The author analyses the analogies and differences in the cultural developments of certain regions of the central Mediterranean in the period 3500–2500 bc. Radiocarbon dates, although still insufficient in number, help in building a system of relative chronologies, which are still in the course of being defined. In particular, certain transformations are examined, such as the development of metal working and changes in ritual funerary practices, as well as other socio-ideological aspects. Moreover, the author considers the problem of the role played by contacts with the wider world in these transformation.

This article attempts, as an experiment, to reconstruct gender ideology and social inequality in prehistoric Italy through an analysis of symbols, particularly depictions of people (e.g. figures distinguished as male or female by representations of daggers or breasts), using theoretical notions of inequality and coalition. After a theoretical introduction the paper traces the evolution of an ideology of male potency from peripheral middle-Neolithic hunting cults (with a balanced male/female gender ideology and formal ritualism) through an Eneolithic and Bronze-Age system of gender stratification (with male prestige competition), and finally into the Iron-Age ideology of military aristocracy (with a gender ideology of male hierarchy that encompassed a female hierarchy, functioning to exclude unequal classes).

There are two main periods of agrarian improvement in the Iberian peninsula, the Copper Age/Bronze Age transition and the late Bronze Age/Iron Age transition, associated with the use of the plough, traction, and methods of increasing soil fertility, such as fertilising and the growing of legumes. Both were related to changes in women's inheritance. Improvements in agrarian technology appeared first in south-eastern Spain and their consequences are visible in the grave goods of the Argaric tombs. From the late Bronze Age on, the rest of the peninsula underwent similar changes. At the same time precious metals changed their meaning: from being a gift to becoming a commodity and therefore they were increasingly scarce in graves. Although there is evidence of the exchange of women during the Iron Age, they were high-ranking women, such as those of the El Carpio and Aliseda tombs, who transmitted political rights to their descendants. Yet evidence from archaeology, epigraphy, and Roman chroniclers point to the maintenance of a primitive agriculture and matrilineal practices in some parts of northern Spain until the Roman conquest.

The author summarises recent research undertaken at Freiburg University on settlement in south-western Germany during the Roman and Merovingian periods. Following the Germanic conquest of the Agri decumates and the retreat of the Roman limes to the Rhine and Danube (AD 260), hillfort settlements appeared. They were the pinnacle of Alamannic settlement hierarchy, forming the counterpoint to the late Roman castellae along the Rhein, which were also garrisoned by Alamanni warriors. New research, however, suggests an otherwise strong continuity of the Roman settlement pattern (particularly the pattern established by villae rusticae), and a major shift only occurred around AD 500 when the hilltop settlements disappeared and village-like settlements replaced scattered farmsteads.

This paper looks at conventional views of Dark-Age towns: abandoned or underpopulated and lacking economic vitality. Archaeological and textual evidence is used to suggest that numerous urban churches were required to hold a large population, that so many were outside the town walls because inside was heavily built up. The paper suggests archaeology can often accurately document the demise of Roman urban structures, but survival and upkeep leaves little archaeological record, and this ‘negative’ evidence requires especially careful evaluation.

It suggests that archaeologists regularly assume that towns cannot exist without trade, that towns must provide ‘functions’ to the countryside to exist. Moses Finley's view of the ancient economy is followed, and towns are seen as fuelled by the widespread exploitation of peasants by secular nobility and the Church. Much of that rural wealth was consumed in urban centres, indeed big monasteries formed the cores of many of our present towns.

The author argues in this article that the Viking period marks the transition from a gift-giving economy in Scandinavia to a monetised one. Vikings were not merchants, for their expeditions aimed at gaining the silver necessary to maintain power and prestige at home rather than obtaining saleable merchandise. Giving and receiving was appropriate between friends and dependants, but strangers and enemies with whom there were no social ties or obligations might be treated mercilessly. Therefore Vikings had no qualms about simply taking what they wanted when abroad.

The desire of kings to monopolise exotic goods led them to found trading centres such as Ribe and Hedeby, and the minting of coins at such sites was undertaken by kings to legitimise and strengthen their royal authority. The process of exchange at trading sites led to an economic valuation of goods, and a neutralisation, commercialisation, and monetisation of transactions, while kings increased the importance of their coinage by demanding payments of fines and taxes in it.