Emergence, collapse and continuity of the first political system in the Guadalquivir Basin: Úbeda

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ARTICLE IN PRESS Journal of Anthropological Archaeology xxx (2010) xxx–xxx

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Journal of Anthropological Archaeology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa

Emergence, collapse and continuity of the first political system in the Guadalquivir Basin from the fourth to the second millennium BC: The long-term sequence of Úbeda (Spain) Francisco Nocete a,*, Rafael Lizcano b, Ana Peramo a, Encarnación Gómez b a b

MIDAS Research Group, Department of Prehistory and Archaeology, Univ. of Huelva, Spain Department of Archaeology, World Heritage Service, Úbeda, Spain

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Article history: Received 14 October 2009 Revision received 1 March 2010 Available online xxxx Keywords: Spain Úbeda Long-term sequence Third millennium BC System collapse Copper industry Agrarian intensification Labour force control

a b s t r a c t Over the last decade, a long-running archaeological project in the Guadalquivir Basin (Spain) has identified the emergence (c. 3000 BC) and collapse (between c. 2500 and c. 2300 BC) of a regional inter-settlement hierarchical system centred on the south-western Pyrite Belt and the Lower Guadalquivir Basin. Recently, a systematic program of interdisciplinary research on a settlement in the Upper Guadalquivir Valley (Úbeda, Spain) confirms this process and suggests a link between the emergence and collapse of the first supra-regional inter-settlement hierarchical system and the rise and decline of the copper industry. It also shows how the settlements in the Upper Guadalquivir Basin, through a social system based on the intensification and control of agrarian surplus and labour force, preceded and were autonomous with respect to the first inter-settlement hierarchical framework centred around the south-western Pyrite Belt and Lower Guadalquivir Basin from c. 3000 to c. 2500 BC. It also shows how they were able to resist the collapse of this system from c. 2500 BC to c. 2300 BC, materialising later (c. 2200–2000 BC) as a different inter-settlement hierarchical framework system, centred in the Upper Guadalquivir Basin and based on the control of population and land. Ó 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction During the last three decades, the study of the archaeological record from the fourth to second millennia BC in South Spain has brought to light an autonomous and exemplary model to explain the emergence of the earliest political systems and social inequality. During the 20th century, Spanish Archaeology has been dominated by culture history and the interpretation of society and social change in terms of culture, ethnicity and diffusion. The first proposal of alternative models to culture history and diffusionism came, from 1976 to 1984, in the approaches of Anglo-American neo-evolutionism and its interpretation of the south-east Spain archaeological sequence between the Copper and Bronze Ages in terms of cross-cultural comparisons (e.g. tribe, big-man, chiefdom) of the ethnographic record (e.g. Chapman, 1978, 1981, 1982; Gilman, 1976, 1981; Harrison and Gilman, 1977; Mathers, 1984; Ramos, 1981). In this framework, the first ranked societies in the Copper Age ‘‘were made up of larger, more sedentary populations who invested greater labour in their domestic structures, the forti* Corresponding author. Address: Edif. Marie Curie, Campus del Carmen S/N, Univ. of Huelva, 21007 Huelva, Spain. Fax: +34 959 219462. E-mail address: nocete@uhu.es (F. Nocete).

fications that enclosed them and the communal tombs that accompanied them. . . There were no major capital investments in production and no major changes in the means of production. Through time there is evidence for increased social tension and physical conflict. . . The location of productive activities within settlement spaces provides some evidence for specialisation and surplus production (e.g. flint arrowheads, copper metallurgy) but mainly domestic production. Storage may have become more household – than lineage – based, although this would be in contradiction with the treatment of the dead, which now suggests inequalities in access to wealth and exotic items between lineages” (Chapman, 2003, 158–159). They were identified as simple grouporiented or collaborative chiefdoms. Between 1984 and the present, the criticism of neo-evolutionary cross-cultural interpretations by the approaches of historical materialism (e.g. Lull, 1983; Nocete, 1984a) and extensive and intensive survey projects in the south-east Spain (e.g. Arribas et al., 1987; Arteaga, 1987; Castro et al., 1999; Chapman et al., 1987; Contreras et al., 1986, 1987; Nocete, 1989) created new proposals. These focused on the material condition of life as the basis of society and social change, and the analysis of production and relations of production in the study of the archaeological record around three factors in the process: the control of the natural con-

0278-4165/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2010.03.001

Please cite this article in press as: Nocete, F., et al. Emergence, collapse and continuity of the first political system in the Guadalquivir Basin from the fourth to the second millennium BC: The long-term sequence of Úbeda (Spain). J. Anthropol. Archaeol. (2010), doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2010.03.001


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