Regional pathways to long-term inequality in the later prehistoric societies of southern Iberis

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Archaeologists studying the later prehistoric societies of the Mediterranean basin have tended to emphasis the traditional nature of Neolithic agriculturalists, which are thought to have maintained an essentially egalitarian existence until the development of social stratification in the Bronze Age. The most traditional agriculturalists have been argued to have existed in the West Mediterranean, where opinion is also divided as to how and when social stratification emerged. For some scholars, long term inequalities did not emerge until the first millennium BC, while for others they were present in the form of early class/state societies in southern Spain in the third and second millennia BC.The assumption those early agricultural societies where static and purely egalitarian is questioned by anthropological arguments that inequalities probably existed in all societies and that agricultural societies were neither equal nor unequal. Instead they went through cycles of more or less egalitarian social relations and had their own internal tensions, conflicts and cycles of social fission and fusion. This meant that there were continual tensions bel'-Neen sectional and communal interests and, as a result, different 'pathways' towards tong term inequalities and social stratification.The archaeological record of southern Spain and Portugal has been revolutionised during the last two decades by the intensity of excavations and surface surveys. This provides us INith an opportunity to study the extent to which its early agricultural societies conformed to the expectations of these anthropological arguments. The aim of this research is to undertake a comparative study of different regions to search for evidence of the nature of these societies and their change through time. What is the evidence for the nature of social relations in different regions at different times? To what extent is the social change linear (i.e. towards greater complexity, or from egalitarian to hierarchical social relations) or cyclical (i.e. periods of social fission and fusions, or of greater or lesser inequality)? When did long term inequalities emerge? To what extent can these be attributed to the appearance of relations of class and a form of state society?The benefits of this research can be seen on different levels. First it will bring a mass of new data on early agricultural societies in southern Spain and Portugal to a wide English speaking audience that does not have access to the local literature or cannot read it in its original languages. Secondly it will provide a case study of the critical study of change in early agricultural societies, which will be of value to scholars working in other regions of the Mediterranean and beyond. Thirdly it will highlight the extent to which social inequalities can be recognised in the material evidence of such societies as seen in the archaeological record. Fourthly it will open up a wide debate about the nature of early state societies and raise critical problems for the normal definition of such societies in the English speaking world. Lastly it will help the process of interaction and debate between Spanish and Portuguese archaeologists, and their counterparts studying early agricultural societies and social change in the English speaking world.