The Archaeology of Bronze Age Iberia: Argaric Societies [1° ed.] 9781138821330, 1138821330

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The Archaeology of Bronze Age Iberia

After more than a century of research, an enormous body of scientific literature in the field of El Argar studies has been generated, comprising some 700 bibliographic items. No fully-updated synthesis of the literature is available at the moment; recent works deal only with specific characteristics of Argaric societies or some of the regions where their influence spread. The Archaeology of Bronze Age Iberia Argaric Societies offers a much-needed, comprehensive overview of Argaric Bronze Age societies, based on state-of-the-art research. In addition to expounding on recent insights in such areas as Argaric origin and expansion, social practices, and socio-politics, the book offers reflections on current issues in the field, from questions concerning the genealogy of discourses on the subject, to matters related to professional practices. The book discusses the values and interests guiding the evolution of El Argar studies, while critically re-examining its history. Scholars and researchers in the fields of Prehistory and Archaeology will find this volume highly useful. Gonzalo Aranda Jiménez is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Granada, Spain. He has conducted archaeological fieldwork in different Copper and Bronze Age settlements, and has published in major scientific journals like Antiquity, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, Journal of Social Archaeology and Trabajos de Prehistoria, as well as book chapters in peer-reviewed volumes. Sandra Montón-Subías is ICREA Research Professor at Pompeu Fabra University, Spain. She is currently co-chairing the EAA working party “Archaeology and Gender in Europe.” She has recently published “European Gender Archaeologies in Historical Perspective” in the European Journal of Archaeology and the co-edited volume Guess Who‘s Coming to Dinner: Feasting Rituals in the Prehistoric Societies of Europe and the Near East (Oxbow, 2011). Margarita Sánchez Romero is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Granada, Spain. Her research interests are the archaeology of women and gender relations and the archaeology of children and childhood. She has worked as a visiting researcher and lecturer at the universities of Bergen (Norway), Helsinki (Finland), Cambridge and Hull (UK), Havana (Cuba), Comahue and Lujan (Argentina), and Los Lagos (Chile).

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The Archaeology of Bronze Age Iberia Argaric Societies Gonzalo Aranda Jiménez, Sandra Montón-Subías, and Margarita Sánchez Romero

First published 2015 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Taylor & Francis The right of Gonzalo Aranda Jiménez, Sandra Montón-Subías and Margarita Sánchez Romero to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The archaeology of Bronze Age Iberia : Argaric societies / edited by Gonzalo Aranda Jiménez, Sandra Montón Subías, and Margarita Sánchez Romero. pages cm.— (Routledge studies in archaeology ; 17) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Bronze age—Spain. 2. Argar Site (Spain) 3. Social archaeology—Spain. 4. Spain—Antiquities. I. Aranda Jiménez, Gonzalo. II. Montón-Subías, Sandra. III. Sánchez Romero, Margarita. GN778.22.S6A735 2015 930.1'56—dc23 2014032469 ISBN: 978-1-138-82133-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-74336-3 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To our children, Pau and Gonzalo

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Contents

List of Figures Foreword Introduction Acknowledgements 1

From the 19th to the 21st Centuries: A Reappraisal of Argaric Research

xi xiii xxi xxvii

1

2

Time and Space in Argaric Society

17

3

Argaric Landscapes: Settlements Gain Significance

43

4

Production, Distribution, and Consumption as Social Practices

71

5

New Ways of Displaying Death: Funerary Rituals

116

6

Interpretations of Argaric Sociopolitical Strategies

150

Index

185

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Figures

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4

Main archaeological sites mentioned in the text. Aerial view of El Argar site. Fieldwork at Fuente Alamo. Aerial view of the Almanzora Basin. Lateral view of Tomb 9 from Fuente Álamo. Location of pottery wares of Cogotas I style in Peñalosa. Chalcolithic and Argaric grave goods from Los Eriales 3 megalithic tomb. Phases of Argaric expansion. Grave goods from Tomb 9 at Fuente Álamo. Distribution of radiocarbon dates by provinces. Distribution of radiocarbon dates by sites. Correlation between archaeological contexts and type of dated samples. General view of Fuente Álamo. General view of La Bastida and its fortification. Hilltop settlement of Peñalosa. Low-lying site of Rincón de Almendricos with houses Y and Z. Monumental buildings from Fuente Álamo. Plan of El Oficio’s acropolis. Monumental enclosure found at Cerro de la Encina. Fortification of La Bastida. Cistern from Fuente Álamo. Ornaments from grave goods at Tomb 459 from El Argar. Mining hammers from Polígono and José Palacios mines. Crucibles, moulds, and slag from El Argar. Ceramic mould from Peñalosa.

2 3 4 6 9 21 22 26 28 35 36 36 44 45 46 47 49 50 51 53 54 82 83 85 86

xii Figures 4.5

Pottery vessels with intensely burnished surfaces from Tomb 21 at Cerro de la Encina. 4.6 Luis and Enrique Siret’s pottery typology. 4.7 Funerary carinated vessels from Cerro de San Cristóbal. 4.8 Argaric pottery from Lorca. Archive of Archaeological Museum of Lorca (Murcia). 4.9 Wrist-archer bracelet from Tomb 21 at Cerro de la Encina. 4.10 Loom-weights from house 4 at Peñalosa. 5.1 Tomb 21 at Cerro de la Encina. Female body in right lateral decubitus and characteristic flexed position. 5.2 Covacha from Cerro de la Encina. 5.3 Cist from Cerro de la Encina. 5.4 Funerary daggers/knives from Cerro de San Cristobal. 5.5 Male inhumation with earring and bracelets. Tomb 21 at Cerro de la Encina. 5.6 Grave goods from Tomb 21 at Cerro de la Encina. 5.7 Grave goods from Tomb 1 at Mina Iberia. 5.8 Tombs’ distribution in the western sector of Zone B at Cerro de la Encina. 5.9 Anthropological remains from Tomb 15 at Cerro de la Encina. Left: jaw with severe dental attrition and ante mortem tooth loss. Right: humerus with strong muscular insertions. 6.1 Grave goods from Tomb 2 at Gatas. 6.2 Tomb 22 from Cerro de la Encina. 6.3 Metallic grave goods from Tomb 8 at Cerro de la Encina. 6.4 Argaric copa from Cerro de la Encina. 6.5 Tomb 21 at Cerro de la Encina with animal offerings. 6.6 Sword with silver rivets at Peñalosa.

94 95 97 99 102 105 119 121 122 124 126 127 133 136

141 157 161 162 164 166 171

Foreword

The pioneering work of the Siret brothers at the end of the 19th century (Siret and Siret 1887) brought the El Argar “culture” of south-eastern Iberia into the canon of the European Bronze Age, which was beginning to be shaped during those years. Decades later, Gordon Childe (1930) wrote that, as a cultural centre of the Early Bronze Age, south-eastern Spain could be compared in importance to Bohemia (Aunjetitz) and even to the Aegean. In fact, El Argar has sometimes been described as the most important Bronze Age culture in Western Europe. A hundred and twenty-five years later this book offers a magnificent, renewed, global, critical, and accessible view with a vocation to reveal, for the first time in English, the history of one of the earliest and most emblematic groups of the old Europe of the Bronze Age. In itself it is an interesting contribution because critical overviews, either on a regional or a European level, have not been common in the last decades. The books by the Britons John Coles and Anthony Harding (1979), and the Frenchman Jacques Briard (1974, 1997) offered valuable overviews based principally on regional criteria. The Spanish scholar Mª Luisa Ruiz-Gálvez (1998) presented an original way of looking at the Atlantic Bronze Age, moving towards a thematic and holistic perspective that Anthony Harding (2000) subsequently took up in the first general synthesis of the European Bronze Age. The need to combine thematic and regional approaches was well reflected in the studies by Kristian Kristiansen and Thomas Larson (2005), Tim Earle and Kristian Kristiansen (2010) and, most explicitly, in the most recent and comprehensive overview by Harry Fokkens and Anthony Harding (2013). El Argar is present in all these studies to a greater or lesser extent. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the ambitious Cambridge World Prehistory (Renfrew and Bahn 2014), in which El Argar and other Mediterranean Bronze Age societies have been lost between the pages of chapters organized on a geographical basis. In any event, the Spanish archaeological tradition, unlike the British1 and the French,2 places little value on updated synthesis studies for an international community. The information about El Argar was updated in the early 1980s in Vicente Lull’s book (1983). Since then several archaeological projects, including ambitious excavations, have been undertaken at Argaric settlements such as Fuente Álamo, Gatas, Peñalosa, and La Bastida de Totana by the German

xiv

Foreword

Archaeological Institute and research teams from the University of Granada and the Autonomous University of Barcelona. This book contains qualified, well-researched, and well-organized information about a European Bronze Age group with a long research tradition that in the last two decades has undergone profound changes. Interest in El Argar has increased dramatically, as has its investigation, and it has become a highly attractive field for comparing theoretical approaches and methodological innovations. Gonzalo Aranda, Margarita Sánchez Romero and Sandra Montón-Subías are an excellent example of the generations of Spanish archaeologists who are highly skilled in their profession, combine theory and practice, and have an international perception of archaeology’s role in the 21st century. In a way this is a synthesis that symbolizes the value of Argaric archaeological research and the authors’ own personal values. It is a book that places El Argar with great dignity in an international context. The study is organized according to the “Argaric norm”; in other words, it follows the classical subjects that have come to make up Argaric research over the years. Each chapter offers an excellent historiographic reading of the past 30 or 40 years in order to present the most recent data and help us understand the dynamics of the archaeological investigation. The relevance of this critical historiographic reading is, in my opinion, closely linked to the age and experience of the authors, who, since they were students, have lived through a research process in which they have progressively become major protagonists in the past 15 years. Now senior lecturers at the University of Granada, Gonzalo Aranda and Margarita Sánchez Romero’s PhD theses were closely linked to the south-eastern Iberian late prehistory, whereas Sandra Montón-Subías, currently an ICREA research professor at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, wrote her thesis on the late prehistory of the Aegean Mediterranean. All three have been researching and publishing for quite a few years, often together and with significant international projection. They share theoretical orientations and coincide in the subjects they are interested in, all of which can be very clearly perceived in the unitary, solid, and coherent discourse that runs through this book. The long history of archaeological research into El Argar has notably benefited Argaric studies in so far as archaeology is a discipline with a tendency to think historiographically, either consciously or unconsciously. And the greater the historiographic range, the greater the critical awareness and amount of evidence available to build up pictures of prehistoric societies. Writing a high-quality overview with the intention of informing is a good way of excavating more deeply into the research tradition, of thinking more profoundly and of communicating an elusive past more effectively. The synthesis confronts us with what is essential, it requires words to be pruned from the narratives and forces one to make generalizations that are at once critical and measured. This is the great value of the synthesis; and it is the great value of this book. The little histories, the micro-narratives, are

Foreword

xv

necessary and will continue to be built. However, in the same measure, we need to create “grand narratives,” because only thus will we maintain the coherence and feeling of undertaking archaeology, good archaeology. The book has been organized into six chapters that conform to the Argaric canon or “norm,” following therefore the way in which historiography has defined the key questions regarding this archaeological group. Thus it deals with: (1) the history of the investigation, (2) the space and time, (3) the landscape and the population, (4) the economy: production, distribution, and consumption, (5) the funerary rituals and (6) the sociopolitical interpretation of the Argaric communities. The archaeology of El Argar has been constructed in three major stages covering 130 years of irregular research. The first stage (1881–1970) can be divided into two periods. The first begins with the pioneering work of the Siret brothers and ends in the mid-1930s with the death of Luis Siret and the 1936 military coup that led to the Spanish Civil War; it is when the Argaric model was founded. The second period of the first stage, from the Civil War to the beginning of the 1970s, was the “long Argaric sleep” when very little research was carried out. The second stage (1970–1990) began with a major reactivation of fieldwork, especially by the University of Granada and the German Archaeological Institute. With the arrival of democracy in Spain (1975) and the transfer in the mid-1980s of responsibility for archaeology to the Autonomous Communities (Regional Governments), research began to accelerate, bringing about a major theoretical and methodological renewal. The third stage, the last 25 years, has seen an expansion of the heterogeneity and diversification of the interpretations of the Argaric world. In addition to systematic projects (Contreras 2000; Schubart et al. 2001; Soler Díaz 2006) fieldworks have also been conducted by commercial archaeology and a new policy related to the protection and public presentation of the Argaric archaeological heritage has flourished. Today we can say there is light and shade: shade because of the considerable slowdown in archaeological research due to the long economic crisis that began in 2008 and light shed by the work of teams and young researchers who publish in English and are taking Argaric archaeology to the European forums. The latter is a kind of “second internationalization” of Argaric studies, the first one was the Sirets’s work, which is opening up new lines of inquiry in consonance with the European Bronze Age archaeological agenda. This book is good, solid evidence of it. El Argar’s domain is the south-east of the Iberian Peninsula, an area of somewhat more than 30,000 square kilometres defined by the concurrence of the typical elements of the Argaric canon: the population pattern, the funerary ritual, and the highly standardized pottery and metal objects. Today we can differentiate a nuclear area and Argaric peripheries that extend to the west as far as the Granada lowlands and the Upper Guadalquivir and to the north to the upper basin of the River Vinalopó (Alicante province) and can be delimited chronologically (Lull et al. 2011). The time of El Argar,

xvi

Foreword

which is well defined by a catalogue of more than 260 radiocarbon datings, comprises some 700 years from 2200 cal BC to 1550/1450 cal BC. The authors show us a clear evolution of the internal periodization proposals and an excellent critical analysis of the individualization of Argaric times and its implications for the evolution of its people. Different approaches have been taken to the debate on the extent of the arid conditions at the end of the third millennium and in the first half of the second millennium BC and their impact on the communities of south-eastern Iberia. Today it appears that more research is needed into the different lines of environmental reconstruction and that the theory of extreme aridity presents quite a few difficulties. The population pattern entailed the foundation of many new settlements, at the same time as the large Chalcolithic villages were being abandoned. However, more surveys outside the nuclear area of the Vera Basin (Almería) are needed for a better understanding of the territorial pattern of Argaric population. Also needed are excavations in the small unfortified rural settlements that have been largely overlooked as all efforts have been focused on the large fortified hilltop sites. These are settlements such as Fuente Álamo, Peñalosa, Castellón Alto, Cerro de la Encina, and La Bastida de Totana that have open spaces, special structures such as monumental or elite buildings, houses with fairly standardized modules and cisterns that can be linked to issues such as climatic aridity, the value of water and irrigation-based agriculture. The impressive fortification systems with their walls, bastions and gates have recently led various scholars to search for parallels in the poliorcetica of the Eastern Mediterranean, in a curious return to the much-denigrated diffusionism of other periods. In any case, the existence of large centres (>4 ha), others between 1–3 ha and many smaller ones (