<P> The most common types are the chairman of a council (usually of "elders") and / or a broader popular assembly in "parliamentary" cultures, the war chief (may be an alternative or additional post in war time), the hereditary chief and the politically dominant medicineman (in "theocratic" cultures). </P> <P> The term is usually distinct from chiefs at still lower levels, such as village headman (geographically defined) or clan chief (an essentially genealogical notion), as the notion "tribal" rather requires an ethno - cultural identity (racial, linguistic, religious etc .) as well as some political (representative, legislative, executive and / or judicial) expression . In certain situations, and especially in a colonial context, the most powerful member of either a confederation or a federation of such tribal, clan or village chiefs would be referred to as a paramount chief . This term has largely fallen out of use, however, and such personages are now often called kings . </P> <P> A woman who holds a chieftaincy in her own right or who derives one from her marriage to a male chief has been referred to alternatively as a chieftainess, a chieftess or, especially in the case of the former, a chief . </P> <P> Anthropologist Elman Service distinguishes two stages of tribal societies: simple societies organized by limited instances of social rank and prestige, and more stratified societies led by chieftains or tribal kings (chiefdoms). Historically, tribal societies represent an intermediate stage between the band society of the Paleolithic stage and civilization with centralized, super-regional government based in cities . Stratified tribal societies led by tribal kings thus flourished from the Neolithic stage into the Iron Age, albeit in competition with civilisations and empires beginning in the Bronze Age . An important source of information for tribal societies of the Iron Age is Greco - Roman ethnography, which describes tribal societies surrounding the urban, imperialist civilisation of the Hellenistic and Roman periods . </P>

Who was the head of a tribe in early african communities