European Kingdoms

Early Iberia (Chalcolithic) / Pre-Bell Beaker Chalcolithic

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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 newly-arrived Chalcolithic (Copper Age) gradually became dominant across the peninsula from about 3200 BC, feeding in from beyond the Pyrenees to integrate far and wide with Neolithic communities. By this time though the regional Campaniform Chalcolithic had already emerged, around 3500 BC.

The 'Pre-Bell-Beaker Chalcolithic' forms the main transition point from Iberia's poorly-understood Neolithic to its subsequent Iberian Bronze Age which began around 2800 BC with the emergence of the Iberian Bell Beaker horizon. This Chalcolithic period also precedes the arrival of West Indo-European bearers of the wider Chalcolithic Bell Beaker culture.

Even when the Bell Beaker did arrive in Iberia, indigenous copper-usage developments were still gaining traction amongst late Neolithic communities. Areas of inland Iberia were still only beginning the use of metals around 2800 BC, and some areas only much later made the full transition to a Bronze Age culture, around 1900 BC. There was a good deal of overlap between all three phases of development.

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 Peter Kessler & Trish Wilson, with additional information from The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, David W Anthony, from A Genetic Signal of Central European Celtic Ancestry, David K Faux, from The Celts, TGE Powell, 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), and Linking Up Bell Beakers in the Iberian Peninsula, Joaquín Jiménez-Puerto & Joan Bernabeu Aubán (Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol 30 pp 1200-1232, 2023, and available via Springer Nature), and Copper Age Fortress with a Violent Past (Arkeonews), and Neolithic Iberia (Facts and Details), and World's largest ancient bead collection (Archaeology News).)

c.3200 BC

The Los Millares civilisation emerges in Iberia around this time, at the start of the Iberian Chalcolithic and alongside the regional Campaniform Chalcolithic. 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 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.3000 BC

The Iberian Neolithic definitively terminates around this point in time, largely coinciding with the end of the Pottery Neolithic in the Near East. Chalcolithic (Copper Age) culture is in full swing across the peninsula.

The Los Millares civilisation enters its prime around the same time, with its funerary complex being complimented by 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.

2875 - 2635 BC

The Montelirio tholos (burial mound) is situated within the larger Valencina mega-site near today's Seville. First documented in 1868 it has remained relatively unexplored until research resumes in the 1980s.

A recently-uncovered burial chamber at the Montelirio tholos near Seville was filled with over 270,000 beads, forming elaborate beaded garments and making this the largest-known single-burial bead assemblage (in 2025)

The site is predominantly used for burials between approximately 2875-2635 BC. One of the most famous of its burials is that of the 'Ivory Lady', originally misidentified as a man. Her tomb contains several prestigious items, such as an ivory comb and elephant tusk, and it leads researchers to reassess previous notions about female roles during this period.

It appears she likely gains her status through personal achievement rather than inherited power. Nearby are the remains of at least twenty individuals within a burial chamber, fifteen of whom are women. This chamber is filled with over 270,000 beads which form elaborate beaded garments, making it the largest single-burial bead assemblage so far recorded.

The majority of these beads have been crafted from marine shell materials, such as scallops, and have to be meticulously cleaned and weighed to estimate their total number. Additional beads have been fashioned from stone and bone. Researchers experiment to establish the build-time for such a garment, with the result coming in at about seven months of work for a team of ten artisans.

Shell beads were also found above the 'Ivory Lady' burial in the Montelirio tholos, attached to the rock crystal dagger

2850 - 2450 BC

A fortress is constructed around this point in Iberia's Chalcolithic. Pentagon-shaped, it consists of three concentric walls, twenty-five bastions, and three ditches. Its remains are uncovered during the construction of a photovoltaic park on the Marquis de la Encomienda estate near Almendralejo in western Spain's Extremadura region (reported at the start of AD 2025).

Spanning thirteen thousand square metres, it features robust stone and adobe walls and is designed with a single entrance just seventy centimetres wide to make it virtually impregnable. Archaeologists uncover numerous artefacts within the site, including arrowheads, idols, axes, grinding stones, plates, bowls, loom components, and traces of a reservoir for water storage and cabins inside the structure.

However, despite its formidable defences, the complex is ultimately destroyed, burned, and demolished by enemies, leading to its abandonment around four hundred years later (around 2450 BC).

The visible remains of the remarkable Chalcolithic (Copper Age) fortress in the middle of a solar panel field near Almendralejo in Spain's Extremadure region

2800 BC

The Chalcolithic Bell Beaker horizon first appears in eastern and south-eastern Iberia immediately prior to the emergence of the Vila Nova de Sao Pedro in western Iberia, but well behind the long-lived Los Millares civilisation in the south-east.

c.2600 BC

The Chalcolithic Vila Nova de Sao Pedro culture does now emerge, in southern Portugal. Its people have been building fortifications for the previous century as a lead-up to the full emergence of this lengthy cultural period.

The Bell Beaker horizon has already first appeared in eastern and south-eastern Iberia to signal a clear change from late Iberian Neolithic and early Chalcolithic cultural expressions. This has reached the northern Alpine region to meet migrating West Indo-Europeans, where it has formed a true Bell Beaker culture.

This is now feeding back into Iberia to herald the beginnings of an Iberian Bronze Age, but the 'VNSP I' period maintains its Chalcolithic expressions for far longer than most other parts of Iberia.

The Chalcolithic settlement site of Vila Nova de Séo Pedro has been the subject of renewed fieldwork since 2017 which has seen the removal of six tons of shrubs to reveal a complex of stone features which have not previously been documented

c.2300 BC

By this time and no later, Iberia's Campaniform Chalcolithic period is ended. The Levantine Bronze notably takes over in the eastern areas, while the Vila Nova de Sao Pedro and Los Millares endure in the south-west and far south-east respectively.

A form of proto-Cogotas I emerges in central-western areas as the Iberian Bronze Age starts to control much of the peninsula, driven largely by the Bell Beaker-inspired Argaric culture.

c.2200 BC

The Levantine Bronze begins by this date in Iberia (and possibly earlier), as does the Motillas culture. With the North-Western Iberian Bronze also emerging, this early period forms a definitive termination for the Campaniform Chalcolithic.

c.2200 - 2000 BC

Bell Beaker culture gradually fades in mainland Europe as it is replaced by successor cultures. Largely this is via the Unetice in Central Europe, the Atlantic Bronze Age in the west (from about 1300 BC), the Terramare culture in Italy, the Wessex culture in Britain, the Armorican Tumulus culture, and the Argaric, Cogotas I, and Levantine Bronze in Iberia.

Once the Cogotas I culture had spread far and wide across central-northern Iberia, its later vessels featured stab-and-drag decorations like these