Peasant economies in Northwestern Iberia: from Iron Age egalitarianism to Roman imperial dominion

The aim of this paper is to delve deeper into the interpretation of the archaeological record in Northwestern Iberia on the basis of the conceptualisation of the peasantry in classical sociological theory from a diachronic perspective. The Iron Age agrarian castro societies are compared with Roman rural provincial society for the purpose of presenting two diametrically opposed models. The key to this distinction is the definition of social inequality and the existence or not of social relations of exploitation. Two forms of agrarian-based social organization are analysed. On the one hand, the Iron Age segmentary societies. On the other, the Roman provincial society based on the exploitation of the peasantry. These are two forms of rurality articulated on two very different forms of organization of production. Our interpretations are supported by regional studies of the Asturian and Galician area (Baixo Miño basin, El Bierzo, Northwestern Zamora-Eastern Tràs-os-Montes). Iron Age agrarian communities actively resisted social hierarchy, a tendency that was latent in both the possibilities of intensifying their production system and the external pressure from Mediterranean areas and/or from the Peninsula’s interior. Provincial society, with its class inequalities, was based on the peasantry’s dependence on dominant groups. Two possibilities are available in the light of current evident: direct exploitation through structural or productive clientelae or the intermediation of the power structure of the civitas —as a tool at the service of imperial taxation— with forms of political subordination marked by personal patronage.