Bronze Age Secrets Revealed: Scientists Map the Lost "Frontiers" of Iberia

[erronis]

https://scitechdaily.com/bronze-age-secrets-revealed-scientists-map-the-lost-frontiers-of-iberia/

El Argar core area (in purple) and maximum expansion area ca. 1750 BCE (in red), middle and upper Segura valley, and main Argaric settlements. Credit: © UAB

El Argar used regional pottery networks to enforce political and economic dominance over its neighbors, revealing early state formation in prehistoric Iberia.

Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology have identified the political and economic boundaries that separated El Argar, widely regarded as the first state-level society in the Iberian Peninsula, from neighboring Bronze Age communities in La Mancha and Valencia around 4,000 years ago. These neighboring groups, which had less centralized social structures, engaged in complex interactions with the more hierarchical Argaric society.

The study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, is based on a detailed analysis of pottery production and distribution in northern Murcia. This area served as a cultural frontier between El Argar and the Bronze Age communities of Valencia and La Mancha (2200–1550 BCE). By examining how pottery was made and circulated, the researchers were able to trace patterns of interaction and define the boundaries between these societies. Their findings offer new insights into the emergence of early state systems in prehistoric Europe and may help identify similar border dynamics in other contemporary cultures.

It represents a pioneering study on prehistoric frontiers.

“Any effort to understand the consolidation of the first states in recent prehistory must take into account how political boundaries were created and maintained. Nevertheless, in archaeology, borders have received relatively little attention, even though one of their key structuring concepts, ‘archaeological cultures’, implies spatial limits between social, economic, and political entities,” explains Roberto Risch, lecturer of the Department of Prehistory at the UAB and coordinator of the study.

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I was triggered to post this based on Judi Lynn's excellent posts including this one on Britain's connections to trade via the manufacture/trade of bronze. Recent one: https://www.democraticunderground.com/122912013

Looking further back on DU I see lots of posts about these subjects. This site has become a very valuable resource for me.

[riversedge]

1. Interesting. Thanks for post