Reconnecting the Late Neolithic Social Landscape

A Micro-Regional Study of Objects, Settlements and Tombs from Iberia

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7175603
AutoresAna Jorge (0000-0003-0570-4640, autor de correspondencia)
Año2014
Volumen17
Número3
Páginas434-467
Fecha de publicación2014-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEuropean Journal of Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1461-9571 • E-ISSN: 1741-2722
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1179/1461957114y.0000000060
OpenAlexW1987418106
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas44

The contrast between monumentalized burials and almost invisible settlements has dominated Neolithic studies in western Europe, reinforcing an artificial divide between ceremonial and economically productive landscapes. By combining a material culture approach with a landscape scale, comparative artefact studies can trace connections between people, places, and social contexts. This paper investigates social networks in Late Neolithic Portugal by examining artefact provenance, biographies, and deposition on the Mondego Plateau. It focuses on three sites and four object categories characteristic of this period. The study reveals great diversity of raw materials, circulation of everyday objects, and regional availability of resources previously thought to be imports. It suggests that people used dispersed resource areas in an integrated way, and that exchange was an integral part of routine life. Evidence for links across the region is not restricted to tombs. Burial assemblages resulted from a complex web of social relations that preceded, accompanied, and followed the actions surrounding death. Understanding these places and fundamental questions about Neolithic social production and reproduction requires reconnecting tombs and settlements into wider lived landscapes

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Diversity (politics · Geography · Human settlement · Period (music · Resource (disambiguation · Sociology · Anthropology · Archaeological and Geological Studies · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · History · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology