social organization of tribal societies by ana- lyzing the social transformations that occurred on the Great Hungarian Plain at the end of the Neo- lithic. The chapter begins by outlining a methodol- ogy for identifying and tracking changes in tribal social organization over long periods of time. This methodology then is used to model the changes in social organization that occurred during the tran- sition from the Late Neolithic (ca. 5,000–4,500 BC) to the Early Copper Age (ca. 4,500–4,000 BC) in the Körös River Valley in the eastern half of the Carpathian Basin (Fig. 1). By modeling tribal so- cial organization along two analytical dimensions— integration and interaction—it is possible to iden- tify specific changes in structural organization within cultural trajectories and to compare them within a cross-cultural framework. Although de- signed primarily to deal with prehistoric archaeo- logical contexts where it is difficult to compare temporal periods of several hundred years or less, the methodology developed in this paper also can be employed in ethnohistoric contexts that deal with shorter time frames. The information from prehistoric Hungary suggests that during the Late Neolithic, communi- ties on the Great Hungarian Plain were organized into complexly-structured integrative units that interacted intensively within well-defined, spa- tially discrete geographic areas. This pattern gave way in the Early Copper Age to one dominated by more diffuse, less complexly-structured integra- tive units that interacted less intensively over a much larger area. When the temporal scope of analysis is extended further back and forward in time, a similar process seems to have occurred at least twice—from the Early Neolithic through the Middle Bronze Age—on the Great Hungarian Plain. This process is somewhat reminiscent of the ‘cy- cling’ often associated with chiefdoms (Anderson 18. Integration, Interaction, and Tribal ‘Cycling’: The Transition to the Copper Age on the Great Hungarian Plain William A. Parkinson 1990) and archaic states (Marcus 1993), but in the case of tribal societies it occurs in the absence of any institutionalized central authority and on a much smaller spatial scale. This quality—of soci- eties occasionally to rework their methods of social organization within certain structural bounds—is characteristic of tribal societies, and has been docu- mented not only in other archaeological contexts (e.g., Braun and Plog 1982; Emerson 1999; Fein- man et al. 2000), but in ethnohistoric and ethno- graphic contexts as well (see O’Shea 1989; Parkin- son 1999:85-89). As such, this phenomenon of ‘tribal cycling’ may itself be a criterion useful for distin- guishing tribes from other decentralized, segmen- tary, societies (i.e., ‘bands’), which tend not to ex- hibit such patterning. Since these ‘cycles’ tend to occur gradually—over several generations—they frequently go undocumented in ethnographic and ethnohistoric descriptions of tribal societies, which are of necessity usually too limited in their tempo- ral depth to detect such subtle patterns. Setting the Scene: The Neolithic– Copper Age Transition The transition from the Late Neolithic (ca. 5,000–4,500 BC) to the Early Copper Age (ca. 4,500– 4,000 BC) on the Great Hungarian Plain is marked by dramatic changes in the archaeological record (Fig. 1). These changes in material culture indi- cate that the population of the Great Hungarian Plain underwent a significant social transforma- tion about 4,500 BC. This transformation affected not only intergroup relationships, as indicated by changes in trade networks and settlement organi- zation, but also intragroup relationships, as indi- cated by changes in house form and mortuary cus- toms. Throughout both of the periods in question there is no evidence of institutionalized social rank- ing, nor is there any evidence that the farmers and herders who inhabited the villages across the Plain were impinged upon by more complex social forms,