tribes in ancient england

1. Tribalism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the Enter Shikari album, see Tribalism (album).
The social structure of a tribe can vary greatly from case to case, but, due to the small size of tribes, it is
always a relatively simple role structure, with few (if any) significant social distinctions between individuals.
The other concept to which the word tribalism frequently refers is the possession of a strong cultural or ethnic
identity that separates one member of a group from the members of another group. This phenomenon is
related to the concept of tribal society in that it is a precondition for members of a tribe to possess a strong
feeling of identity for a true tribal society to form. The distinction between these two definitions for tribalism is an
important one because, while tribal society no longer strictly exists in the western world, tribalism, by this
second definition, is arguably undiminished. People have postulated that the human brain is hard-wired
towards tribalism due to its evolutionary advantages. See Tribalism and evolution below.
Many tribes refer to themselves with their language's word for "people," while referring to other, neighboring
tribes with various epithets. For example, the term "Inuit" translates as "people," but they were known to
the Ojibwe by a name 'Eskimo' translating roughly as "eaters of raw meat."[citation needed] This fact is often cited as
evidence that tribal peoples saw only the members of their own tribe as "people," and denigrated all others as
something less. In fact, this is a tenuous conclusion to draw from the evidence. Many languages refined their
identification as "the true people," or "the real people," dehumanizing the other people or simply considering
them inferior. In this, it is merely evidence of ethnocentrism, a universal cultural characteristic found in all
societies.
[edit]Tribalism and violence
The anthropological debate on warfare among tribes is unsettled. While typically and certainly found
among horticultural tribes, an open question remains whether such warfare is a typical feature of hunter-
gatherer life, or an anomaly found only in certain circumstances, such as scarce resources (as with the Inuit),
or among food producing societies. There is also ambiguous evidence whether the level of violence among
tribal societies is greater or lesser than the levels of violence among civilized societies.
If nothing else, conflict in tribal societies can never achieve the absolute scale of civilized warfare. [citation
needed]
Tribes use forms of subsistence such as horticulture and foraging which, though more efficient, cannot
yield the same number of absolute calories as agriculture.[citation needed] This limits tribal populations significantly,
especially when compared to agricultural populations.[citation needed] When tribal conflict does occur, it results in
few fatalities.[citation needed] Lawrence Keeley argues in War Before Civilization, however, that as apercentage of
their population, tribal violence is much more lethal. Nevertheless, Keeley also admits that the absolute

2. numbers are so low that it is difficult to disentangle warfare from simple homicide, and Keeley's argument does
not ever cite any forager examples, save the anomalous Inuit.[citation needed]
[edit]Tribalism and evolution
Tribalism has a very adaptive effect in human evolution. Humans are social animals, and ill-equipped to live on
their own.[citation needed] Tribalism and ethnocentrism help to keep individuals committed to the group, even when
personal relations may fray.[citation needed] This keeps individuals from wandering off or joining other groups. It also
leads to bullying when a tribal member is unwilling to conform to the politics of the collective.
Socially, divisions between groups fosters specialized interactions with others, based on association: altruism
(positive interactions with unrelated members), kin-selectivity (positive interactions with related members), and
violence (negative interactions). Thus, groups with a strong sense of unity and identity can benefit from kin
selection behavior such as common property and shared resources. The tendency of members to unite against
an outside tribe and the ability to act violently and prejudicially against that outside tribe likely boosted the
chances of survival in genocidal conflicts.
Modern examples of tribal genocide rarely reflect the defining characteristics of tribes existing prior to
the Neolithic Revolution--for example, small population and close-relatedness.
According to a study by Robin Dunbar at the University of Liverpool, primate brain size is determined by social
group size. Dunbar's conclusion was that the human brain can only really understand a maximum of 150
individuals as fully developed, complex people (see Dunbar's number). Malcolm Gladwell expanded on this
conclusion sociologically in his book,The Tipping Point. According to these studies, then, "tribalism" is in some
sense an inescapable fact of human neurology, simply because the human brain is not adapted to working with
large populations. Beyond 150, the human brain must resort to some combination of hierarchical
schemes, stereotypes, and other simplified models in order to understand so many people.
Nevertheless, complex societies (and corporations) rely upon the tribal instincts of their members for their
organization and survival. For example, a representative democracy relies on the ability of a "tribe" of
representatives to organize and deal with the problems of an entire nation.[citation needed] The instincts that these
representatives are using to deal with national problems have been highly developed in the long course of
human evolution on a small tribal scale, and this is the source of both their usefulness and their disutility.
Indeed, much of the political tension in modern societies is the conflict between the desire to organize a nation-
state using the tribal values of egalitarianism and unity and the simple fact that large societies are unavoidably
impersonal and sometimes not amenable to small-society rules.
In complex societies, this tribalistic impulse can also be channelled into more frivolous avenues, manifesting
itself in sports rivalries and other such "fan" affiliations.

3. [edit]"New tribalism"
In the past 50 years, anthropologists have greatly revised the understanding of the tribe. Franz Boas removed
the idea of unilineal cultural evolution from the realm of serious anthropological research as too simplistic,
allowing tribes to be studied in their own right, rather than stepping stones to civilization or "living fossils".
Anthropologists such as Richard Borshay Lee and Marshall Sahlins began publishing studies that showed tribal
life as an easy, safe life, the opposite of the traditional theoretical supposition. In the title to his book, Sahlins
referred to these tribal cultures as "the Original Affluent Society," not for their material wealth, but for their
combination of leisure and lack of want.
This work is for the progression of humanity and the enlightenment of ourselves, such as that advocated
by John Zerzan or Daniel Quinn. These philosophers have led to new tribalistspursuing what Daniel Quinn
dubbed the "New Tribal Revolution". The new tribalists use the term "tribalism" not in its widely thought of
derogatory sense, but to refer to what they see as the defining characteristics of tribal life: namely, an
open, egalitarian, classless and cooperative community. New tribalists insist that this is, in fact, the natural
state of humanity, and proven by two million years of human evolution.
The answer depends on each person's preferences as well as on the particular tribes that are used as a point
of reference - because tribal life itself is not the same for all tribes; the environment where a tribe lives has an
especially important influence.

4. Iberian Peninsula
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Iberia" redirects here. For other uses, see Iberia (disambiguation).
Iberian Peninsula within Europe, delineating the three states found within it, Spain, Portugal, and Andorra.
Positions of the different countries and territories of the Iberian Peninsula.
The Iberian Peninsula (Asturian, Leonese, Mirandese, Spanish, Portuguese and Galician: Península
Ibérica, Catalan:Península Ibèrica, Aragonese and Occitan: Peninsula Iberica, French: Péninsule
Ibérique, Basque: Iberiar Penintsula), sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest
of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states ofSpain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British
Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is the westernmost of the three major southern European peninsulas — the
Iberian, Italian, and Balkan peninsulas. It is bordered on the southeast and east by theMediterranean Sea, and
on the north, west and southwest by the Atlantic Ocean. The Pyrenees form the northeast edge of the

5. peninsula, separating it from the rest of Europe. In the south, it approaches the northern coast of Africa. It is the
second-largest peninsula in Europe, with an area of approximately 580,000 km2 (220,000 sq mi).
[edit]Name
[edit]Greek name
The English word Iberia was adapted from the use of the Ancient Greek word Ιβηρία (Ibēría) by the Greek
geographers under the Roman Empire to refer to what is known today in English as the Iberian Peninsula.[1] At
that time the name did not describe a single political entity or a distinct population of people. [2] Strabo's Iberia
was delineated from Keltikē by the Pyrenees and included the entire land mass south-west (he named it
"west") of there.
The Ancient Greeks discovered the Iberian peninsula by voyaging westward. Hecataeus of Miletus was the first
known to use the term around 500 BC.[3] Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that "it was they
who made the Greeks acquainted with ... Iberia."[4] According to Strabo[5] prior historians used Iberia to mean
the country "this side of the Ἶ βηρος (Ibēros)" as far north as the Rhone river in France but currently they set
the Pyrenees as the limit. Polybius respects that limit[6] but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far
south as Gibraltar, with the Atlantic side having no name. Elsewhere[7] he says that Saguntum is "on the
seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia."
Strabo[8] refers to the Carretanians as people "of the Iberian stock" living in the Pyrenees, who are to be
distinguished from either Celts or Celtiberians.
[edit]Roman names
Main article: Hispania
When the Romans encountered the Greek geographers they used Iberia poetically[clarification needed] and spoke of
the Iberi.[9] First mention was in 200 BC by the poet Quintus Ennius. The Romans had already had independent
experience with the peoples on the peninsula during the long conflict with Carthage. The Roman geographers
and other prose writers from the time of the late Roman Republic called the entire peninsula Hispania.
As they became politically interested in the former territories of Carthage, the Romans came to use Hispania
Citerior and Hispania Ulterior for 'near' and 'far Spain'. Even at that time large sections of it
were Lusitania (Portugal south of Douro river and Extremadura in western Spain), Gallaecia (Northern
Portugal and Galicia in Spain), Celtiberia (central Spain),Baetica (Andalusia), Cantabria (northwest Spain) and
the Vascones (Basques). Strabo says[5] that the Romans use Hispania and Iberia synonymously, and distance
them as near and far. He was living in a time when the peninsula was divided into Roman provinces, of
which Baetia was supervised by the Senate, whereas the others were governed on behalf of the Emperor.

6. Whatever language may have been spoken on the peninsula soon gave way to Latin, except for Basque,
protected by the Pyrenees.
[edit]Etymology
Northeast Iberian script from Huesca.
The Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the Ebro river, Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or
Hibērus in Latin. The association was so well known it was hardly necessary to state; for example, Ibēria was
the country "this side of the Ibērus" in Strabo.Pliny goes so far as to assert that the Greeks had called "the
whole of Spain" Hiberia because of the river Hiberus.[10] The river appears in the Ebro Treaty of 226 BC
between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest at the Ebro. The fullest description of the
treaty, stated in Appian,[11] uses Ibērus. With reference to this border, Polybius[12] states that the "native name"
is Ibēr, apparently the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin -os or -us termination.
The early range of these natives, stated by the geographers and historians to be from southern Spain to
southern France along the Mediterranean coast, is marked by instances of a readable script expressing a yet
unknown language, dubbed 'Iberian'. Whether this was the native name or was given to them by the Greeks for
their residence on the Ebro remains unknown. Credence in Polybius imposes certain limitations on
etymologizing: if the language remains unknown, the meanings of the words, including Iber, must remain
unknown also.
[edit]Geography
Main articles: Geography of Portugal and Geography of Spain
[edit]Overall characteristics

7. An 18th century map of the peninsula depicting various topographical features of the land, as published in Robert
Wilkinson's General Atlas, circa 1794.
Major rivers of the Iberian
Peninsula:Miño/Minho, Duero/Douro, Tajo/Tejo, Guadiana,Guadalquivir, Segura, Júcar/Xúquer, Ebro/Ebre.
The Iberian peninsula extends from the southernmost extremity at Punta de Tarifa (
36°00′15″N 5°36′37″W) to the northernmost extremity at Estaca de Bares Point (
43°47′38″N 7°41′17″W) over a distance between lines of latitude of about 865 km (537 mi) based on a degree
length of 111 km (69 mi) per degree, and from the westernmost extremity at Cabo da Roca (
38°46′51″N 9°29′54″W) to the easternmost extremity at Cap de Creus ( 42°19′09″N 3°19′19″E) over a
distance between lines of longitude at 40° N latitude of about 1,155 km (718 mi) based on an estimated degree
length of about 90 km (56 mi) for that latitude. The irregular, roughly octagonal shape of the peninsula
contained within this spherical quadrangle was compared to an ox-hide by the geographer, Strabo.[13]
Approximately ¾ of the octagon is the Meseta Central, a low and rolling plateau of up to several hundred
metres in altitude.[14] It is located roughly in the centre, staggered slightly to the east and tilted slightly toward
the west (the conventional centre of the Iberian Peninsula has long been considered to be Getafe just south
of Madrid). It is ringed by mountains and contains the sources of most of the rivers, which find their way
through gaps in the mountain barriers on all sides.