This article offers a comprehensive review of concepts, theories, and archaeological evidence concerning socio political complexity, tracing the intellectual shift from classical hierarchical and unilinear models toward recent approaches emphasizing multilinearity, heterarchy, and network theories. Early models by thinkers such as Spencer, Morgan, and Service framed complexity as a universal, linear progression toward centralized, bureaucratic states. More recent critiques have challenged the deterministic and stage bound nature of such models, proposing instead that complexity can also arise through lateral, polycentric arrangements that achieve high degrees of integration, legitimacy, and efficiency without rigid centralization. Drawing on key sources and critical analysis, the study argues that “complexity” is a fluid, multidimensional, and context dependent concept, shaped not only by vertical state structures but also by horizontal, multi nodal networks. The conclusion stresses the value of attending to multiple, non linear pathways in social organization and highlights interdisciplinary frameworks and network analysis methods for recognizing the dynamics of past societies.