3 Applying Modes of Production Analysis to Non-State, or Anarchic, Societies Shifting from Historical Epochs to Seasonal Microscale Bill Angelbeck For some time, modes of production have been a very efective form of analysis for archaeologists. Archaeologists have deployed such analyses, developed by Marx, since the time of V. Gordon Childe. As a theoretical tool, modes of production provide a way for archaeologists to examine ma- terial items in the archaeological record, and to interpret from the patterns of those materials some understandings of sociopolitical relations. Some even extend it further, toward ideology and the hegemonic practices asso- ciated with it. By using modes of production, we can move from this base in material items toward the superstructure, involving the sociopolitical relations that guide and structure how labor is deployed and resources are distributed, as well as a sense of ideologies and symbols that concern such relationships. For such reasons this is a useful theory for archaeologists. We mainly have material remnants, and many of us are more comfortable with keeping interpretations of these artifacts close to the artifact, which is a more scientiic approach, wary of speculation. Yet Marx viewed his method as scientiic as well, just deployed toward human economies and social structures. his body of theory allows for forms of interpretation concern- ing social relations, political organization, and ideology that remain tied to the material record. In this way Marxist archaeologies found a niche that went well beyond processualist positivism toward post-processualist con- cerns, although without abandoning a materialist orientation. Yet the utility for archaeologists working with non-state, or anarchic, societies can be quite generalized, mainly useful for broad temporal scales proof Angelbeck, Bill 2017 Applying Modes of Production Analysis to Non-State, or Anarchic, Societies: Shifting from Historical Epochs to Seasonal Microscale. In Modes of Production and Archaeology, edited by Robert M. Rosenswig and Jerimy J. Cunningham, pp. 52-74. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.