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2023/2024

Prehistory II: from the First Rural Societies to State Societies

Code: 106845 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2504611 Archaeology FB 1 2

Contact

Name:
Maria Saņa Segui
Email:
maria.sana@uab.cat

Teaching groups languages

You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject. Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2023.

Teachers

Francisco Javier Clop Garcia
Alejandro Sierra Sainz-Aja

Prerequisites

There is not any prerequisite


Objectives and Contextualisation

The subject has as a main objective expose the social developments between the first Neolithic societies and
the emergence of the classical States. Go in these developments, highlight the origins of the patriarchal
relations, of the sedentary and urban life, of the first social classes, and the institutionalization of the political
power and of the shapes of violence.
The territorial field centres in the Next Orient and Europe, although they will do punctual references to other
regions of the planet.
The contents include empirical descriptions and relative syntheses to the concrete social dynamics and, at the
same time, they expose the methodological and inferencials bases in which support the current state of the
knowledges in prehistoric archaeology. In this second aspect will result fundamental the practical activities
programmed.


Learning Outcomes

  • CM01 (Competence) Understand problems in the study of prehistory and protohistory associated to the need to avoid androcentric perspectives and sex or gender inequalities.
  • KM01 (Knowledge) Identify the most characteristic material remains of prehistoric and protohistoric societies.
  • KM02 (Knowledge) Recognise the main historical processes experienced by human societies in prehistory and protohistory and the factors that influenced them.
  • KM03 (Knowledge) Contextualise historical processes from the prehistoric and protohistoric archaeological record in an introductory manner.
  • SM01 (Skill) Synthetically explain the periods of prehistory and protohistory, both empirically and interpretively.
  • SM02 (Skill) Identify the main archaeological materials in the prehistoric and protohistoric time-frame.
  • SM03 (Skill) Effectively express oneself by applying the typical procedures used to present arguments in formal discourse when producing written work or making oral presentations on introductory aspects of prehistory and protohistory.

Content

PART 1. INTRODUCTION ON THEORY AND METHODS.

THEME 1: Prehistoric Archaeology: object of study and structure of the research.

 

PART 2. START AND DEVELOPMENT OF NEOLITHIC SOCIETIES

THEME 2: economic and social Implications of the agriculture and the cattle.

THEME 3: The economic and social consequences of the starts of the agriculture in the Near East.

THEME 4: The first farming communities in Europe: the Neolithic in the Aegean zone.

THEME 5: Introduction and development of the farming economies in the central and Western Europe.

THEME 6: Megalitism in Europe.

 

PART 3. BETWEEN THE IIIrd AND THE Ist MILLENNIA B. C.

THEME 7: The formation of the first States to Mesopotamia and Egypt.

THEME 8: Increasing Inequalities in Western Europe: the chalcolithic, the bell beaker question and the beginning of the bronze age

 


Methodology

Methodology

1. Expositive lectures about the contents billed in the programme. Frequently they will pose subjects of
discussion in the classroom.
2. Practical activities related to the course content.
3. A practical field activity:
3.1. Visit to one or several archaeological sites of the recent Prehistory of Catalonia and realization of a
practical exercise around a series of questions posed by the teaching staff.
Within this chapter of external activities to the Campus, it contemplates the possibility to realize visits to
exhibitions, museums, ... that treat aspects notable related with the contents of the course

 

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Theoretical classes 40 1.6 CM01, KM01, SM01, CM01
Type: Supervised      
Clasroom practices 20 0.8 KM01, KM03, SM02, SM03, KM01
Field practices 15 0.6 KM02, KM03, SM02, KM02
Type: Autonomous      
Autonomous work 42 1.68 KM02, KM03, SM02, SM03, KM02

Assessment

1. Practical activities of classroom (40% of the final note; compulsory to can do the test written).
2. One practical field activiti (10% of the final note; compulsory to can do the test written).
3. Individual written test (50% of the finalnote).

At the time of completion/delivery of each assessment activity, the teacher will inform (Moodle, SIA) of the procedure and date of revision of the grades.

The student will be classified as Non-evaluable when he has not delivered more than 30% of the evaluation activities.

Written tests: if in any of the two written tests a grade equal to or less than 3 is obtained that part of the subject will have to be revaluated, regardless of whether the average of all the grades obtained that are taken into account for the final grade of the course is 5 or higher.

Attendance at practical classes and practical activities, as well as the delivery of the corresponding practices and papers, is required.

In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.

Reevaluation: Test written or critical comment of an extensive work related with the course.

In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.

Unique assessment

The student willbe able to ask for the single assessment in this subject.

The single assessment activities will be:

1. Two practical classroom activities (50% of the final grade).
2. A written test (50% of the final mark).


Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Classroom practices 40 15 0.6 KM01, KM02, KM03, SM02
Field practices 10 15 0.6 KM03, SM02
Final examination 50 3 0.12 CM01, KM03, SM01, SM03

Bibliography

(The list of titles will be able to expand in treating concrete aspects)

General readings (manual)

ALMAGRO, M. (ed.) (2014), Protohistoria de la Península Ibérica: del Neolítico a la romanización. Universidad de Burgos. Fundación Atapuerca.

BARANDIARÁN, I., MARTÍ, B., del RINCÓN, Mª A. i MAYA, J. L. (1998), Prehistoria de la península Ibérica. Ariel, Barcelona.

BOGUCKI, P. i CRABTREE, P. J. (eds.) (2004), Ancient Europe 8000 BC - AD 1000: Enciclopedia of the Barbarian World. Charles Scribner's Sons, Nueva York.

CUNLIFFE, B. (ed.) (1998), Prehistoria de Europa Oxford. Crítica, Barcelona.

Chris Fowler, Jan Harding and Daniela Hofmann (Eds.) (2015): The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe. Oxford,UK, 1166 pp., Oxford University Press , ISBN 978-0-19954584-1.

KRISTIANSEN, K. (2001), Europa antes de la Historia. Península, Barcelona.

RENFREW, C. i BAHN, P. (eds.) (2014), The Cambridge World Prehistory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

 

TEMA 1: Prehistoric Archaeology: object of study and structure of the research.

JOHNSON, M. (2000), Teoría arqueológica. Ariel, Barcelona.

RENFREW, C. i BAHN, P. (1993), Arqueología. Teorías, Métodos y Práctica. Akal, Madrid.

 

TEMA 2: Economic and social Implications of the agriculture and the cattle.

BUXÓ, R. (1997), Arqueología de las plantas. Crítica, Barcelona.

COHEN, M. N. (1977), La crisis alimentaria en la Prehistoria. Alianza, Madrid.

MOLLESON, T. (1994), "La lección de los huesos de Abu Hureyra", Investigación y Ciencia,217, pp. 60-65.

 

TEMA 3: The economic and social consequences of the starts of the agriculture in the Near East.

AURENCHE, O. i KOZLOWSKI, J. (2003), El origen del neolitico en el Proximo Oriente. Ariel, Barcelona.

Fanny Bocquentin, Camille Noûs. Considerations on the mechanisms of integration of the dead in the early sedentary societies of the Near East (Natufian, 15-11.6 ka cal BP). Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d'anthropologie de Paris, Springer Verlag, 2022, 34 (1), ⟨10.4000/bmsap.9548⟩. ⟨hal-03682559⟩

BYRD, B. F. (1994), "Public and Private, Domestic and Corporate: the emergence of the southwest Asian village", American Antiquity, 59, pp. 639-666.

DIETRICH, O., HEUN, M., NOTROFF, J., SCHMIDT, K. i ZARNKOW, M. (2012), "The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities. New evidence from Göbekli Tepe, south-eastern Turkey", Antiquity, 86, pp. 674-695.

Kadowaki, Seiji. (2012). A Household Perspective towards the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to Late Neolithic Cultural Transformation in the Southern Levant. Orient, 47: 3-28.

KUIJT, I., i GORING-MORRIS, N. (2002), "Foraging, Farming, and Social Complexity in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Southern Levant: A Review and Synthesis", Journal of World Prehistory, 16 (4), pp. 361-440.

VERHOEVEN, M. (2002), "Ritual and Ideology in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of the Levant and Southeast Anatolia", Cambridge Archaeological Journal,12 (2), pp. 233-258. 

 

TEMA 4: The first farming communities in Europe: the Neolithic in the Aegean zone.

AA.VV. (2012), "Les débuts du Néolithique en Europe", Les Dossiers d'Archéologie nº 353.

John Chapman (2014). The Balkan Neolithic and Chalcolithic, in: Fowler, C. et al. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 157-74.

HANSEN, J. (1993), "L'agricultura del Neolític Antic a l'Egeu", Cota Zero, 9, pp. 17-24.

Kačar, Sonja. "The Neolithisation of the Adriatic: Contrasting Regional Patterns and Interactions Along and Across the Shores" Open Archaeology, vol. 7, no. 1, 2021, pp. 798-814. https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2020-0166

PERLÈS, C. (1993), "Reflexions sobre l'origen del Neolític a Grècia", Cota Zero, 9, pp. 9-16.

Small, D. (2019). The Neolithic in Greece. In Ancient Greece: Social Structure and Evolution (Case Studies in Early Societies, pp. 18-30). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781139034388.003 

 

TEMA 5: Introduction and development of the farming economies in the central and Western Europe.

BERNABEU, J. (1996), "Indigenismo y Migracionismo. Aspectos de la neolitización en la fachada oriental de la península Ibérica", Trabajos de Prehistoria,53, pp. 37-54.

BERROCAL, Mª C. (2012), "The Early Neolithic in the Iberian Peninsula and the Western Mediterranean: A Review of the Evidence on Migration", Journal of World Prehistory, 25, pp. 123-156.

GRONENBORN, D. (1999), "A Variation on a Basic Theme: The Transition to Farming in Southern Central Europe", Journal of World Prehistory, 13 (2), pp. 123-210.

Guilaine, J. (2015). The neolithization of Mediterranean Europe: mobility and interaction from the Near East to the Iberian Peninsula, in  C. Fowler, J. Harding, D. Hofman (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 81-98.

Guilaine, Jean;  Manen, Claire. (2007). From the Mesolithic to Early Neolithic in the Western Mediterranean. Proceedings of the British Academy. 144. 21-51. 10.5871/bacad/9780197264140.003.0003.

ROJO, M., GARRIDO, R. i GARCÍA MARTÍNEZDE LAGRÁN, Í. (2012), El Neolítico en la península Ibérica y su contexto europeo. Cátedra, Madrid.

Joanne Rowland, Giulio Lucarini and Geoffrey John Tassie (Eds.), Revolutions. The Neolithisation of the Mediterranean Basin, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2020

Schulting, R, and D Borić. 2019. “A Tale of Two Processes of Neolithisation: Southeast Europe and Britain/Ireland.” In: The Neolithic of Europe: papers in honour of Alasdair Whittle, P Bickle, V Cummings, D Hofmann, and J Pollard (edts), Oxbow Books, págs. 82-104. ISBN 978-1-78570-654-7

SZÉCSÉNYI-NAGY, A. et alii (2017), "The maternal genetic make-up of the Iberian Peninsula between the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age", Nature, 15; 7(1), 15644. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-15480-9.

 

TEMA 6: Megalitism in Europe.

DELIBES, G. (1990), "El megalitismo Ibérico", Historia 16, Madrid.

RENFREW, C. (1984), "Arqueología social de los monumentos megalíticos", Investigación y Ciencia, 88, pp. 70-79.

 

TEMA 7: The formation of the first States to Mesopotamia and Egypt.

ALGAZE, G. (2004), El sistema-mundo de Uruk. Ediciones Bellaterra, Barcelona.

CHILDE, V. G. (1984), Los orígenes de la civilización. Fondo de Cultura Económica, México (capítulos VI y VII).

REDMAN, Ch. (1990), Los orígenes de la civilización. Desde los primeros agricultores hasta la Sociedad urbana en el Próximo Oriente. Crítica, Barcelona.

 

TEMA 8: Increasing Inequalities in Western Europe: the chalcolithic, the bell beaker question and the beginning of the bronze age.

GUILAINE, J. (dir.) (2007), Le Chalcolithique et la construction des inégalites. Tome 1: Le continent européen. Éditions Errance, París.

ROJO, M., GARRIDO, R i GARCÍA MARTÍNEZ, Í. (eds.) (2005), El campaniforme en la península Ibérica y su contexto europeo. Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid.


Software

No specific software is required.