An approach to the social organisation of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age polynuclear settlements in south-eastern Iberia (9th-6th centuries BCE)

The aim of this article is to present a new proposal concerning the social structure of south-eastern Iberian communities during the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. Based on the analysis of settlement patterns and the domestic spatial organisation in a series of enclaves, such as El Castellar de Librilla (Murcia), La Pena Negra (Alacant), La Sierra de Santa Ana (Murcia) and El Tossal del Morqui (Valencia), we describe an inorganic and decentralised population pattern, which can be explained by a social organisation based on bilateral kinship and a heterarchical political structure. This new proposal differs from the models of gentile societies based on patron-client relationships, which have been the main way of understanding Iberian Iron Age societies in recent years.