{"id":4211,"date":"2025-05-11T08:08:21","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T08:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/?p=4211"},"modified":"2025-09-20T12:06:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T10:06:57","slug":"valencina-a-copper-age-polity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/index.php\/2025\/05\/11\/valencina-a-copper-age-polity\/","title":{"rendered":"Valencina: A Copper Age Polity"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2200\" height=\"1840\" class=\"wp-image-4212\" style=\"width: 489px; height: auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2025-05-Valencina-Polity-JAA.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For a century, Copper Age Iberia (c. 3200-2200 BCE) has been seen as a grand laboratory for discussions of early\u00a0social complexity. And yet, most theories were, from an empirical view point, infra-determined, as evidence was limited and restricted to a few sites. This situation has changed, as the availability of high-quality scientific data\u00a0for a broader spectrum of sites now provides opportunities for fresh theoretical approaches. We propose a newtake on emergent Iberian Copper Age social organisation, based on elements of political economy and collective\u00a0action. We use the Valencina Copper Age mega-site, located in south-western Spain, to postulate the crucial role\u00a0played by monumentalised central places in early complex societies. This site, and others like it, operated asattractors of large contingents of people, probably in the thousands, for social congregations that extended the\u00a0fabric of society along a distinctive Neolithic pattern. Monument-building, largely (but not only) in the form of\u00a0megaliths and ditched enclosures, brought people together, creating and maintaining a sense of belonging and\u00a0cooperation, while at the same time keeping in check top-down impulses for more authoritarian and centralised\u00a0political organisation. In the Neolithic tradition, monuments appear to create identity tied to place among\u00a0expanding corporate social groups. Copper Age social formations lived in a \u2018monument-oriented\u2019 mode of production\u00a0of sorts, in which the establishment of place and associated monumentalism served both to encourage\u00a0and \u2018burn\u2019 surplus that could otherwise be manipulated and controlled by aspiring leaders. As part of this\u00a0process, distinctive female leadership emerged at Valencina as materialized by identities supported by sumptuary\u00a0objects made on exotic raw materials and produced by specialists. The social world built around Valencina as a\u00a0monumentalised central place came to a rather abrupt end c. 2300, after which a different social medium, the\u00a0Bronze Age, was started.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">More information:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0278416525000339 \">https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0278416525000339\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For a century, Copper Age Iberia (c. 3200-2200 BCE) has been seen as a grand laboratory for discussions of early\u00a0social [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4212,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2025-05-Valencina-Polity-JAA.jpg",2200,1840,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2025-05-Valencina-Polity-JAA.jpg",150,125,false],"medium":["https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2025-05-Valencina-Polity-JAA.jpg",300,251,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2025-05-Valencina-Polity-JAA.jpg",768,642,false],"large":["https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2025-05-Valencina-Polity-JAA.jpg",1024,856,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2025-05-Valencina-Polity-JAA.jpg",1536,1285,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2025-05-Valencina-Polity-JAA.jpg",2048,1713,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"adminATLAS","author_link":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/index.php\/author\/adminatlas\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"For a century, Copper Age Iberia (c. 3200-2200 BCE) has been seen as a grand laboratory for discussions of early\u00a0social [&hellip;]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4211"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5567,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4211\/revisions\/5567"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/atlas\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}