Publisher's Synopsis
Given the need for systematic research into the prehistory of the southwest region of Andalucìa in the south of Spain, a comprehensive research proposal has been designed, based on the concept of initial class societies. In this historical dynamic, the south of the Iberian Peninsula, the southwest and the province of Huelva, prove to be the ideal spatial context, as they allow, for the first time, an evaluation of the formation mechanisms of the first stable asymmetric forms of organization by studying the mining-metallurgical activity and the social organization that came with it. The sequential development of this work begins with the definition of its general objectives, in Chapter II, from an archaeometric and archaeometallurgical pointof view, supported by the application of metallographic studies within a spatial, chronological and contextual framework and on very specific evidence - metal products and remains - specified in Chapter III. In Chapter IV the conceptual definitionsof metallurgy, archaeometallurgy and metallography are discussed, as well as the role played in the development of our discipline by the specific studies here presented and whose application is evaluated in Chapter V, both in the different areas of the specific peninsular geography and, particularly, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. In Chapter VI, through the so-called "Huelva case", the main features of the archaeological practice and its scientific production in the southwest are evaluated. Chapter VII presents the compositional and metallographic analyses. The results of the tests carried out are given in Chapter VIII. Chapter IX contains a reflection on the assessment of the metallurgical activity in the third millennium B.C.E. as regards the definition of itsmodel of historical interpretation.
