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Symposium on “The Prehistory of Iberia (Neolithic to Iron Age) and the debate on the formation of hierarchical societies and the state” 73rd Annual meeting of the Society for American ArchaeologyVancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 26th-28th March 2008
Organizers Antonio Gilman (CSU Northridge, California) & María Cruz Berrocal (UC Berkeley, USA & Grupo de Investigación en Prehistoria Social y Económica, IH, CSIC, Spain) Chair Antonio Gilman Moderator Pedro Díaz del Río
Abstract One of the main ongoing debates in the history of Iberian Prehistory has been the formation of the state. In this discussion, the definition of state and the social and historical processes involved in its rise have been relevant, and have driven a large part of the empirical research undertaken. In this symposium, the validity of this debate, as well as the avenues that it opens for the future of the research, will be addressed through a series of case studies from throughout the Iberian Peninsula. Time scheduled 15 minutes per contribution Contributors Pedro Díaz-del-Río
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Juan Vicent
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Alexandra Miller et alii
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Leonardo Garcia Sanjuan
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Sarah McClure et alii
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Arturo Ruiz
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Inés Sastre et alii
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César Parcero
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Manuel Santos
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Katina Lillios
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ABSTRACTS Pedro Díaz-del-Río.
Decoding the transcripts of the pristine state hypothesis.
The existence of a pristine State during the III millennium BC in southern Iberia has been one of the most pervasive hypotheses of the last decades in Spanish archaeological literature. As usual, increasing allegiances have been mainly the result of academic loyalties. I suggest that the numerous publications that support the hypothesis have allowed the emergence of a growing amount of information highlighting the problematic relation between the theoretical formulation, what the proponents considered evidence, and the archaeological record. However, they include encoded evidence that may allow a more valuable interpretation based on consilience and simplicity. Juan Vicent.
Marxism in Spanish Archaeology: paradigms and models in the research on the origins of social complexity in Iberia This paper presents a critical review of the dynamics of recent research on the origins of social complexity in Iberia, based on the description of the dominant paradigm, whose fundaments lie on Historical Materialism. Within this paradigm, two opposed models can be identified after their diverging interpretations of the main theoretical categories implied in the analysis. These models will be evaluated in relation to their potential to make sense of the entirety of the Iberian social formations histories, from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, in a broader framework than the cultural local contexts for which they were initially formulated. Alexandra Miller (Arizona State University), Steven Schmich (Arizona State University), C. Michael Barton (Arizona State University), and Sarah McClure (University of Oregon).
Climate change and socioecological dynamics in eastern Spain
The period encompassing the terminal Pleistocene through mid-Holocene spans the most far-reaching economic and social changes experienced by modern humans. It also brackets some of the most extreme changes in global climate to have affected our species. New high-resolution archaeoclimatic modeling, integrated with two decades of intensive fieldwork offers fresh insights into human responses to environmental changes in eastern Spain. While the severity of climatic parameters limited human adaptations, the social context in which they took place conditioned the response significantly. We present case studies for the terminal Paleolithic, transition to agriculture, and beginnings of social complexity. Leonardo García Sanjuán.
Reviewing social complexity in Copper Age SW Spain This paper is aimed at reviewing current interpretations of social complexity among the Copper Age social formations of SW Spain, with a special focus on recent proposals that describe them as "states". To this end, the case of the communities settled along the lower Guadalquivir river valley (with a special focus on the Valencina de la Concepcion settlement) is examined. The parameters of social complexity under consideration include population aggregation, productive intensification, craft specialization, political hierarchisation, power centralization and social inequality. Sarah B. McClure, Oreto García Puchol, Bernat Martí, and Joan Bernabeu.
Cova de la Pastora and the emergence of social inequality in the Spanish Levant Cova de la Pastora is a ritual burial cave in Alicante Province, eastern Spain dating to the Chalcolithic (4th millennium BC). The diversity of grave goods and the remains of at least 75 individuals make it pivotal for characterizing the rise of social complexity in this region and emblematic of the craftsmanship and belief system of farmers during this period. Cova de la Pastora was originally excavated in the 1940s, prior to the advent of radiocarbon dating and other methods now common in archaeology. This paper presents some preliminary results of a new large-scale re-analysis of the site. Arturo Ruiz.
Ways of Life and Forms of Power in the Iberians of the southern Iberian Peninsula This paper examines the way of life and its development by relationships of kinship, neighbourhood and work in order to adapt to changes imposed by social relationships and forms of power. Specifically, it analyzes the cliental gentilic lineage and its links with the neighbourhood nature of oppida for a consolidated heroic aristocracy associated with the urban way of life since the 5th century B.C. The paper takes into consideration the political territories construed from the development of oppida, as well as the contradictions which this form of political representation may mean in relation to the former ethnic identities of the Bronze Age. Finally, it studies the concept of state in the Iberian world.(will be held in French). Inés Sastre and Francisco Javier Sánchez-Palencia.
Non-hierarchical approaches to the Iron Age societies: the case of the Castro Culture of Northwestern Iberian Peninsula Recent archaeological developments in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula have spawned an interesting theoretical debate on the appearance of hierarchical social relations, taken as a given for the Iron Age. This discussion lies within the changing European panorama, and the definition of "non-triangular societies". Here we present those characteristics which, through the archaeological record, allow for the definition of the Castro Culture as "segmentary societies". We will witness the formation process of independent and self-sufficient communities in constant conflict, and their later disappearance into the Roman Empire, when a State and social classes become present in this European region. César Parcero.
Fortification as a social fact. Processes of social change and resistance in the Iron Age of NW Iberian Peninsula
Social developments within the Iberian Peninsula comprise different regional trends, that are better understood when considering both processes of social division and resistance. Some areas, like the Northwest, show a wider success of the latter, well into the Iron Age. However, that area is one of those where settlement fortification firstly emerges. The paper will try to approach fortification as a “total social fact”, that can contribute to an analysis of the development of social complexity, in parallel to two complementary arguments: the oscillating social trends between change and resistance, and the tensions between domestic (familiar) units and settlement communities. Manuel Santos.
Atlantic Rock Art and Social Transformation
Atlantic Rock Art has four phases: Neolithic, Bronze Age, Early and Late Iron Age, with interesting iconographic changes along them, affecting the structure of the panel: in earlier periods the compositions could be observed from many points of view, while in the latest periods there is only one; also, in Bronze and Iron Ages there are no domestic scenes, only warriors are represented. These changes coincide with the substitution of the Neolithic collective burials by individual burials in Bronze Age, and progressive increase in the complexity of the settlements. Rock art worked as a symbolic device to legitimate these transformations. Katina Lillios.
Societies Against the State, or The Failure of the State in Iberian Prehistory The debate regarding the emergence of the State has galvanized archaeological research in the Iberian Peninsula. However, this debate also tends to mask the full range of social formations that existed prior to Roman conquest. From the vantage point of western Iberia, specifically Portugal, a spectrum of social formations characterized the Neolithic through the Bronze Age. A diachronic view of settlement patterns, exchange systems, and mortuary complexes in western Iberia suggests that human populations regularly resisted material expressions of power. This paper reviews this evidence and explores some factors that contributed to the failure of the State in Iberian prehistory. |
