Innovación y tradición en la Prehistoria Reciente del Sudeste de la Península Ibérica y la Alta Andalucía (c. 5500-2000 cal A.C.)

This paper explores the hypothesis that socioeconomic changes that took place in theearly stages of Late Prehistory (5500-2000 BC approximately) occurred at different pacesand they were expressed in the movable material culture at various times. The social inequalityconsolidation was a so slow but unstoppable process that, in our view, beganfrom both, the control of labor force (often of foreign origin as a result of conflict overland) and especially the accumulation through livestock. Although it was a necessary condition, the introduction and improvement of agricultural strategies did not leadimmediately to a society with permanent inequalities. Despite agricultural intensificationdocumented since the end of the sixth millennium BC by exploitation of by-products,such inequalities were slow to be settled (at least until the fourth millennium BC),and they took a longer time to be socially evident (the mid-third millennium BC). In thisprocess, the ritual is used both to try to curb the accumulation, sometimes producing theopposite phenomenon, and to mask and subsequently display it.