Big Men or Chiefs?

If there is a feature of the Central European Neolithic period that deserves increased attention of researchers and all those with interest in prehistory, it is circular architecture of the dimensions of many tens of metres, from which only negative imprints of the ditches and imprints of posts in the form of postholes or narrow trenches are preserved to this day. The reason is that it offers quite a different insight into the skills and interpersonal relationships of ancient societies that lived in Europe in the first half of the fifth millennium BC. The authors of the book ask whether these structures, most often termed rondels, can be regarded as architecture of power' the first clear evidence of thought-out power strategies of some individuals or their groups. Using anthropological terms were they skilful and exceptional entrepreneurs with an ad hoc status (such as Big Men) living in egalitarian/segmented communities, or rather powerful Chiefs living in rank and hereditary based societies/chiefdoms? In the introduction, the book points out the difficulties that necessarily arise when cultural (social) anthropology and archaeology join forces in an attempt to generalise information about kinship and socio-political relationships, in an effort to project them into the world of archaic societies that are only known from material culture in the archaeological record. After summing up various hypotheses, the authors use selected sites, results and often only recently processed terrain research projects to summarise more information about the settlements and burials in order to present the important period in which an attempt at accumulation of power took place, perhaps not the first but definitely not the last in European prehistory. Besides other methods used in archaeology to evaluate the archaeological record, the book devotes an important chapter to the radiocarbon dating method, which may with a critical assessment of the outcomes of dating of carefully selected samples bring fundamental information not only about dating itself but also about the limits of archaeological sources. Welcome to the world of rondel builders, from whom we are separated by nearly 280 generations of people!
About the Author: Petr Květina completed his postgraduate study at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague in 2006. He specialises in the Neolithic, seeking an interconnection of archaeology and cultural (social) anthropology and focusing above all on intra-site analyses of Neolithic settlements in the temperate zone of Europe.
About the Author: Jaroslav Řídký, the principal author of the book, studied archaeology and ethnology at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague, where he completed his Ph.D. in 2008. Since his studies, he has focused above all on the Neolithic, and particularly on essential settlement finds from the first half of the fifth millennium BC in Central Europe.
About the Author: Petr Limburský is a Charles University graduate with degrees from the Department of Nuclear Physics and the Department of Prehistory and Early History. He is mainly concerned with the Late Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age and the application non-intuitive methods in archaeology.
About the Author: Markéta Končelová has devoted herself to the Neolithic since her studies at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague (Ph.D. in 2013). She focuses on the settlement structures of regions, settlement areas and residential structures of the second half of the sixth millennium and the first half of the fifth millennium BC.
About the Author: Pavel Burgert received his Ph.D. at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague in 2017. He focuses on the long-distance distribution of Neolithic stone materials, its mechanism and ideological context. In the long term, he has been evaluating large-area surveys from the Neolithic.