Unconventional Prehistoric Worlds: Untangling the Later Bronze Age in Central Iberia

Abstract

The Cogotas I culture (c. 1800–1150 cal. bc) is an unusual test case in Bronze Age Europe with its incomplete definition due to empirical and epistemological difficulties. The idiosyncratic materiality of those small-scale communities is poorly understood because of its unexpected nature. The characteristic evidence is limited to formal deposits and accumulations of secondary residues whose survival was decisively driven by prehistoric social practices. Thus, in the absence of intact activity areas or dwellings, normative burials and representative domestic equipment, alternative lines of enquiry are needed. However, standard interpretative models have proposed mismatching socio-economic accounts or misleading narratives envisioning these societies as regressive and isolated. This updated multi-scalar review covers from the high level of cultural demarcation and territorial representation to the micro-scale stories of human–things relationships. The lifestyles and worldviews in Cogotas I societies entailed the upholding of atavistic habits, a relational cosmology and a strategy of transient durability, which ultimately resulted in their characteristic archaeological invisibility.