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Dating Prehistoric Fortified Coastal Sites in the Balearic Islands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2017

Montserrat Anglada ,
Antoni Ferrer ,
Damià Ramis ,
Magdalena Salas ,
Mark Van Strydonck ,
Maria José León  and
Lluís Plantalamor
Montserrat Anglada*
Affiliation:
Museu d’Història de Manacor, Ctra Cales de Mallorca km 1,5 07500 Manacor, Spain
Antoni Ferrer
Affiliation:
Museu d’Història de Manacor, Ctra Cales de Mallorca km 1,5 07500 Manacor, Spain
Damià Ramis
Affiliation:
Museu d’Història de Manacor, Ctra Cales de Mallorca km 1,5 07500 Manacor, Spain
Magdalena Salas
Affiliation:
Museu d’Història de Manacor, Ctra Cales de Mallorca km 1,5 07500 Manacor, Spain
Mark Van Strydonck
Affiliation:
Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Jubelpark 1, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium
Maria José León
Affiliation:
Museu Municipal de Ciutadella Bastió de sa Font. Pl. de sa Font, s/n 07760 Ciutadella, Spain
Lluís Plantalamor
Affiliation:
Institut Menorquí d’Estudis. Camí des Castell, 28 07702 Maó, Spain
*
*Corresponding author. Email: munsanglada@yahoo.com.
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Abstract

A special type of coastal settlement, promontory forts defended by inland-facing walls, appeared in the Balearic Islands in an imprecise time during the Bronze Age. A research project was initiated in 2011 to study one of these sites on each of the two major islands of the archipelago. The first one, Es Coll de Cala Morell (north Menorca), is a walled promontory with a relatively large plateau, with 13 horseshoe-shaped houses (navetes). The second, Sa Ferradura (east Mallorca), is a smaller coastal cape, with a different spatial planning, with only two large built-up areas, both attached to the enclosure wall. Two of the navetes have been excavated at Es Coll de Cala Morell, showing a domestic space with a central hearth in both cases. The occupation has been dated to around 1600–1200 cal BC. At Sa Ferradura seven hearths have been recorded in a large, open-air area. Their chronology falls within the interval of approximately 1200/1100–900 cal BC. From a chronological point of view, fortified settlements in coastal promontories are not, as was expected, a unitary phenomenon in Menorca and Mallorca and have to be related to different cultural periods.

Keywords

Balearic IslandsBronze Ageprehistoric fortification
Type
Applications
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 59 , Special Issue 5: 8th International Symposium, Edinburgh, 27 June – 1 July, 2016 Part 1 of 2 , October 2017 , pp. 1251 - 1262
Copyright
© 2017 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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Footnotes

Selected Papers from the 8th Radiocarbon & Archaeology Symposium, Edinburgh, UK, 27 June–1 July 2016

References

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