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.

part 1|49 pages

Introducing Social Stratification and the State in Iberian Prehistory

part 2|327 pages

Case Studies

chapter 5|25 pages

Villages of Wealth and Resistance in Paradise

Millaran and Argaric Chiefdoms in the Iberian Southeast

chapter 6|20 pages

Against Uniformity Cultural Diversity

The “Others” in Argaric Societies

chapter 7|22 pages

Social Complexity in Copper Age Southern Iberia (ca. 3200–2200 Cal b.c.)

Reviewing the ‘State' Hypothesis at Valencina De La Concepción (Seville, Spain)

chapter 10|28 pages

Social Dynamics in the Recent Prehistory of Northern Iberia

Examining the Margins of the Mediterranean Regions

chapter 11|18 pages

Atlantic Rock Art

Transformation and Tradition During Late Prehistory

chapter 12|18 pages

Social Change, Social Resistance

A Long-Term Approach to the Processes of Transformation of Social Landscapes in the Northwest Iberian Peninsula

chapter 13|25 pages

Big Men Showing Off

The Ideology and Practice of Social Inequality in the Atlantic Late Bronze Age of Iberia

chapter 14|19 pages

Nonhierarchical Approaches to the Iron Age Societies

Metals and Inequality in the Castro Culture of the Northwestern Iberian Peninsula

chapter 15|26 pages

Households, Merchants, and Feasting

Socioeconomic Dynamics and Commoners' Agency in the Emergence of the Tartessian World (Eleventh to Eighth Centuries b.c.)

chapter 17|21 pages

Oppida, Lineages, and Heroes in the Society of Princes

The Iberians of the Upper Guadalquivir

part 3|27 pages

Conclusion

chapter 18|25 pages

Social Stratification and the State in Prehistoric Europe

The Wider Perspective