This book is the first in a series of collective volumes devoted to studying pre-industrial peasantries in the Iberian Peninsula and other European spaces from History and Social Archaeology. This theme experienced a major boom throughout the twentieth century but has progressively declined in recent decades within the theoretical renewal that characterized the postmodern turn and the fall of the Iron Curtain. However, the emergence of a new rural and peasant archaeology, increasing attention to cultural landscapes, the renewal of European social history and the profound consequences of the 2007-2008 financial crisis have created the conditions to question the validity of this topic, as well as to analyze the new theoretical and methodological approaches being used.