ABSTRACT
The origin and early development of social stratification is essentially an archaeological problem. The impressive advance of archaeological research has revealed that, first and foremost, the pre-eminence of stratified or class society in today’s world is the result of a long social struggle. This volume advances the archaeological study of social organisation in Prehistory, and more specifically the rise of social complexity in European Prehistory. Within the wider context of world Prehistory, in the last 30 years the subject of early social stratification and state formation has been a key subject on interest in Iberian Prehistory.
This book illustrates the differing forms of resistances, the interplay between change and continuity, the multiple paths to and from social complexity, and the ‘failures’ of states to form in Prehistory. It also engages with broader questions, such as: when did social stratification appear in western European Prehistory? What factors contributed to its emergence and consolidation? What are the relationships between the notions of social complexity, social inequality, social stratification and statehood? And what are the archaeological indicators for the empirical analysis of these issues? Focusing on Iberia, but with a permanent connection to the wider geographical framework, this book presents, for the first time, a chronologically comprehensive, up-to-date approach to the issue of state formation in prehistoric Europe.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|49 pages
Introducing Social Stratification and the State in Iberian Prehistory
chapter 1|7 pages
Debating Early Social Stratification and the State in Iberian Prehistory
chapter 3|21 pages
Archaeology is (Sometimes) History, or it is Nothing
part 2|327 pages
Case Studies
chapter 5|25 pages
Villages of Wealth and Resistance in Paradise
chapter 7|22 pages
Social Complexity in Copper Age Southern Iberia (ca. 3200–2200 Cal b.c.)
chapter 10|28 pages
Social Dynamics in the Recent Prehistory of Northern Iberia
chapter 12|18 pages
Social Change, Social Resistance
chapter 13|25 pages
Big Men Showing Off
chapter 14|19 pages
Nonhierarchical Approaches to the Iron Age Societies
chapter 15|26 pages
Households, Merchants, and Feasting
chapter 17|21 pages
Oppida, Lineages, and Heroes in the Society of Princes
part 3|27 pages
Conclusion