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Settlement plan, stratigraphic section, habitation structures, and view of rock cut burial no. 3 of Lugarico Viejo, prov. Almería, dated between c. 22oo BC and 2o4o BC.
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The time around 22oo BC was marked in the Iberian Peninsula, and particularly in its southern regions, by profound social, political, and ideological changes. A substantial number of 14C dates confirms that most, if not all, of the Chalcolithic fortified settlements, as well as the Late Neolithic–Chalcolithic monumental ditched enclosures, had been...
Citations
... These behaviours and the social meaning of the reuse of burial spaces have been observed in other tombs in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula, in which individual tombs were integrated from the end of the third millennium BC, such as Las Canteras (Hurtado & Amores, 1984), Monte Velha I (Monge Soares, 2008;Silva, Ferreira, & Cunha, 2008), Centirã 2 , Cardim 6 (Valera et al., 2019), Perdigões 4 (Valera, 2020), among others. All of this supports the permanence of megalithism as a form of architectural monumentality after the 4.2 ky BP event, despite the social transformations and the cultural collapse of the Chalcolithic societies (Blanco-González, Lillios, López-Sáez, & Drake, 2018;Lull, Micó, Rihuete, & Risch, 2015;Valera, 2015). ...
This study analyses the funerary activity of small collective tombs with a limited number of individuals in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula during the Copper Age. These small burial spaces are one of the most frequent funerary manifestations and one of the most common forms of megalithic monumentality in the complex societies of this geographical area. The necropolis of La Orden-Seminario is put forward as a detailed case study, applying a multi-method approach that integrates the interrelated analysis of architecture, stratigraphy, funerary deposits, bioanthropological indicators, and chronological sequences. The research makes it possible to identify the overarching features that characterise these collective funerary activity: (a) the architectural and functional similarity between the hypogea and tholoi; (b) the periodic remodelling and reorganisation of the burial spaces; (c) the formation of superimposed funerary levels articulated in various phases; (d) the short periods of time in each level, with a concentration of 1–5 generations; (e) the coexistence of primary and secondary funerary deposits; (f) the low minimum number of individuals and the non-existence of dissymmetric practices according to sex and/or age; (g) the uniformity of the grave goods, the fragmentation of the objects, and the deposition of offerings; and (h) reuse during the Early Bronze Age.
... El análisis pormenorizado de esta información muestra que las pesas de telar oblongo-rectangulares de 4 perforaciones o del Tipo 1 se constatan en un buen número de contextos datados mayoritariamente entre c. 2200/2150 cal ac y c. 1800 cal ac, pudiendo perdurar algo más en algunas zonas septentrionales, como la Lloma de Betxí. En concreto, se trata de 11 contextos primarios datados tanto del ámbito argárico −Lugarico Viejo (Lull et al., 2015a); Caramoro i, en Elche, Alicante (Jover et al., 2020); Cabezo Pardo, en Granja de Rocamora-San Isidro, Alicante (López Padilla, 2014); y Laderas del Castillo, en Callosa de Segura, Alicante− como del Bronce Valenciano −Terlinques, en Villena, Alicante (Jover et al., 2014); Barranco Tuerto, en Villena, Alicante (Jover y López, 2005); Cerro de la Escoba, en Villena, Alicante (Cabezas, 2015); y Lloma de Betxí, en Paterna, Valencia (De Pedro, 1998;De Pedro et al., 2015)−, y del Bronce en La Mancha y altiplanos −Cerro de El Cuchillo 3 , en Almansa, Albacete, y Gorgociles del Escabezado ii, en Jumilla, Murcia (Hernández Carrión et al., 2021)−. Entre ellos cabe destacar los contextos datados reflejando abandonos como consecuencia de eventos de incendio en la Casa a de Lugarico Viejo, el Espacio a de Caramoro i, la Habitación 1 de la Lloma de Betxí, el espacio interior del Sondeo 3 del Cabezo de la Escoba, la uh 8 de Gorgociles del Escabezado ii, el Departamento viii del Cerro de El Cuchillo y el Complejo Estructural n de Laderas del Castillo, en los que se documentaron concentraciones de pesas de telar del Tipo 1 que permiten inferir áreas de actividad textil, tanto de telares como de espacios de almacenamiento (cf. ...
... Fig. 7). Este tipo de pesas de telar también se ha constatado en yacimientos con fases datadas −o monofásicos− como Serra Grossa (Llobregat, 1969), Mas de Menente y La Bastida de Totana en su Fase i (Lull et al., 2015a). Desconocemos contextos primarios datados con este tipo de pesas de telar en fechas posteriores a c. 1750 cal ac. ...
... Algo similar podríamos apuntar sobre la concentración de pesas de telar documentada en los niveles más antiguos del yacimiento argárico de Tabayá, asociadas a cerámicas decoradas muy similares a las de Lugarico Viejo, formada por pesas del Tipo 1 −Subtipos 1a y 1b−, presentando un peso relativamente menor próximo a los 1200 g (López Mira, 2009: 147, n. 7;Hernández Pérez et al., 2021). No obstante, en los niveles fundacionales de yacimientos, como La Bastida (Lull et al., 2015a) o Terlinques, ya están presentes durante este momento las pesas de telar de este tipo de gran tamaño y peso, llegando a alcanzar los 2000 g. ...
This article aims to demonstrate the importance, as a chronological indicator, of one of the objects of the Bronze Age archaeological record in the south-eastern quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula that has not been considered until now: loom weights. From the analysis of their typological seriation, duly concatenated with the contextual information on their appearance in habitat spaces and with the chronostratigraphic data based on absolute dates associated from Argaric, Valencian Bronze Age and Bronze Age in La Mancha sites –2200-1550 cal bc– and Late Bronze Age sites –1550-1250 cal bc–, we show how, beyond the implications that their morphological changes may have had in the context of technical innovations and the organisation of textile craftsmanship over more than a millennium, they can also be used as a reliable chronological indicator in the temporal ordering.
Key words: Textile Production; Loom weights; Bronze Age; Typology; Chronology; South-Eastern Iberian Peninsula.
... En los últimos años, las investigaciones arqueológicas emprendidas sobre buena parte de la Prehistoria reciente europea coinciden en señalar importantes transformaciones socioeconómicas y políticas en torno al 2200 cal BC (Lull et al. 2011;2015a;Meller et al. 2015). Con independencia de que estas transformaciones fuesen consecuencia de eventos climáticos, movimientos poblacionales o de la intensificación en la interacción económica a larga distancia en manos de las elites (Kristiansen 2005; Kölling et al. 2015;Lillios et al. 2016;Blanco-González et al. 2018;Olalde et al. 2019; entre otros) en distintos lugares de Europa se constata la consolidación de un proceso de desarrollo social que implicó importantes reconfiguraciones sociopolíticas. ...
https://arqarqt.revistas.csic.es/index.php/arqarqt/article/view/287
Gorgociles del Escabezado II is a small enclave closed by a perimeter wall of circular-oval form, inhabited during a short period in the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. Research on this settlement allows to deepen the knowledge on its architectural development and building forms, of masonry as well as cob, but also on the social organization and the characteristics of the settlements in the Murcia Altiplano during the Bronze Age. Its singular layout combines curved and rectilinear walls, architectural features characteristic of the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age respectively. Different structures have been recorded for its internal equipment, including a possible granary, along with the complete documentation of its materiality in relation to its spaces. Its study contributes to the knowledge on the human communities that inhabited this area, as well as on the archaeological groups of the Southeast of the Iberian Peninsula in these chronologies.
... 3). La producción de estas primeras armas se ha relacionado con el proceso de expansión y conquista militar que desde el área nuclear argárica se realizaría de las comarcas del interior del sureste a la búsqueda de nuevas tierras y especialmente del mineral de cobre (Lull et al. 2015(Lull et al. , 2018. ...
En 2019 se recuperó en la motilla de El Retamar la única alabarda argárica de la Meseta; es el primer arma especializada en la Cultura de las Motillas. El hallazgo se produjo en un contexto no funerario -el Corte A-, asociado a recipientes cerámicos, un horno y semillas (trigo harinero y duro, cebada vestida, escanda melliza y lino. El arma, de 118 g y 15,7 cm, cuenta con dos remaches y es de hoja asimétrica. Puede clasificarse dentro del tipo San Antón (tipo 2 de Lull), con paralelos formales similares en la alabarda de la tumba 999 de El Argar o en otra de la colección Gómez-Moreno. La pieza no contiene estaño; es de cobre arsenicado (3,4% As), con porcentajes significativos de plomo y plata (2-3% Pb; 0,47% Ag). El análisis de sus isótopos de plomo revela la probable procedencia del área minera de Linares (Jaén). La datación de la madera del enmangue (Beta-591414, 3590±30, 2010-1895 cal BC) fecha la alabarda en el primer siglo del segundo milenio cal BC. Este hallazgo confirma que las poblaciones argáricas y del Bronce de La Mancha establecieron intensas redes de intercambio, por las que circularon objetos de alto valor social, como el marfil, la copa argárica de La Encantada o la alabarda de la motilla de El Retamar.
... Caution is needed when including an arrowhead in this group. 2011), group 41/46/47/56/57 from Camí de Missena (Bernabeu et al., 2017b;Pascual Beneyto, 2005), level 1 B from Castillo de Frías de Albarracín (Harrison et al., 1998;Harrison and Wainwright, 1991) and grave 1 (Lull Santiago et al., 2015) from Molinos de Papel (Pujante, 1999). ...
The purpose of this work is to show an automatic Bayesian procedure to obtain accurate chronological information
of archaeological assemblages characterized by palimpsest or without radiocarbon dates and whose
temporal information comes only from bifacial flint arrowheads.
In this paper, a classification method based on the Dirichlet-multinomial inferential process and its posterior
predictive probability distribution is discussed. Its purpose is to predict the chronological period of undated
archaeological assemblages (levels or sites) by means of a Bayesian predictive process based on the posterior
distribution of each bifacial flint arrowhead types in the Eastern Iberia during the 4th and 3rd millennium cal.
BC. The results obtained suggest that this approach is very useful to achieve an accurate chronology when other
archaeological information is not available, or it is not conclusive.
... Arguably, these challenges were amplified during mid-Holocene times under the constraints of major climate reorganisation and interfering responses of increasingly complex and rapidly expanding societies (e.g. Chapman, 1990, Lull et al., 2015Carrión et al., 2007). Mid-Holocene climate constraints in the western Mediterranean area A growing body of new climate records and model approaches, including an array of recent climate syntheses for the western Mediterranean area, have contributed to a more coherent picture of Holocene climate dynamics and its environmental implications. ...
... Different developments are reported from southeast Iberia, a region where Chalcolithic lifestyles apparently experienced some continuity with the contemporaneous rise of the Bronze Age El Argar culture (e.g. Lull et al., 2015). This was marked by a boost of human activities, the rapid establishment and spread of new cultural entities, and the development of novel social organisation concerning nearly all spheres of human activity, reflecting the establishment of profoundly new ideologies (e.g. ...
... This was marked by a boost of human activities, the rapid establishment and spread of new cultural entities, and the development of novel social organisation concerning nearly all spheres of human activity, reflecting the establishment of profoundly new ideologies (e.g. Lull et al., 2015). Its boom phase started around 4200 cal yr BP with maximum expansion levels prevailing during several centuries, which rather brusquely ended around 3500 cal yr BP. ...
In this investigation, we use a socio-environmental multi-proxy approach to empirically test hypotheses of recurrent resilience cycles and the role of climate forcing in shaping such cycles on the Iberian Peninsula during mid-Holocene times. Our approach combines time series reconstructions of societal and environmental variables from the southern Iberian Peninsula across a 3000 yr time interval (6000–3000 cal yr BP), covering major societal and climate reorganisation. Our approach is based on regional compilations of climate variables from diverse terrestrial archives and integrates new marine climate records from the Western Mediterranean. Archaeological variables include changes in material culture, settlement reconstructions and estimates of human activities. In particular, both detailed chronologies of human activities evolving from the Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age and mid- to Late Holocene climate change across the mid-Holocene are compared, aiming to assess potential human responses and coping processes associated with abrupt mid-Holocene climate changes.
... A new world emerged, with increasing social complexity, a strong sphere of political economy, wider territorial scales of political organisation, and networks of unequal exchange (Soares 2016;Bueno Ramirez, Balbín Behrmann and Barroso Bermejo 2005;Bueno Ramírez et al. 2019). In southern Iberia, the first state emerged at El Argar around 2200-2000 BC (Lull et al. 2015) and the weak development or even crisis of the peripheral southwestern societies of the Early Bronze Age (EBA) could not be explained without stressing their geopolitical position on the edges of the Argaric core ( Figure 9) (Soares and Tavares da Silva 1998;. ...
... Caution is needed when including an arrowhead in this group. 2011), group 41/46/47/56/57 from Camí de Missena (Bernabeu et al., 2017b;Pascual Beneyto, 2005), level 1 B from Castillo de Frías de Albarracín (Harrison et al., 1998;Harrison and Wainwright, 1991) and grave 1 (Lull Santiago et al., 2015) from Molinos de Papel (Pujante, 1999). ...
... southern Murcia (southeast Iberian Peninsula), occupying initially an area of ca. 2500 km 2 [4,9] (Fig 1). ...
The El Argar society of the Bronze Age in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula (2200–1550 cal BCE) was among the first complex societies in Europe. Its economy was based on cereal cultivation and metallurgy, it was organized hierarchically, and successively expanded its territory. Most of the monumentally fortified settlements lay on steeply sloped mountains, separated by fertile plains, and allowed optimal control of the area. Here, we explore El Argar human diets, animal husbandry strategies, and food webs using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of charred cereal grains as well as human and animal bone collagen. The sample comprised 75 human individuals from the sites of La Bastida (n = 52) and Gatas (n = 23), 32 domesticated and wild animals as well as 76 barley and 29 wheat grains from two chronological phases of a total time span of ca. 650 years. The grains indicate extensive cereal cultivation under rain-fed conditions with little to moderate application of manure. Especially at La Bastida, crops and their by-products contributed significantly to the forage of the domesticated animals, which attests to a strong interrelation of cultivation and animal husbandry. Trophic level spacing and Bayesian modelling confirm that human diets were largely based on barley with some contribution of meat or dairy products. A cross-sectional analysis of bone collagen suggests that children were breastfed until about 1.5–2 years old, and infants from Gatas may have suffered from more metabolic stress than those at La Bastida. Adults of both sexes consumed similar diets that reflect social and chronological variation to some extent. Despite significantly higher δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values at La Bastida than at Gatas, the isotopic data of the staple crops and domestic animals from both sites indicate that such differences do not necessarily correspond to different average human diets, but to agricultural strategies. These results urge for a reassessment of previous isotope studies in which only human remains have been taken into account. The study highlights that disentangling the complex influences on human isotope compositions requires a firm set of comparative data.
... As suggested from different trade networks (Schuhmacher, 2017), both sites likely reflect two distinct social systems: a society close to the site of Zambujal in the southwest (SW) at the Atlantic coast and the Los Millares culture in the southeast (SE) at the Mediterranean coast. Furthermore, defensive structures associated with many sites and specialized manufacture of arrowheads in both regions indicate that violent conflicts were prominent features between rivalling societies at that time (Lull et al., 2015). Apart from these notable differences, both societies share numerous similarities, for example, the use of Bell Beaker pottery (Müller and van Willigen, 2001), a megalithic burial tradition (Schulz Paulsson, 2019), or participation in long-distance exchange networks (Schuhmacher, 2017). ...
... Apart from these notable differences, both societies share numerous similarities, for example, the use of Bell Beaker pottery (Müller and van Willigen, 2001), a megalithic burial tradition (Schulz Paulsson, 2019), or participation in long-distance exchange networks (Schuhmacher, 2017). Moreover, settlement sites share similarities with the occurrence of major sites including ditched and walled enclosures (sometimes on hilltops), or pit complexes (Lull et al., 2015;Valera, 2015;Blanco-Gonz alez et al., 2018), which are perhaps the most prominent and best explored settlement features from that time. So-called mega-sites, for instance, Valencina de la Concepci on or Marroquíes Bajos encompassed an area of up to 450 and 113 ha, respectively (García Sanju an et al., 2017). ...
... In the SW, including the Alentejo and Algarve regions, the majority of sites e also those with ditched enclosures and large walled sites e were abandoned and also many traditions (e.g. material culture and burial customs) vanished (Soares et al., 2007;Lull et al., 2015;Valera, 2015). The rapidity of these transformations, which occurred within some decades (Lull et al., 2015;García Sanju an et al., 2018), imply a social collapse in the area. ...
In light of recent climate changes, it is important to also gain knowledge about the spatial manifestation of past climate events and their potential impact on ancient societies across a wide range of different scenarios. Following this approach, we compare compilations of seasonal (winter and summer) as well as annual precipitation and temperature changes to a measure of human activity based on AMS 14 C data of settlement sites from the Iberian Peninsula during the Chalcolithic and the Bronze Age e a period of major social turnover. Palaeoclimatic reconstructions show a long-term decrease in winter precipitation between 6000 and 3000 cal. BP (4050e1050 BCE). Superimposed to this long-term aridification trend was the 4.2 ka BP climate event, which manifested itself as a period of abrupt decrease in summer precipitation and/or an elongation of the summer dry period, but probably with constant winter precipitation from 4000 to 3800 cal. BP (2050e1850 BCE), particularly affecting the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. Additionally, a winter cooling event across the Iberian Peninsula and its marginal seas occurred between 4400 and 4000 cal. BP (2450e2050 BCE) coinciding with Bond Event 3. By comparing human activities to the changes in seasonal and annual precipitation, new insight is gained into the causal relationships between climatic and social dynamics in the past. We show that winter precipitation potentially played a major role for the societies during the Chalcolithic and the Bronze Age of the southern Iberian Peninsula. While the El Argar culture at the southeastern Iberian Peninsula boomed in spite of enhanced summer drought associated to the 4.2 ka BP climate event, decreasing winter precipitation was potentially contributing to a demographic decline in the southwest after 4800 cal. BP (2850 BCE) as well as to the bust of the El Argar culture in the southeast after 3600 cal. BP (1650 BCE) by limiting the agricultural strategies.
