The use of absolute dating methods has taken longer to develop in Iberia than in many other parts of western Europe. When I submitted my doctoral dissertation in 1975, there were four times the number of published radiocarbon dates from France as from Iberia, while Italy (which is half the size of Iberia) possessed twice the number of dates. While there has been a notable number of dates published since 1975 (e.g. Almagro Gorbea and Fernández-Miranda 1978), there remain particular problems with their interpretation. Many sites are ‘dated’ by single determinations. Few, if any, areas can be claimed to have detailed absolute chronologies, although some finer subdivisions have become possible. For north-east Spain the details of a fifth- and fourth-millennium Neolithic sequence are becoming visible (e.g. Guilaine et al. 1982), as is also the case in Andalucía (e.g. Pellicer and Acosta 1982). Although Neolithic material outside of megalithic tombs is known from southern Portugal (e.g. Spindler 1981), there is no stratigraphic or absolute dating evidence for the development of Neolithic cultures in this area. For south-east Spain a series of Bronze Age dates are published for the Argaric culture, as we shall see below.

Caveats such as these are important if absolute dates are to be used to test some of the arguments of the traditional framework outlined in chapter 2.

Comparison lies at the heart of the social sciences. As archaeologists, we wish to understand the evolution of human cultures. Comparison of past cultures highlights order and pattern in the data, as well as variability, and both require explanation. From the point of view of the model of explanation outlined in chapter 1, comparison also enables us to assess the utility and comprehensiveness of our theories. A theory of the evolution of cultural complexity which applied only to one area would not be thought very successful. Similarly, a theory of cultural complexity which did not help us to understand those contexts in which complexity did not emerge would also be found wanting.

In chapter 1, I summarised arguments which analysed the interrelationships between six variables (intensification, system scale, technological innovation, complexity, interaction and integration) in the evolution of complex societies. In chapters 5, 7 and 8, I have tried to operationalise and measure these variables for the Copper and Bronze Ages of south-east Spain. This has focused attention on the strengths and weaknesses of the archaeological record of this area, and of the current explanations for that record. The aim of the present chapter is to compare the archaeological record of south-east Spain with that of other areas of Iberia and the west Mediterranean. Is south-east Spain the only area in which complex societies evolved before the emergence of the Etruscan state in the first millennium be?

The bulk of the discussion in this chapter relates to complexity in the later prehistory of south-east Spain, with much less space devoted to interaction and integration. Such an emphasis directly reflects the attention devoted by archaeologists to these three variables in this area, but even in the case of complexity there have been few systematic attempts to collect relevant archaeological data. Indeed the stimulus provided by such attempts illustrates the potential of social archaeology in south-east Spain. Past social organisation is not out of reach of the archaeologist.

Complexity

According to Blanton et al. (1981, p. 21), complexity can be defined by ‘the extent to which there is functional differentiation among societal units’. This differentiation can be either horizontal (‘functional differentiation among parts of equivalent rank in a system’) or vertical (‘rank differences can be seen among functionally diverse parts’). Such functional differentiation may be political or economic, and sometimes both, and what begins as horizontal specialisation may be elevated to vertical specialisation (e.g. where craft specialists are given higher status).

All of the interpretations about the causes and consequences of intensification in south-east Spain adopt positions on the degree of complexity in the Copper and Bronze Ages. All accept the existence of social inequality, and for most this provides the main stimulus for research into this area of prehistoric Europe.

Given the preoccupation of traditional archaeology with the more ‘tangible’ aspects of the archaeological record, we might expect there to be better, more reliable, data for these two variables than for the others to be discussed in the next chapter. How far is this the case, and how far does that archaeological record help us to evaluate the models presented in chapter 6?

System scale

According to the discussion in chapter 1, an increase in the scale of a cultural system can be related to changes in integration and complexity. Essentially, an increase in scale poses problems for information communication, and these problems are overcome by an increase in organisational complexity. In the models outlined in chapter 6 population growth is used as the main measure for system scale, along, in some cases, with the expansion of a culture from its original area of development.

A major problem, as has already been mentioned in chapter 1, is the low level of spatial and temporal resolution with which changes in size and scale can be measured. Inter-regional comparison of changes in site numbers and densities is made difficult by the rarity of systematic surveys. Where surveys have led to the discovery of new sites (e.g. in the Baja Alpujarra and Campo de Dalías – Suárez et al. 1986), and have filled gaps in the distribution of sites, there is no explicit discussion of survey methods and intensity.

In chapter 6 I summarised five models of the intensification of production and the emergence of increased cultural complexity in south-east Spain, principally in the third and second millennia be. Two of these models (Chapman, Mathers) had their basis in ecological and systems theory, while the other three (Gilman, Lull, Ramos) used Marxian theory. The question then arises as to how we can evaluate these models, one against another. An alternative question would be to ask how we can take advantage of these differing models to generate research capable of increasing our knowledge of the archaeological record, so that the ideas contained in these models can be subjected to some form of empirical evaluation? The existence of competing models is thus seen as a strength, rather than a weakness, of current work on southeast Spanish prehistory. Such models may be criticised on the basis of weaknesses in their theoretical assumptions and structure, and on the basis of the comprehensiveness, predictiveness, efficiency and accuracy (Clarke 1972, p. 4) with which they can be applied to the archaeological record. In the discussion which follows, I will make some initial points about theories and assumptions, before summarising the empirical evidence for the variables which have been analysed in chapters 7–8. At the same time the implications of this evidence for the different models will be raised and directions for future research outlined.

I have chosen to begin my discussion of processes leading to cultural change in southeast Spain with intensification for two main reasons. First we have already seen in chapter 1 that intensification of production is a variable which has received much attention in archaeology and anthropology in the debate about the origins of cultural complexity. Was it a cause or a consequence of population growth? Did it promote management or conflict? Was it a response to environmental stress or an independent, socially motivated strategy? Given this wide concern, and the extensive discussion intensification has received in Aegean archaeology, it is an obvious starting-point for any comparative study of complexity.

Secondly, intensification of production has already been identified by archaeologists working in Iberia as a critical variable in the emergence of Copper and Bronze Age cultures (e.g. Chapman 1975, 1978; Gilman 1976, 1981; Gilman and Thornes 1985; Lull 1983, 1984; Mathers 1984a; Ramos 1981; Harrison 1985). Opinions differ as to the stimulus leading to this intensification, the precise form it took and its social consequences. In some cases the models proposed are statements of faith and have yet to be subjected to testing. In this context a clear evaluation of the existing data, and their limitations, is required. What was the nature and scale of local intensification? How does the evidence for this intensification process correlate in time and space with that for changes in culture, society and population?

The initial reaction against what has been castigated as ‘traditional archaeology’ was best articulated among the Chicago-based students of Lewis Binford in the early 1960s. Since then many archaeologists have contributed to the debate and polemical positions have become commonplace. Binford himself has recently referred to this phenomenon as ‘sociological posturing’ (1983b, p. 108). Given this diversity of positions within theoretical archaeology, it is important to specify precisely what I consider to be the assumptions of traditional archaeology embodied in the interpretation of Iberian prehistory. They may be summarised as follows:

1. (1) Throughout the prehistoric occupation of the Iberian peninsula the major stimulus for cultural change derived from areas such as the Dordogne (for the Upper Palaeolithic), north Africa (for the Upper Palaeolithic, the Epipalaeolithic and the Early Neolithic) or the eastern Mediterranean (mainly for the Neolithic and Bronze Ages). The assumption for the Holocene period, as for other areas of Europe, was that people were innately uninventive outside a focal area of the Near East.

2. (2) Within the peninsula this stimulus focused upon a restricted number of ‘nuclear’ areas, from which cultures or cultural traits diffused into other regions.

3. (3) Cultural assemblages are viewed as static collections of artefact-types whose degree of formal similarity reflects directly their degree of interrelationship. Similarity directly measures interaction. Thus the closer the formal similarities exhibited, whether considered individually or additively, between two or more assemblages, so the closer the social distance between them is thought to be.

4. […]

By way of a conclusion I want to summarise as succinctly as possible the general points I have been making about archaeology, about prehistoric south-east Spain, and about the study of complexity in the Mediterranean. The details can be found in the earlier chapters. Whether these points are welcomed or criticised by the reader is less important than their expression in a coherent form. Gellner's ‘diversified and uncontrollable community of scientists’ is still out there and waiting.

The four points I wish to make concern my approach to the past, and particularly the emphasis on variability, the meaning given to the archaeological record, the evaluation of models for the emergence of cultural complexity, and lastly the differences between forms and rates of cultural change in the east and west Mediterranean basins. In all cases, my aim is to look to the future of research in Mediterranean prehistory.

Variability

My approach to the past is stated clearly in chapter 1. It is an approach which centres upon the study of cultural evolution, using processual explanation, and which expects to be able to evaluate different ideas about cultural change using the archaeological record. This record is not uniform, but variable, as was behaviour in the past. Processes of change may occur at different rates and at different scales, and, as has often been pointed out, different models may have what we might call their own ‘scale-ranges’.

Introduction

Prehistoric quarry workshops were an important early focal point in American archaeology (e.g., Holmes 1919) and such sites are once again beginning to attract the attention of archaeologists concerned with the reconstruction of extinct cultural systems. Today's trend toward technological, functional, and behavioral lithic analyses is well grounded in past research (e.g., Holmes 1894) but owes much of its current foundation to the pioneering work of scholars such as S. A. Semenov (1964) in the U.S.S.R., F. Bordes and others in France, and Don Crabtree and his many students in the U.S. But, for the most part, quarry workshops remain understudied, probably because of the variety of problems they seem to present.

Introduction

As the papers in this volume confirm, studies of quarry sites contribute to the archaeological interpretation of a region and to an understanding of culture in general. In fact, a significant dimension of culture is missing if a people's stoneworking technology, including quarry-site behavior, is ignored.

Individuals who investigate quarry sites must be interested in technology, not merely finished products. The vast amounts of broken stone at quarries is uninteresting to most archaeologists and partially explains why procurement areas have not been studied thoroughly. Aboriginal chert quarries in Florida had not been investigated prior to my excavations at the Senator Edwards Site (Purdy 1975; 1981a, 105), the York Site (Purdy 1977), the Container Corporation of America Site (Purdy 1981b), and Hemmings and Kohler's work at the Lake Kanapaha Site (1974).

Introduction

The Upper Perigordian quarry of Corbiac is in the Central Perigord region of southwestern France near the town of Bergerac (LaVille, Rigaud & Sackett 1980, fig. 6.2). Excavations at the site were directed by François Bordes from 1962 to 1967 (Bordes 1968). The upper stratum (Level 1) yielded an estimated 100,000 blades, over 1,000 cores in various stages of reduction, and approximately 10,000 finished tools (Bordes & Crabtree 1969, 1). Based on the abundance of microgravettes, Gravettian points, and dihedral burins, Bordes judged the Level 1 assemblage to be transitional between Perigordian VI and proto-Magdalenian, and suggested a relative date of c. 20,000 b.c. for it. He called the assemblage Evolved Perigordian, because it exhibited Upper Perigordian and proto-Magdalenian traits. This assemblage had an important role in the argument that was advanced that the latter industry was the terminal phase of Perigordian development (Bordes & De Sonneville-Bordes 1966; LaVille, Rigaud & Sackett 1980).

Archaeologists recently have come to recognize geoarchaeology as an area of productive endeavor (Butzer 1971; Shackley 1975; Davidson & Shackley 1975; Gladfelter 1977; Vita-Finzi 1978). Straddling the flexible boundaries between geology and archaeology, this new research has contributed to at least three major concerns. One, geoarchaeological dating, includes the application of archaeologically derived chronologies to recent geological strata and features (Haynes 1968; Butzer 1974); dating of archaeological sites by geological means also has been attempted with some success (Zeuner 1958; Giddings 1966). A second concern has been archaeologists' explicit recognition of the applicability of geomorphological principles in the formation of archaeological landscapes (Bryan 1926; Butzer 1971; Hassan 1978; Turnbaugh 1977, 1978; Vita-Finzi 1978). This focus has highlighted new aspects of ancient humans' interrelationship with the environment, including their impact upon it. Third, geochemistry has proven to be a fruitful technique for research in archaeological contexts, particularly with regard to discussions about prehistoric lithic exploitation, trade, and technology.