Negotiating Power? Explaining Dispersed Low-Density Mega-sites in Late Iron Age Europe

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Theorizing Prehistoric Large Low-Density Settlements beyond Urbanism and Other Conventional Classificatory Conventions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The mega-sites that emerged in the European Late Iron Age (ca. third century BCE–first century CE), often referred to as oppida, have struggled to be understood in the context of traditional concepts of urbanism. Comparative approaches to urbanism have, however, increasingly allowed them to be considered as part of a diverse range of alternatives to nucleated towns, as mega-sites, polyfocal complexes, or powerscapes. In this paper, I argue that European Late Iron Age mega-sites developed forms of dispersed, low-density occupation not simply due to reasons of sustainability but largely because of the social context in which they emerged. Through assessment of how these complexes operated as power centers, and through comparison with mega-sites around the world, the paper will explore how the development of Late Iron Age mega-sites charts these societies’ negotiation of a transition from rural communities to larger social systems. These low-density centers reflect the varying ways in which these societies retained heterarchical social forms as power became increasingly centralized.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Theorizing Prehistoric Large Low-Density Settlements beyond Urbanism and Other Conventional Classificatory Conventions   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38313.0