Theme:
1. Artefacts, Buildings & Ecofacts
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
A Glimpse into the Inequalities along the Margins: Surplus Economy, Technological Change and Trade in the Western Mediterranean Hinterlands
Content:
Europe experienced numerous crucial cultural and economic changes between the Late Neolithic and the Iron Age (c. 3200 BC – 150 BC). The specific case of agriculture and animal husbandry in the Western Mediterranean saw a shift from a more diversified and local production to a more specialised and intensive production supplying food products to an emerging demand from Mediterranean markets. This flourishing intra-Mediterranean and cross-European connectivity accelerated the consolidation of social inequalities that were already emerging in earlier periods and progressively oriented local economies towards the potential of new markets. How did the hinterland economies adapt to demographic growth and cope with the increasing pressure on resources? To what extent did the Mediterranean network include the “marginal" hinterland?
The term "marginal" in archaeology mainly serves to refer to lands with low productive capacity far from the central Mediterranean axes of communication. There is a consensus that these areas were remote and passive, the last to be incorporated into more integrated and interconnected economic systems. But was this really the case?
We want to investigate how the economies of the marginal inland areas adapted and integrated into the Mediterranean markets. How is it possible to observe the outset of these more intense and interconnected economies through archaeological indicators? This session will prioritise contributions that identify the processes of intensification of production and the emergence of social inequality from a diachronic and multi-scale approach so as to address the following topics:
Incorporation of new technological innovations into agricultural production.
Management of new cultivation areas and the emergence of specialised production.
Changes in storage capacity and surplus accumulation.
Changes in the mobility of people, animals and goods between territories.
Incorporation of animals into agricultural work and transport of goods.
Interdisciplinary contributions integrating archaeological, bioarchaeological, ethnographic and biochemical data.
Keywords:
Late Prehistory, Hinterlands, Western Mediterranean, Economic intensification, Connectivity, Social inequality
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Ariadna Nieto-Espinet (Spain) 1
Co-organisers:
Georgina Prats (Spain) 1
Miguel Tarongi (Spain) 1
Núria Rovira (France) 2,3
Pauline Hanot (France) 4,5
Affiliations:
1. University of Lleida
2. Université Paul Valéry-Montpellier 3
3. ASM-UMR5140
4. Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (MNHN)
5. CNRS-UMR 7179 MECADEV
THIS SESSION CAN NOT BE SELECTED AT THIS MOMENT