“In most cases, interregna, fragmentation, and ‘dark ages’ were more common than consolidated, effective rule.” Scott argues that early states were unstable they often fell apart and had long periods of collapse. The idea of a strong, stable state is more the exception than the rule.

“Until the past four hundred years, one-third of the globe was still occupied by hunter-gatherers…”<br /> He’s emphasizing that most humans for most of history lived outside of state control. The modern world where everyone lives under a state is extremely new.

“If you were hunter-gatherers or nomads, however numerous, spreading your biodegradable trash thinly across the landscape, you were likely to vanish entirely from the archaeological record.” Scott points out that groups that didn’t leave big ruins like nomads or foragers, get erased from history, not because they weren’t important, but because they didn’t leave permanent traces.

“A great deal of archaeology and history throughout the world is state-sponsored and often amounts to a narcissistic exercise in self-portraiture.” He’s saying archaeology is biased because it mostly studies big monuments and cities built by states. This makes ancient states seem more dominant than they really were.

"Any inquiry into state formation like this one risks, by defini- tion, giving the state a place of privilege greater than it might otherwise merit" Scott is warning that historians often give the state too much importance. He wants to show that for most of human history, people lived without states, and those nonstate societies matter just as much.