Emergence, collapse and continuity of the first political system in the Guadalquivir Basin from the fourth to the second millennium BC: The long-term sequence of Úbeda (Spain)

Abstract

Over the last decade, a long-running archaeological project in the Guadalquivir Basin (Spain) has identified the emergence (c. 3000 BC) and collapse (between c. 2500 and c. 2300 BC) of a regional inter-settlement hierarchical system centred on the south-western Pyrite Belt and the Lower Guadalquivir Basin. Recently, a systematic program of interdisciplinary research on a settlement in the Upper Guadalquivir Valley (Úbeda, Spain) confirms this process and suggests a link between the emergence and collapse of the first supra-regional inter-settlement hierarchical system and the rise and decline of the copper industry. It also shows how the settlements in the Upper Guadalquivir Basin, through a social system based on the intensification and control of agrarian surplus and labour force, preceded and were autonomous with respect to the first inter-settlement hierarchical framework centred around the south-western Pyrite Belt and Lower Guadalquivir Basin from c. 3000 to c. 2500 BC. It also shows how they were able to resist the collapse of this system from c. 2500 BC to c. 2300 BC, materialising later (c. 2200–2000 BC) as a different inter-settlement hierarchical framework system, centred in the Upper Guadalquivir Basin and based on the control of population and land.