European Kingdoms

Montelavar Group (Chalcolithic / Bronze Age) (Iberia)
c.2200 - 1500 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 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 Iberian Chalcolithic (Copper Age) became dominant from about 3200 BC. That led directly into the Iberian Bronze Age around 2800 BC, although the Chalcolithic lingered on for almost another millennium.

The Montelavar group in Iberia is now a somewhat problematic late twentieth century archaeological concept which was proposed by R J Harrison in 1980. It has generally been devalued in favour of a broader and perhaps more meaningful North-Western Iberian Bronze (or NWIB), although it can also be used as a transitionary phase from the Chalcolithic to the early Bronze Age. That NWIB classification, however, is relatively new.

It remains a matter of immense archaeological debate and contention, as was summed up by the German historian and archaeologist, Dirk Brandherm: 'Although considerable effort has gone into the study of the subject, the early Bronze Age of north-western Iberia remains [a] poorly-understood phenomena of the Iberian Bronze Age'.

Most older attempts to provide a framework for the relevant archaeological evidence suffered from certain conceptual problems, particularly the notion which is covered here of a 'Montelavar horizon' or a Montelavar group. Despite now being set aside, it remains prevalent. Neither this nor any of the other concepts to have been put forward in the recent past have ever fully been embraced by a majority of scholars.

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 Ceremonial spaces from Late Bronze Age to Roman in Cantabrian hillforts, Angel Villa Valdes, from De aldea fortificada a Caput Civitatis?, Angel Villa Valdes (in Spanish), from A Provenance Study of Early Bronze Age Artefacts Found in Asturias (Spain), A Reguera-Galan, T Barreiro-Grille, M Moldovan, L Lobo, M Á de Blas Cortina, & J I García Alonso, from Settlements and Houses in Galicia in the Middle and Late Bronze Age, M Pilar Prieto-Martinez & Mikel Diaz-Rodriguez, from Portuguese Castros - The Evolution of the Habitat and Proto-Urbanization Process, Armando Coelho Ferreira da Silva, from Mycenaean Contacts with the Iberian Peinsular during the Late Bronze Age, Alfredo Mederos Martin, from The horse in the Iberian peninsula, Arre Caballo, 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 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Departamento de Prehistoria, Trabajos de Prehistoria, Vols 26-51, in Spanish), 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 First Bronzes of NW Iberia - The Data from the Fraga dos Corvos Habitat Site, Joao Carlos Senna-Martinez, Elsa Luís, Maria Fátima Araújo, Pedro Valério, 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: The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe (Nature), and 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).)

c.2200 BC

The North-Western Iberian Bronze can be said to begin about now, with the general emergence of early Iberian Bronze Age societies such as the Argaric, Cogotas I, and Levantine Bronze gradually edging out Iberian Chalcolithic dominance.

The Montelavar's Asiego hoard, found in 1912 in the Cabrales district of north-western Iberia and comprising fourteen well-finished flat axes with a length which ranges between 175-212mm and an average weight of 850g per item, with such copper items being typical of the early Bronze Age in north-western Iberia between about 2200-1700 BC

Of these the Cogotas is geographically closest, adjoining the north-western region at its south-eastern edge, but it is also here in which the Montelavar can be placed, now conceptually part of the North-Western Iberian Bronze but originally formulated as a cultural horizon in its own right in an effort to explain the region's poorly-understood archaeology.

c.1800 BC

Climatic conditions are showing marked improvements by this stage, leading to a gradual blossoming of Bronze Age cultures across Iberia, but also increased migratory influx by proto-Italic-speaking groups of Indo-Europeans from the far side of the Pyrenees.

The region which is covered by the Montelavar horizon (within the broader North-Western Iberian Bronze) displays a marked Atlantic coastal influence which is shared in part with the Armorica of the Armorican Tumulus culture and the Britain of the Wessex culture.

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)

Bell-shaped metallurgy introduces the tongue-shaped daggers of Peredilla (to the north of the later León region), and one from the Cuélebre cave (Corao, Cangas de Onís). More elaborate weapons are also being introduced, such as those of Sabero (León) and Puerto Gumial (Asturias) with a strong parallel with weapons of the 1700s-1500s BC.