El Argar is the type site of an Early Bronze Age culture called the Argaric culture, which flourished from the town of Antas, Almería, in the south-east of Spain between c. 1800 BCE and 1300 BCE.

The Argaric culture was characterised by its early adoption of bronze, which briefly allowed this tribe local dominance over other, copper age peoples. El Argar also developed sophisticated pottery and ceramic techniques, which they traded with other Mediterranean tribes.

El Argar developed from the earlier civilization of Los Millares but it shows clear Mediterranean influences of Mycenaean origin . The center of this civilization is displaced to the north and its extension and influence is clearly greater than that of its ancestor. Their mining and metallurgy were quite advanced, with bronze, silver and gold being mined and worked for weapons and jewelry.

Pollen analysis in a peat deposit in the Canada del Gitano basin high in the Sierra de Baza suggests that the Argaric exhausted precious natural resources, helping bring about its own ruin. The deciduous oak forest that covered the region's slopes were burned off, leaving a tell-tale carbon layer, and replaced by the fire-tolerant, and fire-prone, Mediterranean scrub familiar under the names garrigue and maquis.

Extension

The civilization of El Argar extended to all the province of Almería, north onto the central Meseta, to most of the land of (Murcia) and westwards into the province of Granada.

Its cultural and possibly political influence was much wider, clearly influencing eastern and southwestern Iberia (Algarve), and possibly other regions as well.

Some authors have suggested that El Argar was a unified state.

Main Argaric towns

• El Argar: irregularly shaped (280 x 90 m).
• Fuente Vermeja: small fortified site, 3 km north of El Argar
• Lugarico Viejo: larger town very close to Fuente Vermeja.
• Puntarrón Chico: in the top of a small hill, near Beniaján (Murcia)
• Ifre (Murcia): on a rocky elevation.
• Zapata (Murcia): 4 km. west of Ifre, fortified.
• Gatas (4 km west of Mojácar, Almería): fortified town on a hill with remarcable water canalizations.
• El Oficio (9 km north of Villaricos, Almería): atop of a well defended hill, strongly fortified, specially towards the sea.
• Fuente Álamo (7 km north of Cuevas de Almazora, Almería): the citadel is atop a hill, while the houses are teraced in its southern slope.
• Almizaraque (Almería): a town dating to Los Millares civilization.
• Cerro de la Virgen de Orce (Granada).
• Cerro de la Encina (Monachil, Granada).
• Cuesta del Negro (Purullena, Granada).

Periodization

The culture of El Argar is divided in two phases, named A and B.

El Argar A

This phase started in the 18th century BCE, with the earliest calibrated C-14 dates pointing to the first half or this century:

• 1785 BCE (+/- 55 years) in the transitional Late Chalcolithic-Early Bronze of Cerro de la Virgen de Orce, a peripheral site.
• 1730 BCE (+/- 70 years) in Fuente Álamo for El Argar A2, with six undated A1 layers under it.
• 1700 BCE in Cuesta del Negro (another peripheral site) with clear Argarian materials in its lower layer.

El Argar B

This phase begins in the 16th century BCE. The main C-14 date is that of 1550 BCE (+/- 70 years) in Fuente Álamo for the upper layer of El Argar B2 (with four layers underneath the lowest B phase). Other stratigraphic dates are somewhat more recent but are not confirmed by C-14.

Post-Argarian phase

El Argar B ends in the 14th or 13th century BCE, giving way to a less homogeneous post-Argarian culture. Again Fuente Álamo gives the best C-14 dating with 1330 BCE (+/- 70 years).

Material culture

Metallurgy

El Argar is the center of the Early and Middle Bronze Age in Iberia. Metallurgy of bronze and pseudo-bronze (alloyed with arsenium instead of tin). Weapons are the main metallurgic product: knives, halberds, swords, spear and arrow points, and big axes of curved edge are all aboundant, not just in the Argaric area but also elsewhere in Iberia. Silver is also exploited, while gold, which had been aboundant in the Chalcolithic period, becomes less common.

Glass beads

A meaningful element are the glass beads (of blue, green and white colors) that are found in this culture and which have been related with similar findings in Egypt (Amarna), Mycenaen Greece (dated in the 14th century BCE), the British culture of Wessex (dated c. 1400 BCE) and some sites in France. Nevertheless some of these beads are already found in chalcolithic contexts (site of La Pastora) which has brought some to speculate on an earlier date for the introduction of this material in southeast Iberia (late 3rd millennium BCE).

Other manufactured goods

Pottery undergoes important changes, almost totally abandoning decoration and with new types.

Textile manufacture seems important, working specially with wool and flax. Basket-making also seems to have been important, showing greater extent and diversification than in previous periods.

Funerary customs

The collective burial tradition typical of European Megalithic Culture is abandoned in favor of individual burials. The tholos is abandoned in favour of small cists, either under the homes or outside. This trend seems to come from the Eastern Mediterranean, most likely from Mycenaean Greece (skipping Sicily and Italy, where the collective burial tradition remains for some time yet).

From the Argarian civilization, these new burial customs will gradually and irregularly extend to the rest of Iberia.

In the phase B of this civilization, burial in pithoi (large jars) becomes most frequent. Again this custom (that never reached beyond the Argarian circle) seems to come from Greece, where it was used after. ca 2000 BCE.

Related cultures

• Los Millares: its antecessor culture.
• Bronze of Levante: extending by the Land of Valencia: with smaller towns but very related to El Argar.
• Motillas (La Mancha): what would seem a military march of these proto-Iberian peoples.
• South-Western Iberian Bronze circle.
• Mycenaean Greece: some cultural exchanges across the Mediterranean are very clear, with Argarians adopting Greek funerary customs (individual burials, first in cist and then in pithos), while Greeks also import the Iberian tholos for the same purpose.

Notes

1. C. Michael Hogan, Los Silillos, the Megaltihic Portal, ed. Andy Burnham
2. BBC News, "Eco-ruin 'felled early society'" 15 November 2007.
3. J.S.Carrión et al.: Holocene environmental change in a montane region of southern Europe with a long history of human settlement
4. Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards The Cambridge Ancient History, :1973:764.

Bibliography

• F. Jordá Cerdá et al. History of Spain 1: Prehistory. Gredos ed. 1986. ISBN 84-249-1015-X

See also

• Vila Nova de Sao Pedro
• Prehistoric Iberia

External links