Diverging Paths: Settlement Strategies and Conflict during the Early Bronze Age in the Southeastern Quadrant of Iberia (original) (raw)
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Against the backdrop of earlier descriptions of prehistoric social structures, this article will discuss the methods available for the analysis of archaeological evidence and the limits on interpretation, particularly with regard to the term ‘state’, using examples from the Bronze Age in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, mainly in the El Argar region. The focus is on the identifi cation of meaningful parameters, basic resources and the range of target-oriented interpretative approaches.
This paper starts from the conviction that it is not only important to study long-term processes of change in a particular area, but to analyse the extent to which other areas have been implicated and affected by the processes occurring in it. The study of the emergence, maintenance and even disappearance of social complexity in the Iberian Peninsula during the Copper and Bronze Age has lacked such an approach. As a result, on the one hand it seemed that Southeast Spain and Portuguese Estremadura, the two areas where it was argued complexity first appeared, were isolated from each other and from the rest of the Peninsula during the Chalcolithic, and on the other, changes in the geographical distribution of complex societies in the Bronze Age had not been explained. This article reassesses these arguments and aims to show that it was not only intrinsical factors which provoked the social changes which took place in the various areas during the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. Extrinsic factors were on occasion as if not more important. In addition, new data published in recent years has been used to give a broader picture of the expansion of complex societies in the Iberian Peninsula.
The Northwest Iberian Peninsula is not a uniform region. Geographers have divided it into two main biogeographic sub-regions: Atlantic and Mediterranean, each with its own characteristics, in terms of geomorphology and climate. The perception that these two sub-regions have distinct identities since, at least, the first half of the 3rd millennium BCE, i.e. since the Chalcolithic period, has led us to analyse separately developments in the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BCE, which is viewed as a key period for understanding the emergence of the Bronze Age. During the Early Bronze Age new settlement strategies emerged in the Atlantic sub-region, associated with the appearance of innovative pottery shapes and decorations, resettlement of high-altitude areas for burial in small cairns, circulation of new prestigious metallic icons, the emergence of new styles of rock art, such as engravings of dozens of halberds, the emergence of the phenomenon of structured depositions of metallic objects, such as the deposits of halberds, or halberds and daggers, and, consequently, new social relationships, new power structures and new places for negotiating social relations, which revealed significant structural changes compared to Chalcolithic communities. In the Mediterranean sub-region, despite new locations for certain settlements, changes seem to have occurred across a broader timeframe, including the abandonment of several community and ceremonial spaces-such as walled enclosures or shelters with collective depositions-, the emergence of metallic deposits, consisting of halberds, and the timid adoption of new iconographies in rock art. These are characterised by phenomena of continuity or social resistance, and reveal that, in this region, social changes and new scenarios of power or social aggregation occurred in a manner that differed from the Atlantic sub-region. On the basis of the analysed data it seems possible to hypothesise that, during the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BCE, together with the phenomena of social resistance and permeability to new developments, the Northwest Iberian Peninsula was subjected to multiple and distinct influences that spawned the development of a mosaic of societies, apparently united and standardised by generalised phenomena. The factors that contributed to this change were multiple and distinct in each of the two sub-regions. This includes important external factors, such as the climate conditions in the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE and events that occurred during the second half of this millennium, that had distinct repercussions on the two sub-regions; greater or lesser permeability to Atlantic contacts; 'dismantling' of supra-regional exchange networks with southern regions, as a result of social upheavals in the Southern Mediterranean. In terms of internal factors, it is worth highlighting the capacity for resilience and adaptation to changes. Phenomena such as the migration of populations of Pontic-Caspian origin during the second half of the 3rd millennium BCE, revealed by DNA studies of human remains from the South, Southeast, and Southwest Iberian Peninsula, are not proven for this region, and therefore will not be taken into account. Keywords: Northwest Iberian Peninsula, sub-regions, transition from the 3rd to the 2nd millennium BCE, continuity or change?
In Brais X. Currás and Inés Sastre (Ed.), Alternative Iron Ages. Social theory from archaeological analysis (pp. 151-175). Abingdon, Oxon (UK) and New York (USA): Routledge., 2019
The interpretation of the archaeological record of the Later Prehistory in the NW Iberian Peninsula in terms of social and political complexity has witnessed a significant leap in the recent years. As in many other parts of Western Europe, two particular topics have been at the centre of the discussion: the relevance of the notions of social resistance and resilience and the incorporation of a finer grained view about the different historical trajectories within the region. As is common in archaeological research, the incorporation and/or critical review of the empirical evidence quite often forces us to reconsider the existing ideas, and this case is no exception. In the recent years, the hypothesis that the transition between the Late Bronze Age - Early Iron Age in this region can be interpreted in terms of a reaction against trends towards social division has gained a widespread popularity. At the same time, the archaeological record documented has increased exponentially, being contract archaeology a major responsible for that. This paper explores to what extent the results of these new forms of archaeological fieldwork are challenging our assumed knowledge. Our aim is to discuss and further refine the initial hypothesis, which will also help to get some insights into the subsequent trajectories of human communities in this region.
MA Thesis, December 2020 This study combines long-term settlement data with short-term excavation data to explore the conditions that led late prehistoric communities in Iberia’s southwest to aggregate during the Late Bronze Age [LBA]. This long-term approach involves the application of geographic information systems [GIS] to identify settlement patterns in the Central Alentejo from the Late Neolithic [LN]/Chalcolithic to the Late Bronze Age (ca. 3500 – 800 BCE). In the Serra d’Ossa microregion of the southwest there are 176 sites that date to the Neolithic/Chalcolithic, only two that date to the EBA/MBA, and 27 that date to the LBA. This shift is directly related to the Chalcolithic “collapse” that occurred in the mid/late third millennium BCE, influenced by both sociocultural and environmental factors. The LBA of the southwest has long been defined by the emergence of a new culture associated with a concern for defensiveness and warriorship, represented on stone stelae by warrior iconography, and by the emergence of large-fortified upland sites that appear during this period. A distinct lack of small-scale settlement data has previously led to insufficient interpretations and characterizations of the period. In turn, this thesis incorporates short-term data from excavation at the large-fortified upland site of Castelo Velho da Serra d’Ossa, the one excavated example of such a site in the Serra d’Ossa microregion and one of the few excavated LBA sites in the wider southwest. The short-term excavation data are discussed in the context of the long-term settlement patterns to better characterize the LBA of the Iberian southwest, a period previously underrepresented in the region. The central focus of study is to investigate the emergence of these settlements (up to 15 ha in size) and the communities that inhabited them; considering the processes underpinning place-making and aggregation both locally and within its broader prehistoric context. Please follow this link to an Open-Access copy of the thesis: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/26709
Transition and conflict at the end of the 3rd millennium BC in south Iberia
The time around 22oo BC was marked in the Iberian Peninsula, and particularly in its southern regions, by profound social, political, and ideological changes. A substantial number of 14C dates confirms that most, if not all, of the Chalcolithic fortified settlements, as well as the Late Neolithic–Chalcolithic monumental ditched enclosures, had been abandoned by that time. Also, an charged production of often highly symbolically axes made of exotic rocks, flint, ivory, and decorated schist plaques, Bell Beaker pottery, etc., and the exchange network through which these were circulated, must have collapsed rather abruptly or been reorganised at a much more local scale. In the funerary sphere, the end of the Chalcolithic is expressed by the abandonment of a collective burial rite. Bayesian analysis of the absolute dates highlights the fact that the transition from the final Chalcolithic to the earliest El Argar period was a matter of a few years, rather than several decades, in south-east Iberia. New results from a set of early El Argar settlement layers are helping to define, for the first time, the social and economic structures that emerged during the 22nd century BC at the north-eastern margins of the former »Los Millares« core region. The recent discovery of a monumental fortification system at La Bastida, structurally unrelated to any Chalcolithic construction, opens new questions on the political dimension of the beginning of El Argar. The detailed study of these early El Argar settlements and their corresponding burials provides a better understanding of the social and political processes responsible for the changes around 22oo BC in the Iberian Peninsula.
The end of Iron Age societies in northwestern Iberia
Historical Ecologies, Heterarchies and Transtemporal Landscapes, 2019
In light of new thinking about Iron Age societies, the authors propose an analysis of the political and territorial characteristics of Northwestern Iberian societies at the end of the Iron Age and the beginning of Roman dominion (2 nd and 1 st centuries BC). This essay documents the emergence in that period of large settlements that replaced the traditional dispersed, small-scale Iron Age castros (small fortified agrarian settlements). Territorial analyses reveal that these new settlements entailed a change of scale, but reveal no evidence for centralized structures, and offer no strong qualitative differences from the previous castros. By analyzing the characteristics of these late Iron Age settlements, this essay focuses on the variety of interactions fostered by Roman military presence in the region, and the relevance of heterarchical approaches for understanding evolving power flows and material culture.
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