Social complexity in a long B15term perspective Organiser: Joaquina Soares

Friday 5th (14:00 to 19:30) B07 Meeting Room XVII World UISPP Congress 2014 Social complexity in a long term perspective Burgos, 1-7 September B15

ORAL CONTRIBUTION The author mainly adopts the method of settlement analysis to analyse the settlement patterns of ORAL Baiyinchanghan site and the method of analogy to make explanations. 1. AROUND THE CATEGORY “PRESTIGE” AND THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE “SOCIAL COMPLEXITY” IN Using indigenous villages like Kejara in Rio Vermelhovalley PREHISTORIC SOCIETIES. of central Brazil in South America as an analogy, which is described as “a primitive culture society unaffected Pedraza Marín, Diego (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) by the modern ”and “a strong bastion of [email protected] indigenous cultures exist independently” settlements of bipartite structure like that of the Under the paradigms of neoevolucionism, cultural ecology, at Baiyinchanghan site are reflections of moiety which social functionalism and systemic approaches, since the middle is the same as phratry of Indians in North American in of the last century, the study of the social evolution of societies the nature of social organization. Drawing an analogy has been enriched with new methodologies and categories with ancient Chinese literature the kinship organization of analysis, for example “social complexity”, or the use of reflected in the settlement of the Xinglongwa Culture at descriptive classificatory typologies of this social evolution. Baiyinchanghan site should be “the surname family”. Ethnographers and archaeologists looked for evidence of “big men” or “chiefs”, among others, who were associated with Settlements of bipartite structure like that of the certain functions and social behaviors, as as “prestige”. We Xinglongwa Culture at Baiyinchanghan site should argue that it is necessary to analyze the epistemological and be reflections of a village constituted by two stable ideological implications of these approaches and categories intermarriage “surname family”. in the scientific process of knowledge creation. We will also try to provide new perspectives of analysis from historical materialism and feminist studies, focusing on the category ORAL “prestige”, which is understood as a social production. THE SOCIETY OF PRE-YANGSHAO PERIOD IN (7000BC--5000BC) ORAL Jinying Cai (Anyang Normal University) caijinying12@hot- 2. KINSHIP ORGANIZATION REFLECTED FROM THE mail.com SETTLEMENT OF THE XINGLONGWA CULTURE AT BAIYINCHANGHAN SITE Pre-Yangshao period belongs to the early age in China. Its radiocarbon dates range is 7000BC-5000BC. Xiyun, Yu (Department of Archaeology School of History During this period, there were many cultures in China. Wuhan University) [email protected] The , the Cishan culture, the Laoguantai culture and the were distributed in the Baiyinchanghan site is located in Shuangjingdian town, Yellow River Valley. The and the Linxi County of Inner Mongolia, about 500 meters Kuahuqiao culture were distributed in the Yangtse southwest of Baiyinchanghan village on the hills, and River Valley. The Xinglongwa culture was located in the near the north bank of Xar Moron River. The settlement northern region of China. Among those cultures, the of the Xinlongwa Culture at this site consists of two Peiligang culture appeared to be the strongest. And the separate living areas (A and B)surrounded by their own society began to be complicate at this time. enclosure ditches and each living area has its own cemetery. The age of this settlement is cal.7000BP. There were many sites and cemeteries excavated in every culture. In this paper, the author mainly uses these In this paper,the author mainly uses these materials materials which had already published. Like Peiligang which had already published. Like Excavation brief report Neolithic site in , (1978). Excavation of Baiyinchanghan Neolithic site in Linxi County,Inner of Peiligang site in 1978(1979). Wuyang (1999). Mongolia(1993), Excavation brief report of Baiyinchanghan Excavation report of Peiligang cultural relics in Tanghu Neolithic site in Linxi County,Inner Mongolia in 1991(2002). site in 2007, Xinzheng City, Henan(2010). Excavation of Baiyinchanghan—Excavation report of the Neolithic Cishan Neolithic site in Hebei(1977). Cishan site in Wu’an, site(2004). Hebei(1981).The first and second excavation report of Houli

753 XVII World UISPP Congress 2014 Social complexity in a long term perspective Burgos, 1-7 September B15 site in Linzi, (1992).The third and fourth excavation Since Gordon Childe that economic and craft report of Houli site in Linzi, Shandong(1994).Excavation specialization has been analyzed within the historical report of Xiamengcun site in Bin County, Shaanxi(1960). process that led to the emergence of the so- called Lijiacun Neolithic site in Xixiang, Shaanxi(1961). “complex” societies. In the Iberian Peninsula, this Pengtoushan and Basidang(2006). Excavation report of topic has been preferably debated by technological Xinglongwa site in Aohanqi, Neimenggu(1985). Excavation paradigm, emphasizing the lack of economic and craft report of Baiyinchanghan Neolithic site in Linxi County, specialization during the Third Millennium BCE. In recent Neimenggu(1993). years, an intense research about the first specialized mining and in southwestern Iberia, The research methods are mainly stratigraphy analysis, highlighting the theoretical and empirical limitations typology analysis and pedigree analysis. By using the of the postulates based on sophistication or complexity stratigraphy analysis and typology analysis, we can technological criteria. This is the opportunity to discuss understand the spatial and temporal distribution of the economic and social models of metallurgical and each culture. And by using the pedigree analysis, we can ceramic production during the Third Millennium BCE. analyze the relationships among those cultures.

The analysis shows that the Peiligang culture is the ORAL strongest among those cultures in Pre-Yangshao period. Combination of the stratigraphy and typology analysis, 5. SOCIAL COMPLEXITY IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM the Peiligang culture was divided into three phases. BC IN SOUTHERN PORTUGAL By using the pedigree analysis, the Peiligang culture originated from the Jiahu culture. Because of the early Soares, Joaquina (MAEDS) [email protected] Cishan culture, the Jiahu culture transferred into the Peiligang culture. The Peiligang culture was influenced The author proposes a complex tribal organization by the Houli culture in phase ?.It affected the Houli model for communities that inherited their social cultue, the Cishan culture, the Xinglongwa culture, the kinship structure from the megalithic societies, at the Pengtoushan culture and the Laoguantai culture with first half of the III millennium BC, in Southern Portugal. varying degrees in phase ?. It had less control in phase ?. This social and economic model began to collapse in the second half of the same millennium, as a result of During Pre-Yangshao period, the Peiligang culture the development of the arsenical copper metallurgy played a very important role. It was the strongest among (copper-arsenic alloys) and craft specialisation. those cultures and It had a great impact on surrounding contemporary cultures with different degrees, especially The control of metallurgy made it possible for the elites on phase ?. The Peiligang culture were mainly distributed to legitimate the accumulation of the political power, in the central plains region. It played an important role in and gave them a coercive capacity to impose an unequal the foundation of the Chinese Civilization development. and very hierarchical social structure based on chiefdom. Judging from the development of the Peiligang culture, This theoretical construction has been tested in the we can say that the society began to be complicate at analysis of the settlement system at Triângulo da Luz (in Pre-Yangshao period. Pre-Yangshao period, especially the middle Guadiana valley), during the III millennium BC. the Peiligang culture, was a key step in the process of The stratified social organization seems to be preceded social complexity. by the chiefdom that raise in the second half of the III millennium BC and developed in the Bronze Age.

ORAL By the end of this period the chiefdom society reached it’s most complex structure. In opposition with other 4. CRAFT PRODUCTION AND SPECIALIZATION authors, that defend the emergence of the state in DURING THE THIRD MILLENNIUM IN THE SOUTH- the III millennium BC with a centre based in the lower WEST OF IBERIAN PENINSULA Guadalquivir region, this paper proposes that the state took place in the South of the Iberian Peninsula only at Inácio, Nuno (University of Huelva) [email protected] early Iron Age, in the context of the orientalising process. Nocete, Francisco (University of Huelva) [email protected] Bayona, Moisés R. (University of Huelva) moises.rodriguez@ dhis1.uhu.es

754 XVII World UISPP Congress 2014 Social complexity in a long term perspective Burgos, 1-7 September B15

ORAL district (cultraro 1997) and in southern central sicily at la muculufa (mcconnel and bevan 1999) in the same 6. MATERIAL VS. IMMATERIAL EVIDENCES OF IN- chronological framework. On the other hand, buffering TERRELATIONS. POPULATION SIZE, MATING NET- zone elaborations demonstrated that several sites could WORKS AND TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFER IN SICILY have had easy access to local raw material sources for DURING EARLY AND MIDDLE BRONZE AGE production.

Cantisani, Matteo (UTAD) [email protected] Although population growth and ceramic assemblages suggest interaction patterns, site catchment analysis The evaluation of indigenous communities development results do not appear to support this hypothesis. As in southern italy, through the analysis of the dynamics of provenance studies on pottery vessels from ramacca interaction with the eastern mediterranean during the district demonstrated, indeed, previously identified RTV- bronze age, is one of the most significant issue in the style imported objects were produced instead by using later for the central mediterranean. A long surrounding clay sources (agodi et alii 2006). Taking into tradition of studies (vagnetti 1983; peroni 1983; bietti account population dynamics and typology results, sestieri 1985; kilian 1983; smith 1987; Jones et alii 2005) this aporia can be solved by hypothesizing interactions influenced by the world system theory and the concept involving not only objects but potters themselves and of peer polity interaction, claimed a socio-economic mating strategies. Type-groups variability in ceramic interdependence in structuring indigenous socio- assemblages within the same site shall be interpreted as cultural complexity. The preliminary results of on-going innovative products of “outlander” potters -likely married research, here presented, provide a complementary to local people- forced to deal with new exploitation perspective, focused on indigenous behavioral patterns’ strategies. In this perspective, technological changes development in structuring socio-cultural complexity in pottery production shall be useful to explain socio- in Sicily, since the later early bronze age. Through cultural complexity by extrapolating behavioral patterns the analyses of settlements and specific ceramic developments related to them, and linked to cultural assemblages’ as well as observations on exploitation of transmission variability phenomena, affected by modes raw material sources, hypothesis on interaction patterns and contexts of technological transfer, interaction and between local communities are suggested. population size dynamics.

Typological analyses carried on RTV-style ceramic assemblage from mursia, as well other works, showed ORAL coexistence of different stylistic pottery assemblages within the same context, as in serra del palco di milena 7. DYNAMIC SOCIAL CHANGES IN THE BRONZE AGE (palio 2006), manfria (orlandini 1960). Settlement/ SOCIETY OF SARDINIA (ITALY) households spatial analyses have been personally conducted (e.g. mursia). Other datasets concerning Gradoli, Maria Giuseppina (PhD researcher in Ceramics settlement dynamics have been acquired from ,School of Archaeology, University of Leicester well-preserved multiphase sites, as muculufa, by (UK) [email protected] bibliographical tool. Site catchment analysis using fixed- radii method (higgs et alii 1967) permitted to identify The present work is based on my current PhD presumably exploited raw material sources within the research ‘Dynamic Social Changes and Identity. A “exploitation territory”. petrological study of Bronze Age ceramics in Nuragic Sardinia’ carried out with the aim of investigating Typological analysis results suggest interaction the pattern of pottery production, consumption and phenomena, especially in central-southern sicily, exchange at an inter-site level on the one hand, and the on the base of co-occurrences of different pottery complex sequence of social changes accompanying the assemblages within the same site. Mursia datasets show appearance of megalithic towers (nuraghi) during the pantelleria has been involved (see also secondo et alii Middle Bronze Age (1600 BC) and their later complexity 2011). Spatial analysis showed increasing complexity during the Recent and Final Bronze Age (around 1000 BC), in organizing spaces both between households and on the other hand. Major phases of growing settlement within them. Population growth, even difficult to assess, complexity in a case-study area are studied in relation can be proposed for such dynamics. Similarly, scholars to 450 sherds of domestic pottery, looking deeper hypothesized population growth trends both in etna beneath their apparent ‘static cultural homogeneity’

755 XVII World UISPP Congress 2014 Social complexity in a long term perspective Burgos, 1-7 September B15 through continuity and change in technology with circulated across the wide landscape through social the help, when possible, of the historical data and the networks. anthropological and ethnographic approaches.

In Sardinia since now, local practices of prehistoric ORAL ceramic production and consumption have largely remained understudied, or have only focused on stylistic 8. MIDDLE BRONZE AGE COMPLEXITY IN SOUTH- attributes and their use in assessing a chronological ERN PORTUGAL. typology. The methodology here used - analysing ceramic fabric variability among selected common Tavares da Silva, Carlos (MAEDS) [email protected] vessel forms and domestic architectures - represents thus an innovation. After the adoption of a broad theoretical The social inequalities of the Middle Bronze Age societies context, based on both the physical and the social of Southern Portugal are the main objective of this paper. sciences, the process of pottery manufacturing is studied under the petrographic microscope considering: 1) The focus will be the funerary record from the second ‘pottery fabric’ or the arrangement, size, shape, frequency and third quarters of the II millennium cal BC; the social and composition of clay, minerals, and other materials hierarchisation displayed on the burial material culture added intentionally to improve the workability and as well as on the architectural features will be analysed. firing performances of ceramic pastes; 2) the concept of In accordance to this archaeological evidence it is ‘chaine operatoire’ and its individual steps to reconstruct proposed a chiefdom social organization model. The part or the whole sequence of technical, physical and improvement of the centralisation of the politic power mental actions performed by potters, starting from the generated a high capacity to rule over large territories, way natural resources were acquired in the area, mixed comprehending the Southwest of Iberian Peninsula. together, fashioned and then physically transformed by the process of firing; 3) the ‘raw material provenance The Bronze Age political structure could create common analysis’, using analytical and geological approaches, to cultural trends throughout the provinces of Alentejo, establish whether the sampled vessels were produced Algarve, Badajoz and Cáceres, which can be read mostly using raw materials obtained from the investigated area in the ceramic style, metallurgical technology, funerary or far away from it; 4) the ‘experimental archaeology’, that rituals, cemeteries architectures and engraved stone provides the opportunity to confirm potential hypothesis steles. and conclusions with multiple trials and repeatable tests in a chemical/mineralogical laboratory and will be used forthe reproduction of the ceramic pastes (according ORAL with the different proportion of mineral/rock inclusions and clays estimated under the microscope and their 9. TECHNIQUE AND SOCIAL COMPLEXITY: DEVEL- comparison with the archaeological ones under study). OPMENT TRAJECTORIES OF PEASANT SOCIETIES WITH METALLURGY DURING THE BRONZE AGE OF The petrographic study, supported by the clay chemical/ WESTERN IBERIA. mineralogical analyses, is helping to investigate whether similar pottery manufacturing, especially Senna-Martinez, João Carlos (Centro de Arqueologia (uni- during transitional periods, accompanied observable arq) Universidade de Lisboa) [email protected] architectural changes. Moreover, the role of technology Luis, Elsa (Centro de Arqueologia (uniarq) Universidade de in shaping social structures, the micro-scale context Lisboa) [email protected] of production, the cooperative process of vessel manufacture, the expression and passing down of Metallurgical practice from the ancient peasant practical knowledge, are being emphasized. societies was for a long time perceived as a “motor” for social development. Such a perception revealed itself In Sardinia since now, ceramic studies have mainly not only inaccurate but it must also be seen as largely focused on stylistic attributes and their use in assessing varying according to geographical place and civilization a chronological typology. Analysing ceramic fabric characteristics. variability among selected common vessel forms and domestic architectures inform on the way mundane Nevertheless, in ancient peasant societies technological pottery were manufactured, used, exchanged or development remains one of the most promising

756 XVII World UISPP Congress 2014 Social complexity in a long term perspective Burgos, 1-7 September B15 indicators of the growing of social complexity even if such growth must always be analysed accordingly to regional constraints.

In what concerns the Iberian Peninsula, and particularly its western facade, first seem to appear as consequence of socioeconomic developments leading to first social elites coming into being. The metallurgical products can then be perceived to fulfil the need to express social status, lacking real technomic significance. Development of metallurgical and products will, nevertheless, accompany and interact with parallel developments in social complexity from the to the Early Iron Age when, for the first time, metals seem to assume a technomic role.

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