Argaric culture: characteristics of this ancient Iberian civilization

This is what the Argaric culture, one of the important Iberian civilizations of the Bronze Age, was like.

The Argaric culture is one of the many that have passed through the territory of what is now Spain.

We are going to immerse ourselves in a journey through the history of this people and thus know what their way of life was, what characterized it and also what is the legacy that survives to this day, to be able to know better a part of our own history.

What was the Argaric culture and what was it like?

The Argaric culture is a group of settlements that settled in the southeastern area of the Iberian Peninsula, between 2300 BC and 2300 BC.between 2300 B.C. and 1500 B.C., occupying lands that today make up the provinces of Alicante (Valencian Community), Murcia (Region of Murcia), Jaén and Granada (Andalusia).

It is one of the best representations of the European populations of the Bronze Age, and archaeological sites have been found that have allowed us to obtain much information about these peoples.

We owe the discovery of the Argaric culture to the brothers Luis and Enrique Siret, who in the last decades of the 19th century dedicated their career to carry out excavations throughout the southeastern peninsular, discovering the archaeological treasures that these lands hid and making known to the world the characteristics of the inhabitants of this territory, four millennia ago. One of the most important sites is located in Antas (Almería), and is called El Argar, the name that baptizes the Argaric culture.

The settlement of El Argar is located in the Sierra Almagrera, and in it, the Siret brothers found more than a thousand tombs belonging to the Argaric culture.In it, the Siret brothers found more than a thousand tombs belonging to the Argaric culture. But in addition to this site, they also explored other extremely important ones, such as Ifre, Fuente Álamo, Gatas or El Oficio. Currently these sites belong to the provinces of Murcia and Almeria. The importance of these sites is given by all the material and structures that were found, in a magnificent state of preservation.

In this way, countless burials were found, many of them preserving the grave goods of the deceased, which allowed the extraction of a wide variety of objects.This made it possible to extract objects as diverse as knives, swords, spears, clay, bone or stone objects, clothing and even plant remains. With all this material, archaeologists have been able to carry out well-founded studies that allow us to know today the main characteristics and way of life of the inhabitants of the Argaric villages.

Origin of this ancient civilization

There is some debate about the origin of the Argaric culture. Some historians and archaeologists believe that these people came from Greco-Mycenaean cultures and settled in these areas. and that they settled in these coastal peninsular areas due to the richness of metals such as tin, which allowed for mining.

However, other studies other studies affirm that the Argaric culture is an evolution of pre-existing peoples in this territory.Therefore, they would not fulfill the hypothesis of colonization coming from other Mediterranean peoples.

Although the bulk of the Argaric populations are concentrated in Almeria and Murcia, always in enclaves protected by geographical features such as elevations of the terrain, later other settlements have been discovered further away, even reaching the area of Ciudad Real, and in flatter areas. It is believed that the military culture of the Argarics allowed them to expand in search of more metal mines and more land where they could develop agriculture and livestock.

It is believed that the Argaric culture could coexist with other peoples of the Bronze Age, also called Chalcolithic.also called Chalcolithic. In some sites it is possible that the settlements were built over other existing ones, while in others it seems quite clear that they were built from scratch, without using the constructions or the previous distribution of other societies that had abandoned the place or had been conquered by the Argarics.

Characteristics of the Argaric peoples

The research of the Argaric culture sites allows us to know their main characteristics. For example, we know that they used to settle in high places, as already mentioned, and in these locations they created their buildings, usually rectangular and sometimes trapezoid-shaped. The materials used were stone, adobe and tapial creations, walls made of clay and wood formwork, very typical in Mediterranean cultures such as the Argaric.

In addition to the dwellings themselves, there are also constructions dedicated to social activities, such as warehousesas warehouses, workshops and places to develop different professions. Some sites have walls for defense against possible attacks by invaders, but many of them lack these fortifications, since the strategic locations in well-protected places were naturally enough defense, as they made any external attack very difficult.

It is believed that each village was home to about 400 people, although the larger ones could have housed up to 400 people.although the largest ones could house as many as 600. These population centers had a series of services such as channeled drains, cisterns to store water that they collected from a nearby place, as they always settled next to a river, stables for animals, granaries to store food, and various elements to facilitate transit between different parts of the village, such as stairs or ramps to overcome differences in level.

One of the main characteristics of the Argaric culture is that they buried their dead in the grounds of the houses. For this purpose, they made pits or even used pithoi, large ceramic jars. In addition, it was common to make offerings that were buried next to the deceased, and the elements found have been tremendously useful to get an idea of the social hierarchy existing in the Argaric societies. existing in the Argaric societies.

Although most graves house a single body, there are some cases of couples and even family groups sharing a niche. Likewise, tombs have been found with offerings but without bodies, indicating that they could not bury their mortal remains, perhaps because those individuals had died in some battle from which they did not return. The fact of performing a funerary ritual even without a body is an indicator of certain thoughts of a religious type that could indicate beliefs in a life beyond death.

Social structure

In the Argaric culture society was made up of a grouping of families of few descendants.. Thanks to the elements found in the tombs, it is believed that there were five different social strata.

In the first place are the male leaders of the village, carrying weapons and elements made ofThey carried weapons and elements made of precious metals. Then there would be their families, that is, their wives and children, who would also belong to the highest stratum of society.

Next would be citizens with full rights, next to whom were deposited weapons of more conventional metals. Here could be included the soldiers of the city.

The fourth group is made up of people with more limited rights, perhaps artisans or peasants, whose trousseau consisted of simple decorative elements. And finally there would be individuals who were not honored with an offering. It is believed that they could be slaves or at least people with very limited rights within the Argaric society.

The role of women in this culture is not clear.. It is believed that they would be subordinate to men, but only within their social stratum or superiors. That is to say, belonging to a certain class was more important in terms of rights than being a man or a woman, which would be a second distinction. The elements found in the female graves suggest that they were engaged in certain productive activities that contributed economic value to the Argaric society beyond the fact of creating offspring.

Economic activity

The Argaric culture was nourished by different productive activities. One of the most important was mining, and it was also key to choosing the location of settlements, as they were usually close to mining areas, for example tin.

They were also they were great farmers, cultivating especially barley, which they then stored in granaries.which was then stored in granaries and then crushed using small mills, which were centralized in a very specific place within the settlement.

The Argarics also practiced animal husbandry, as opposed to hunting wild animals, which must have been very scarce.which must have been very scarce. Their territories were home to species such as horses, oxen, goats, sheep and pigs. They were also engaged in other activities such as the manufacture of ceramics, creating objects with common shapes that suggest that they had certain patterns or criteria to follow in order to standardize the objects. In addition, the quality of their ceramics was very striking.

They also worked with other materials, such as metallurgy with the metals that they extracted from the mines, but also by carving bonesbut also carving bones and stones of different types and sizes.

Finally, another of their most outstanding industries would be textiles, since abundant evidence has been found of creations made in linen.

Bibliographical references:

• Ariza, R.S. (2012). Fortifications and state in the Argaric culture. Archaeology and Territory.
• García, E.A. (2007). Care practices in prehistoric societies: The Argaric culture. Archaeology and Territory.
• Jiménez-Brobeil, S.A., Al Oumaoui, I., Esquivel, J.A.. (2004). Physical activity according to sex in the Argaric culture. An approach from human remains. Trabajos de Prehistoria.
• Legarra, B. (2014). Territorial structure and state in the Argaric culture. Menga. Journal of Andalusian Archaeology.