The great site of Valencina de la Concepción, near Seville in the lower Guadalquivir valley of southwest Spain, is presented in the context of debate about the nature of Copper Age society in southern Iberia as a whole. Many aspects of the layout, use, character and development of Valencina remain unclear, just as there are major unresolved questions about the kind of society represented there and in southern Iberia, from the late fourth to the late third millennium cal BC. This paper discusses 178 radiocarbon dates, from 17 excavated sectors within the c. 450 ha site, making it the best dated in later Iberian prehistory as a whole. Dates are modelled in a Bayesian statistical framework. The resulting formal date estimates provide the basis for both a new epistemological approach to the site and a much more detailed narrative of its development than previously available. Beginning in the 32nd century cal BC, a long-lasting tradition of simple, mainly collective and often successive burial was established at the site. Mud-vaulted tholoi appear to belong to the 29th or 28th centuries cal BC; large stone-vaulted tholoi such as La Pastora appear to date later in the sequence. There is plenty of evidence for a wide range of other activity, but no clear sign of permanent, large-scale residence or public buildings or spaces. Results in general support a model of increasingly competitive but ultimately unstable social relations, through various phases of emergence, social competition, display and hierarchisation, and eventual decline, over a period of c. 900 years.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s10963-018-9114-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Taking as a point of departure the in-depth analysis and description of an exceptional discovery, consisting of a large hammered gold sheet decorated with embossed motifs from the well-known Chalcolithic settlement of Valencina de la Concepción (Seville, Spain), this article presents a general appraisal of the social and ideological role of gold in Copper Age Iberia. The information available for this find, including both its context and its inherent characteristics, opens up new perspectives for research into the technology, use, sociology and symbolism of gold during this time period. We describe and analyse this unique item in detail, including the characterization of the raw material used and the manufacturing process (via SEM-BSE and LA-ICP-MS), as well as an extensive reconstruction of the graphic motifs that are represented, by using digital imaging processing techniques (RTI). We compare this find with the data currently available for the (approximately) 100 Chalcolithic golden artefacts (or fragments of artefacts) found in Iberia to date. Finally, we present an appraisal of the social and ideological framework in which gold was used in Copper Age Iberia, discussing its relevance in aspects such as the dynamics of social complexity, worldviews or artistic creations.

This paper presents the results obtained from a review of the archaeological record available for the prehistoric site of Valencina de la Concepción (Seville, Spain), one of the most important settlements of SW Iberia in the 3 rd and 2 nd millennia BC. Two main variables, namely demography and metallurgical production, are examined in the light of both conventional and spatial statistical methods (with particular emphasis on significance testing) with the aim of assessing the wider issue of social complexity. Among the various conclusions emerging from this empirical study, two stand out. Firstly, neither the correlation between the total extension of the settlement and the complexity of its internal organisation, nor the spatial delimitation between domestic/productive and funerary practices is as straightforward as previously claimed. Secondly, no simple, clear-cut statistical patterns are found in the spatial distribution of human remains or metal objects. These conclusions provide the basis for a critique of currently held interpretations of Valencina de la Concepción as the political centre of an early state extending across the lower Guadalquivir valley. RESUMEN

Las estelas del Suroeste en el valle del

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