The Third Millennium BC in Iberia: Chronometric Evidence for Settlement Histories and Socio-cultural Change

Abstract

The late third millennium BC was a period of increased socio-political flux not only in eastern Mediterranean, but also among the complex societies of the western Mediterranean. Contemporary with the widespread abandonment of settlements and population transfers in the Nile Valley (First Intermediate Period), Mesopotamia (Akkadian-Ur III), and the Aegean (LHIII), the Iberian Peninsula underwent one of its most dynamic cultural phases. Between about 2500 and 1900 BC, during the transition from the Late Copper Age to the Early Bronze Age, many settlements throughout the peninsula were abandoned or newly established. Although most settlements experienced temporary short-term abandonment episodes during their occupation span, the population dislocations at the end of the Copper Age were of a more permanent nature. Sixteen sites richly dated by radiocarbon show that the settlements in eastern Iberia tended to last shorter and get abandoned earlier than in the more humid west. The difference may have to do more with environmental and climatic factors than with cultural diffusion.