Women, residential patterns and early social complexity. From theory to practice in Copper Age Iberia

Abstract

The relationship between residence, gender and mobility is central to the study of early social complexity. And yet, until recently, it was deemed as archaeologically intractable. The recent combination of strontium data and genomics with other methods has opened up entirely new possibilities for the archaeological study of human mobility, but these advances are not without problems. Theoretical framing, empirical accuracy and data interpretation remain controversial. In this paper we address the relationship between residence patterns, gender and mobility among early complex societies, combining both ethnographic and archaeological evidence. Our approach focuses on Chalcolithic Iberia, a period in which the stage for emerging social complexity was set. The possible existence of male-centered residential patterns and their possible connection with conflict, social complexity and gender inequalities is examined. The available data on strontium isotopes suggest women were more frequently buried in places different from those where they grew up, which can be linked to bilocality biased to patrilocality, especially in the so called ‘mega-sites’. While preliminary, this body of evidence opens up fresh lines of enquiry for the study of early complex societies, highlights the benefits of combining different kinds of evidence, and underlines the centrality of gender in the social analysis.