Resumen de Emergence of the Ideology of the Warrior in the Western Mediterranean during the second Half of the fourth MIllennium BC
It has long been a tradition, when sketching a broad picture of Neolithic Europe, to date one of the major historical turning points to the transition between the megalithic period of the Late Neolithic I (the SOM-Horgen-Wartberg horizon) and the beaker cultures of the Late Neolithic II (Corded Ware and Bell Beaker). According to this theory, the emergence of the Corded Ware culture at the beginning of the third millennium,. followed a few centuries later in other areas by the Bell Beaker culture, would coincide with the beginning of a new ideology allowing a greater role to the individual and focused on the warrior figure, as suggested by the symbolic value granted to the weapons (dagger, axe and bow). And yet, it is often overlooked that this pattern is relevant only for part of Europe. In other regions, particularly the area encompassing the North Pontic steppes and the fore-Caucasus region and several areas of the western Mediterranean, the ideology of the warrior is strongly established as early as the second half of the fourth millennium BC. This article will briefly examine the data available for the estern Mediterranean. The upheavals that have affected the concerned areas (Italy, Iberian Peninsula and South of France) during the 3400-3000 BC chronological horizon (development of metallurgy, emergence of new types of copper or flint weapons, warrior graves, and anthropomorphic steles) suggest the existence of a homogeneous movement of diffusion expressing differently according to the type and degree of the local reactions. Concerning the origins of this movement, the recent available data tend to confirm the old theory of the steppe influences. It is remarkable indeed that the bundle of traits which characterize the ideological revolution in the western Mediterranean at the end of the fourth millennium and those present in the North Pontic area and the North Caucasus foothill before 3500 BC, especially in the Maikop culture, display a similar configuration
