European Kingdoms

Los Millares Civilisation (Chalcolithic) (Iberia)
c.3200 - 1800 BC

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The system which has evolved to catalogue the various archaeological expressions of human progress is one which involves cultures. The task of cataloguing the vast range of human cultures which emerged from Africa and the Near East right up until human expansion reached the Americas is covered in the related feature (see link, right).

Early Iberia formed the south-western peninsula of Europe and comprises the modern countries of Portugal and Spain, plus the principality of Andorra and the British crown colony of Gibraltar. The peninsula's role in human development played a notable role in the first millennium BC, even before the coming of imperial ambitions which reached its southern and eastern shores.

The three thousand year-old Iberian Neolithic experienced some difficulties towards the end of the fourth millennium BC, seemingly as part of a wider climate-related transition which also affected Sumer. The early Chalcolithic (Copper Age) became dominant, leading directly into the Iberian Bronze Age around 2800 BC.

The Los Millares civilisation in Iberia, otherwise known as the Millaran culture, was Chalcolithic (Copper Age) for its entire existence. Like the Vila Nova de Sao Pedro on Iberia's western coast - with which it traded and shared ideas - it ignored or resisted being overly influenced by the Bronze Age cultures which sprang up around it. The arrival of the Argaric culture on its north-eastern frontier did provide some influence though, over the course of half a millennium before eventually absorbing it.

Supplied dates are variable, although all appear to agree that the civilisation lasted for a round millennium. Available options are 3200-2200 BC, 3000-2000 BC, or 2700-1800 BC. Archaeology pinpoints some dates at either end of this scale, with the earliest two hundred year period (3200-3000 BC) being accounted for by the site's dedicated use as a funerary complex. The main town was largely abandoned around 2200 BC as the Argaric took hold around this civilisation, but its population limped along with increasingly reduced territory until about 1800 BC.

The type site is the fourth millennium BC town of Los Millares in south-eastern Spain's Sierra de Gádor, Almeria, possibly the peninsula's earliest such large town. Although the Argaric culture emerged immediate to the north and east of this area during the existence of the Los Millares, the Western Andalusian Bronze emerged to the west only after the Los Millares had ended.

Archaeological finds are constantly being made, and archaeological cultures are frequently being updated with new information. Get in touch here if this page also requires updating.

(Information by Trish Wilson & Peter Kessler, with additional information by Edward Dawson, from The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, David W Anthony, from The Archaeology of Bronze Age Iberia, Gonzalo Aranda Jiménez, Sandra Montón-Subías, & Margarita Sánchez Romero (Routledge, 2019), from Atlantic Seaways, Barry Cunliffe, from Iberia, the Atlantic Bronze Age and the Mediterranean, Brendan O'Connor, from Bronze Age Iberia, Vicente Lull, Rafael Mico, Cristina Rihuete Herrada, & Roberto Risch, from Contacto cultural entre el Mediterráneo y el Atlántico (siglos XII-VIII ane), S Celestino, N Rafel, & X-L Armada (Eds, Consejo superior de Investigaciones Cientificas Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología en Roma, in Spanish), from Vida y muerte de una espada atlántica del Bronce Final en Europa: Reconstrucción de los procesos de fabricación, uso y destrucción, Bénédicte Quilliec (in Spanish), from Les ors de l'Europe atlantique à l'âge du bronze, Barbara Regine Armbruster (in French), and from External Links: Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa (in Spanish), and Celtiberia.net (in Spanish), and Lista de pueblos prerromanos de Iberia (in Spanish, Hispanoteca.eu), and Euskomedia (in Spanish), and The Lost Iberian Civilization of Los Millares (Ancient Origins).)

c.3200 BC

The Los Millares Chalcolithic civilisation emerges in Iberia around this time, although its primary site at Los Millares is little more than a funerary complex until around 3000 BC. Although rainfall levels in south-eastern Iberia are much the same as they are today, soils are deeper and richer, and vegetation is far more lush.

The cemetery is near the main track. When examined by archaeologists this contains eighty passage tombs, each with between twenty to a hundred burials, and signs of warfare with neighbouring groups outside of this civilisation.

The town of Los Millares is made up of four concentric lines of walls, as well as a citadel in the innermost space which was protected by a surrounding wall

c.3025 BC

Radiocarbon dating of the Los Millares hill fort site pinpoints a collapse of an early settlement construction near the funerary complex of about 3090-2955 BC. This is rebuilt by its populace around this time or soon afterwards. It eventually consists of four defensive walls, with 'Line I' eventually being the largest and most impressive following centuries of rebuilding and extension.

c.3000 BC

The Los Millares civilisation enters its prime around this time, coinciding with the end of the Pottery Neolithic in the Near East and the end of the Iberian Neolithic. The funerary complex is complimented with the building of a large town. This is large enough to allow about a thousand people to live there and to create an advanced community. The site has a footprint of about two hectares.

Dwellings inside the town were built using stone masonry plinths which were joined together with mud, over which were mounted mud-and-reed walls

c.2500 BC

Territorial control is one of the fundamental characteristics to appear throughout the third millennium BC, while the Bell Beaker effect is sweeping through the peninsula, although trade continues with the Vila Nova de Sao Pedro.

Around this time the people of the Los Millares civilisation construct a series of habitable forts around the town. This is only a short time before much of the settlement itself is abandoned in favour of occupying only the central citadel and the forts. It would seem that armed conflict in the region has reached a critical point, one for which deep defences and protective living space are required.

The forts are defended by concentric walls to which are attached bastions and entrance gates which are protected by prefixed walls. The most striking case is 'Fort I', due to its structure and complexity. It has a double line of concentric walls and two moats which surround the entire outer wall at a depth of up to six metres when it comes to the innermost moat.

Shown here is a selection of highly distinctive bell-shaped pots which were created by the Bell Beaker folk between around 2900-1800 BC in Europe and the British Isles

The internal wall is the oldest, while the external wall is added later, with a diameter of almost thirty metres. When that is added, the internal enclosure is abandoned. These walls are completed by a series of towers and bastions which open from the walls, and with two barbicans, at the east and west corners.

c.2300 - 2250 BC

Using the earlier start date of 2300 BC for the Argaric culture allows for a certain degree of coexistence with Chalcolithic groups until 2250 BC (notably the Los Millares civilisation which it later absorbs).

At times this period is marked by instability, with an associated demographic and material decline, as well as levels of destruction in some settlements. This would help to explain the building of the Los Millares forts no more than two centuries prior to this period, and their subsequent expansion and deepening.

Although some Chalcolithic villages survive into the Iberian Bronze Age (such as Gatas or Fuente Álamo), such sites are rebuilt to a completely different pattern (Los Millares again). In opposition to this, most Argaric settlements are newly-founded, presenting unique characteristics when compared to those of the previous era.

Archaeology pinpoints some dates at either end of the existence of the Los Millares civilisation, with the earliest two hundred year period (3200-3000 BC) being accounted for by the site's dedicated use as a funerary complex

This full-scale change has been interpreted as a fundamental social transformation, one which is synchronous with others which are occurring in Europe and the eastern Mediterranean around the same time, notably the Únětice.

c.2200 BC

The necropolis now falls out of use along with the town's innermost enclosure. Even the forts are soon abandoned, very soon after the Argaric culture becomes dominant in the nearby regions.

The felling of local trees for use in cooking activities, construction, the foundry, and agricultural land, as well as intensive grazing over the previous millennium has ended up affecting the surrounding vegetation to the extent that farming is becoming much more difficult.

Bronze technology in Iberia was championed by the Los Millares civilisation of the Mediterranean south coast, but it was later cultures which progressed to cover much of the peninsula (click or tap on map to view full sized)