Gatas (Turre)

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The excavations of the Gatas site in Spain testify to over 1500 years of settlement. This also includes the remains of an urban hilltop settlement of the El Argar culture from the Bronze Age. Gatas is considered to be well researched and has revealed some special features. Unique among all the hill settlements of the El Argar culture are the underground tunnels or "Galerías ciclópeas de Gatas", i.e. mountain tunnels, secured with Cyclops masonry , which were made by the two Belgian brothers and mining engineers Henri Siret and Louis Siret around 1886 were discovered and explored during their archaeological excursions.

These did not serve as a necropolis , but probably for water supply, which made the residents independent of the environment even during sieges or long dry spells. L. Siret writes: “ Without a doubt, Gatas gave most of the fame to the presence of these two underground tunnels, real examples of engineering. The purpose of this curious monument does not seem to give rise to any doubt. From inside the city, behind thick, massive walls, they were used by the residents to supply themselves with water when they were besieged by enemies. "

location

Gatas is rather remote, at the entrance to the Sierra de Cabrera , on an otherwise inaccessible mountain Cerro del Judio at 120 m above sea level. d. M., approx. 5 km to the sea and 6.8 km to the next known, former locality, in the area of ​​today's municipality Turre (Almería) in the region of Almería in southeastern Spain . Lull therefore suspects Gatas to be the last city on the land route, but also the first on the way from the sea.

chronology

After the Siret brothers around 1884, new phases of the excavation began almost exactly a hundred years later. With Pedro V. Castro Martinez et al. Graves were examined in 1987, 1989 and 1991, Robert Chapman et al. a. (1986) and J. Buikstra et al. a. (also 1989) carried out their own research.

Since excavations were carried out by different parties over such a long period of time, it was not possible to derive an exact chronological sequence of the archaeological objects at the place of discovery on the basis of "key fossils" found together and in context. It was only through the availability of the latest scientific methods from 1991, such as the comparison of data from calibrated measurements with the radiocarbon method at 43 sampling points, that it was now possible to divide them into six chronologically connected epochs:

  • GATAS I (c. 2500–2200 B.C.E.) considered the Pre-Argaric period.
  • GATAS II (approx. 2200–1950 B.C.E.)
  • GATAS III (approx. 1950–1700 B.C.E.)
  • GATAS IV (approx. 1700–1500 B.C.E.)
  • GATAS V (approx. 1500-1300 B.C.E.)
  • GATAS VI (approx. 1300–1000 B.C.E.) classified as the post-Bulgarian period.

The settlement was probably completely abandoned around 950 BCE.

Important finds

In addition to the fortifications described above, only objects and tools were found that were most certainly manufactured within the settlement, agricultural tools or food, however, not yet.

metallurgy

What is certain is that the entire metallurgical process was carried out in Gatas, evidenced by fragments of molten copper ore, for the repair of re-welded pieces of waste and fragments of an ax mold. Remnants of copper ore and firing pins as well as sharp points indicate that the first ore treatment was also carried out in the settlement.

necropolis

Siret and Lull describe 18 graves whose grave goods probably varied depending on the social status of the buried: eight of them in stone boxes , seven in simple grave pits and three in urn graves / pithoi graves.

Nine of these graves contained only simple pottery or no grave goods, in three others there were found not only cutting knives but also axes, but no pottery, and only one urn grave, grave no.2, of the probably wealthiest woman in the settlement, contained ten silver jewelry objects, including a diadem belt. The type and distribution of burial objects in Gatas therefore reflect the finds and the social structures derived from them from the excavations in La Pernera , El Oficio , Lugarico Viejo and Fuente Vermeja .

Some of the finds are on public display in the Museum of Almería , most of the grave goods in the Siret Collection in the Royal Museums for Art and History (Brussels) , but according to their website the exhibition is currently closed (April 2016) and is being renovated .

Archaeological Discourse

Despite the high degree of correspondence between the burial rituals found in Gatas and those of the El Argar culture, the archaeologist Vincente came in thanks to the uniqueness and independence of the engineering skill shown in the construction of the underground water supply and the fortification walls made of Cyclopean masonry , but also because of the implementation of the entire metallurgy process Lull doubts to what extent the former city of Gatas was actually integrated into the network of El Argar hillside settlements. It would be important for him to establish a definitely Argarian link with the two mountain tunnels and the fortification walls.

He writes: “ The curious thing is that in a culture like that of El Argar, of which we know one hundred and fifty archaeological sites, such works were found in only one of them. If these mountain tunnels are of Bulgarian origin, we should consider:

  1. Gatas would be the settlement with the most technically advanced means of production.
  2. The communication of technological development would hardly exist in our culture and in this it would not exist at all.
  3. The homogeneity of the material cannot be explained by contact and the exchange of ideas.

Or to conclude that it is about a single event in a settlement that does not allow us to draw conclusions about the productive forces and production conditions of the entire culture would be extraordinary. "

Web links

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Siret and Siret
  2. ↑ Siret and Siret p. 250
  3. ↑ Lull p. 269
  4. ^ A b Castro Martinez et all. 1992 "La Serie Radiocarbonica de Gatas", p. 27
  5. ↑ Castro Martinez et all. 1992 "La Serie Radiocarbonica de Gatas", p. 36
  6. ↑ Siret and Siret, pp. 209–225, drawings 57 and 59
  7. ↑ a b Lull p. 271

Coordinates: 37 ° 7 ′ 40.5 "  N , 1 ° 53 ′ 35.4"  W.