Who Needs Remote Control? : Social Diversity in the Early Nucleation of Northern Italy

In this paper I offer an overview of different trajectories of settlement nucleation and social complexity in the regions south of the Alps during late prehistory. Using cross-cultural studies and theoretical alternatives to hierarchical models, it is possible to reassess the regional developments of urban sites and social groups, highlighting cycles of urbanization and de-urbanization, as well as a surprising variability in economic and socio-political experiments. Cultural anthropology and comparative archaeology can provide conceptual tools – including collective actions, heterarchy, egalitarianism, anarchy – and material examples able to enhance our comprehension of multi-scalar phenomena, avoiding unilinear and reductionist views of the past.