The Archaeology Of Iberia

Over the past twenty years, archaeological research in Spain and Portugal has undergone profound changes in theoretical orientation, changes that parallel the political and social transformations in those countries over the past generation. These Proceedings of the First International Conference in America on Iberian Archaeology demonstrate the increasingly strong implantation of processualist approaches and their useful integration with historicist orientations. Contributions ranging from the Neolithic to the Iron Age provide a representative sample of the current state of archaeological research in Iberia.

For many archaeologists, Iberia is the last great unknown region in Europe. Although it occupies a crucial position between South-Western Europe and North Africa, academic attention has traditionally been focused on areas like Greece or Italy. However Iberia has an equally rich cultural heritage and archaeological tradition. This ground-breaking volume presents a sample of the ways in which archaeologists have applied theoretical frameworks to the interpretation of archaeological evidence, offering new insights into the archaeology of both Iberia and Europe from prehistoric time through to the tenth century. The contributors to this book are leading archaeologists drawn from both countries. They offer innovative and challenging models for the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Copper Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman, Early Medieval and Islamic periods. A diverse range of subjects are covered including urban transformation, the Iron Age peoples of Spain, observations on historiography and the origins of the Arab domains of Al-Andalus. It is essential reading for advanced undergraduates and those researching the archaeology of the Iberian Peninsula.

One of the only guides to the prehistoric archaeology of the Iberian Peninsula that engages with key anthropological and archaeological debates.

For many archaeologists, Iberia is the last great unknown region in Europe. Although it occupies a crucial position between South-Western Europe and North Africa, academic attention has traditionally been focused on areas like Greece or Italy. However Iberia has an equally rich cultural heritage and archaeological tradition. This ground-breaking volume presents a sample of the ways in which archaeologists have applied theoretical frameworks to the interpretation of archaeological evidence, offering new insights into the archaeology of both Iberia and Europe from prehistoric time through to the tenth century. The contributors to this book are leading archaeologists drawn from both countries. They offer innovative and challenging models for the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Copper Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman, Early Medieval and Islamic periods. A diverse range of subjects are covered including urban transformation, the Iron Age peoples of Spain, observations on historiography and the origins of the Arab domains of Al-Andalus. It is essential reading for advanced undergraduates and those researching the archaeology of the Iberian Peninsula.

After more than a century of research, an enormous body of scientific literature in the field of El Argar studies has been generated, comprising some 700 bibliographic items. No fully-updated synthesis of the literature is available at the moment; recent works deal only with specific characteristics of Argaric societies or some of the regions where their influence spread. The Archaeology of Bronze Age Iberia offers a much-needed, comprehensive overview of Argaric Bronze Age societies, based on state-of-the-art research. In addition to expounding on recent insights in such areas as Argaric origin and expansion, social practices, and socio-politics, the book offers reflections on current issues in the field, from questions concerning the genealogy of discourses on the subject, to matters related to professional practices. The book discusses the values and interests guiding the evolution of El Argar studies, while critically reexamining its history. Scholars and researchers in the fields of Prehistory and Archaeology will find this volume highly useful.

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.

"The vast transformation of the Roman world at the end of antiquity has been a subject of broad scholarly interest for decades, but until now no book has focused specifically on the Iberian Peninsula in the period as seen through an archaeological lens. Given the sparse documentary evidence available, archaeology holds the key to a richer understanding of the developments of the period, and this book addresses a number of issues that arise from analysis of the available material culture, including questions of the process of Christianisation and Islamisation, continuity and abandonment of Roman urban patterns and forms, the end of villas and the growth of villages, and the adaptation of the population and the elites to the changing political circumstances."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

During the first millennium BCE, complex encounters of Phoenician and Greek colonists with natives of the Iberian Peninsula transformed the region and influenced the entire history of the Mediterranean. One of the first books on these encounters to appear in English, this volume brings together a multinational group of contributors to explore ancient Iberia’s colonies and indigenous societies, as well as the comparative study of colonialism. These scholars—from a range of disciplines including classics, history, anthropology, and archaeology—address such topics as trade and consumption, changing urban landscapes, cultural transformations, and the ways in which these issues played out in the Greek and Phoenician imaginations. Situating ancient Iberia within Mediterranean colonial history and establishing a theoretical framework for approaching encounters between colonists and natives, these studies exemplify the new intellectual vistas opened by the engagement of colonial studies with Iberian history.