Anthropologists define chiefs as political representatives of their chiefdoms who exercise their power under an inherited authority. Chiefs and chiefdoms are contemporary political formations in many parts of the world today, and chiefs continue to function formally and informally in relation to political formations of other kinds. Anthropological inquiry classically flows along two channels, one ethnographic and the other archaeological. Archaeological scholars look to excavated and archival evidence of chiefs and chiefdoms for what they reveal of state formation in the past. Some ethnographic scholars of a neoevolutionist bent have looked to similar evidence to establish the parameters of political evolution. This entry details the central claims and controversies associated with neoevolutionist accounts.