What is a city? A contribution to its definition from the Prehistory

Abstract

Cities have been associated with societies where exploitation and state are present: the urban and rural work specialization is linked to social dissymmetries. However, the specialization (division of tasks) and the cities do not presuppose the exploitation of a group on other. The division of tasks in body production, biological reproduction of our specie, is sexual and only women can carry it out. If we spect reciprocity that compensates that feminine work, also we can spect compensations in other specialized projects. The city is a base sedentary settlement community that does not produce all the food that needs, it is greater that the rural communities which produces food, and has places of encounter. And it can exist in societies based on reciprocity. The known cities by written sources are part of exploitative and patriarchal societies, but the societies wihtout writing of prehistory, 99% of the human history, only can be archaeologicaly documented. In Prehistory we can find cases where equation specialization-city-state-exploitation does not fit. A case of study, on course, is the investigation of the horizon of 5,000 years ago in the Iberian Southeast.