Europe, as Cunliffe (Reference Cunliffe2008) has observed, is a peninsula or subcontinent of the larger Eurasian landmass, and the Iberian Peninsula constitutes its ‘far west’. This latter region has not figured prominently in general syntheses of later European prehistory, and this is particularly unfortunate as it represents a privileged vantage point from which to explore cultural interactions at the crossroads of Mediterranean, continental and Atlantic influences. Although there have been some remarkable recent overviews of specific periods or aspects of late prehistoric and protohistoric Iberia (e.g. Gracia Alonso Reference Gracia Alonso2008; Berrocal et al. Reference Berrocal, García Sanjuán and Gilman2013), the volume under review constitutes the first general synthesis in English (simultaneously published in Spanish) to cover the whole timespan from the earliest Neolithic to the Roman conquest. It was launched on the occasion of the XVII World Congress of the UISPP (Union Internationale des Sciences Préhistoriques et Protohistoriques), held at Burgos from 1–7 September 2014, under the patronage of the Fundación Atapuerca, the organisation concerned with research at the well-known nearby Palaeolithic site of Atapuerca. The general editor of the volume, Martín Almagro-Gorbea, has been one of the leading scholars of Iberian prehistory in recent decades, with a particular focus on Late Bronze and Iron Age communities.
The book is structured into three main sections, each containing several contributions by different authors: 1) ‘Neolithic and Chalcolithic: towards complex societies’; 2) ‘Bronze Age: the complex societies’; 3) ‘Iron Age: the final process to urban life’. The volume is extensively illustrated and the text—despite some minor errors—is logically organised and well written.
Following the editor's introduction, the first section starts with a paper by Martí and Juan-Cabanilles on the early Neolithic, commencing in the sixth millennium BC in the Mediterranean areas of the Iberian Peninsula. Rojo, meanwhile, offers an overview of the Neolithic in central and northern Iberia, including the emergence of funerary monumentality in the form of megaliths. Mediterranean Iberia in the fourth and third millennia BC is analysed by Bernabeu and Orozco, who highlight the trend towards increasing social complexity. This process is even more visible in southern Iberia, as demonstrated by Nocete. Between the fourth and third millennia BC, this region witnessed the emergence of the first hierarchical territorial systems, with key sites such as Los Millares, Marroquíes and, above all, the mega-centre of Valencina, extending to over 300ha in size. Despite the importance of settlements such as Zambujal and Vila Nova de Sao Pedro on the Lisbon peninsula, Delibes shows in his paper on the Chalcolithic that in most of central and Atlantic Iberia there were no macro-communities comparable to the large population centres of the south. The first section concludes with a contribution by Garrido on Bell-Beakers in Iberia, one of the key European regions for the study of this phenomenon.
The volume's second thematic block starts with a diachronic study by Lull, Micó, Rihuete and Risch on the Bronze Age in Mediterranean Iberia. Here, a particularly important development is the Argaric culture of the south-east, interpreted as an early state formation with marked social inequalities. The following paper, authored by the same group of scholars, offers an overview of the archaeology of the Balearic Islands from the Neolithic to the start of the Roman period, including the characteristic Iron Age talaiots, or megalithic towers. The analysis of the Bronze Age is completed by Ruiz-Gálvez's paper, ‘The Atlantic Iberia: a threshold between east and west’, which documents the rich metallurgical tradition of Atlantic Europe.
The final, and largest, section of the volume is devoted to the first millennium BC, a period for which we have the first written accounts of the Iberian Peninsula. In particular, the naming of distinct groups of peoples in the Greek and Roman sources has led to a long-established tradition in Spanish Iron Age archaeology whereby this period is studied on the basis of different ‘ethnic’ areas (see discussion in García Fernández & Fernández-Götz Reference García Fernández and Fernández-Götz2010). The present volume mostly follows this controversial approach, starting with a paper by Almagro-Gorbea on the Lusitanians of the western regions. The difficult question of urnfields in Iberia is addressed by Ruiz Zapatero; it would, however, have probably been more accurate to have placed his contribution in the Bronze Age section. In an extensive article, Lorrio summarises information concerning the ‘Celtic’ peoples of the Iberian Peninsula (including groups such as the Celtiberians, Vettones, Vaccaei and Cantabri). The southern Iron Age populations are described by Torres in his paper on Tartessos and Turdetania, an area with a long urban tradition and in which Phoenician influence played a fundamental role. Similarly, Almagro-Gorbea examines the effects of contact with Mediterranean cultures on the urbanisation and material culture of the Iberian peoples of eastern Iberia. Last but not least, the same author deals with the question of the Vascones, a highly controversial research topic given the present-day political implications in relation to the Basque Country. The book ends with an extensive bibliography of around 35 pages.
In summary, this is a remarkable volume that makes the late prehistory of the Iberian Peninsula accessible to a wide international readership. The abundant colour figures, in particular, help to illustrate the archaeology of the far west of Europe, making it closer than ever before. Highly recommended.
