What Ceramics hide: Continuity and Social Change in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in the Las Cogotas Hillfort (Cardeñosa, Ávila)

Abstract

This paper presents some reflections on ceramic production carried out in the Las Cogotas hillfort (Cardeñosa, Ávila) during the passage from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. It has been possible to identify a close relationship between the ceramic assemblages of Cogotas I and Cogotas II using ceramics as a revealing element for the interpretation of past communities, able to supply the presumed shortcomings of the record,. The clear identification in this site of technological continuity and changes adopted in the pottery savoir faire evinces, among other things, the absence of intermediate phases and the coexistence of vertical and horizontal learning styles. The paper presents thus, a strong evidence of ontological complexity in the Meseta within a period usually considered as transitional.