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119
XI/1/2020
INTERDISCIPLINARIA ARCHAEOLOGICA
NATURAL SCIENCES IN ARCHAEOLOGY
homepage: http://www.iansa.eu
Book reviews
Volume XI ● Issue 1/2020 ● Pages 119–120
Big Men or Chiefs? Rondel Builders of
Neolithic Europe
Jaroslav Řídký, Petr Květina, Petr Limburský,
Markéta Končelová, Pavel Burgert, Radka
Šumberová.
Oxbow Books, Oxford (2018), 208 pp.,
ISBN 9781789250268.
rondels and the socio-political strategies
in the Neolithic. Each subsequent chapter
gradually expands the point of view and
complements the information obtained by
the reader in previous chapters.
Without more ado, let’s look at the
structure of the book in more detail.
The frst chapter by Jaroslav Řídký
defnes both the temporal and spatial axis
of interest of the book’s authors. It presents
the focal characteristics of the issue, as the
authors perceive it, but also the way the
authors chose to approach the issue and
present it to the reader.
In the second chapter, Petr Květina
and Jaroslav Řídký describe various
typologies of archaic societies from the
anthropological point of view; not least of
which, the ways in which the individual
types of archaic society manifest themselves
in their material culture: especially in how
this is refected in the social and political
organization of these archaic societies.
This anthropological framework should
serve as a basis for comparison with the
Neolithic archaeological record, while, at
the same time, attempt to reveal the social
organization of these Neolithic societies.
With the third chapter Jaroslav Řídký
acquaints the reader with current theories
concerning the origin, spread and function
of the rondels themselves.
Building on this, in the next chapter,
Jaroslav Řídký introduces the reader
to a basic database that contains more
than 150 rondels with a wide range of
described attributes, providing much data
for the interpretation of rondels and related
phenomena. The chapter also includes a
summary of the feld methodology used in
the various cases and what kind of data this
methodology is able to provide.
In the ffth chapter, Jaroslav Řídký,
Markéta Končelová, Radka Šumberová
and Pavel Burgert present several selected
excavated rondels in central Europe – and
illustrate how the defned indicators of social
and power strategies manifest themselves in
such settlements with rondels.
The next chapter by Jaroslav Řídký
introduces the types of rondels that
appear in central Europe; the chapter
also summarizes the theories about their
original appearance. For example, the
design of wooden structures within the
space defned by ditches (from individual
palisades to more complex roofed buildings
with clay-stained walls) is discussed.
Furthermore, the question of the presence
of the bank lining the ditches is discussed.
In the past there were many opinions among
researchers about its existence, or its form
and location. The authors give several
examples of excavations from recent years,
where the excavation methods used allowed
this question to be solved in more detail:
the results consistently point to the bank’s
existence in close proximity to the ditches,
perhaps on their outer side. Thanks to the
extensive database and its analysis, we can
learn about the links between certain visual
properties (number of entrances,
etc
.) and
their size, or the relationship of individual
types of rondels to particular regions. The
chapter also introduces the methodology of
the rondels’ construction and the theory of
their duration. The answer to the question
of the rondels’ purpose is also attempted, as
well as to reveal the image of the society
that built the rondels.
The following chapter, written by
Petr Limburský, Jaroslav Řídký, Radka
Šumberová and Markéta Končelová,
focuses on the radiocarbon dating of
rondels, its limits and problems, as well
as the information it gives us about them.
We learn that not only is this method not
yet able to solve the question of the oldest
rondels, but also, for example, that the
ditches of the western group of rondels
began to fll earlier than the rondels of the
eastern group, a phenomenon that is still
waiting for a convincing explanation.
With the eighth chapter, by Jaroslav
Řídký, Pavel Burgert and Markéta
Končelová, the reader will learn about the
broader context of rondels in the particular
regions where they occur. Discussed here
are the defnitions of micro-regions, the
settlement network, the appearance of
settlements, burials, and other facts, within
which there may be traces that could reveal
Since the 1960s, circular ditched enclosures,
most commonly referred to as rondels, have
engaged considerable research interest,
both for their apparent monumental
character and for the impact they could
have on our knowledge of Neolithic society
and its spiritual and political life.
Big Man or Chiefs? Rondel Builders
of Neolithic Europe
is a monograph of six
authors from the Institute of Archaeology of
the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. The
team of authors was led by Jaroslav Řídký
and the book published by Oxbow books
(Oxford and Philadelphia) in 2018. The
main theme of the book is the sociopolitical
strategies of Neolithic societies in the
frst half of the 5
th
millennium BC and the
possibility of interpreting them based on
archaeological sources – mainly through
these circular ditched enclosures or rondels.
The book is divided into ten chapters,
which gradually guide the reader through
many aspects of the phenomenon of
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IANSA 2020 ● XI/1 ● 119–120
Book Reviews
120
the social and power organization of the
Neolithic society in particular regions.
In the ninth chapter, Jaroslav Řídký,
Markéta Končelová, Pavel Burgert and
Radka Šumberová focus in detail on the
region where the Stroke-ornamented
ware culture occurs, and in particular on
Bohemia – the place of work and the main
area of interest of the book’s authors.
Finally, in the last chapter (chap. 10),
Jaroslav Řídký and Petr Květina summarize
the previous parts of the monograph and,
based on this, try to answer the question
stated in the title of the book. They also
describe the possibilities and limits of
archaeological sources in revealing the
shape of Neolithic society.
The authors of the book, based on
the described characteristics, and after
evaluating all possible explanations,
believe that rondels were most likely to be
used for religious or ritual purposes,
after
all, faith and religion are most often the
“driving force” of building monumental
structures.
We also see that the role of religion in
archaic society is not autotelic, and that
it has implications for the more profane
aspects of society, such as economics,
politics, and the general order.
So how does this refect on Neolithic
society and how does it relate to the answer
to the question the authors themselves
asked in the title of the book? Were the
rondel builders Big Men or Chiefs?
If the answer should be one of the
options mentioned in the question, then
the archaeological record would be
quite contradictory. While monumental
rondels could be taken as an argument for
chiefdoms, other contemporary aspects of
material culture are opposed to this, such
as the absence of exceptional burials for
these chiefs, the distribution of exotic items
within the settlement network, and so on.
The authors have therefore decided to
follow another way, an alternative that
anthropology ofers them. They advocate
the idea that society was not stratifed
vertically but horizontally. The society
could have been made up of exogamous
clans controlled by a council of elders or
clan gatherings. Clans were stratifed among
themselves, not on the basis of subsistence
or politics, but within the religious feld.
The most powerful clans had the right to
perform the rituals necessary to keep their
world running.
Compared to the previous period, this
society has manifested itself in many new
phenomena that can be observed in their
material culture: new forms of houses,
changes of settlement patterns (grouping
settlements to larger agglomerations),
new patterns in the distribution of stone
raw materials, and new complex styles of
ceramics decoration. The most signifcant
phenomenon was the construction of
rondels: which could refect the unequal
status of individual clans, and could also
help to shape and defne new social units
that did not exist before.
In this review it has been possible to
mention only a small part of the sub-themes
and issues that the book deals with; this
review is not meant to be a complete list or
analysis of the problems discussed.
Overall, the book
Big Man or Chiefs?
Rondel Builders of Neolithic Europe
has
been written very clearly
,
acquainting the
readers with the theoretical foundations on
which the authors have built their book.
Furthermore, the book discusses all aspects
of the rondel phenomenon in a broad scope,
with each following chapter bringing new
additional data for use by the authors in
their conclusions. Then these conclusions
are confronted with their theoretical
fundamentals and ultimately with the
possibilities for their interpretation. The
authors approach the interpretation of
archaeological sources with the highest
responsibility and they stick to the space
delimited by the data. The reviewed
book is thus a valuable submission to our
discussion of the phenomenon of Neolithic
rondels as well as the structure of Neolithic
society as a whole.
Jakub Novotný