Download or read book Social Complexity in Early Medieval Rural Communities written by Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo and published by Archaeopress Archaeology. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aim of this book is to discuss the theoretical challenges posed by the study of social inequality and social complexity in early medieval peasant communities in North-western Iberia. Traditional approaches have defined these communities as poor, simple and even nomadic, in the framework of a self-sufficient economy that prioritised animal husbandry over agriculture. This picture has radically changed over the last couple of decades as a result of important research on the archaeology of peasantry and the critical analysis of ninthand tenth-century documentary evidence that show the complexity of these rural societies. These new records are discussed in the light of a new research agenda centred on the analysis of the emergence of villages, the formation of local elites, the creation of socio-political networks and the role of identities in the legitimation of local inequalities.