Iron Age societies at work. Towns, kinship and territory in historical analogy

Abstract

This chapter summarize some debates on Iron Age societal structures and discusses the different levels of aggregation of Late Iron Age societies and their structuring through assemblies and central places. It examines the historical example of the medieval “town and land” communities—administrative entities composed by different kinship groups—as a possible analogy that can help improve our understanding of the interconnections between kinship groups, towns and the rural world. The traditional notion of a rather homogeneous “Celtic” society characterized as a “triangle” with elites at the top of the social pyramid has been questioned, with new models emphasizing the diversity of Iron Age societies and the variations that existed across time and space. Two key issues that underlie—implicitly or explicitly—many discussions on Iron Age societies are the scale of analysis and the sources of analogies. The best evidence for tracing kinship relationships and lineages in the Iron Age comes from the cemeteries.