Argaric culture

The collective burial tradition typical of European Megalithic culture is abandoned in favor of individual burials. The tholos is abandoned in favour of small cists, either under the homes or outside. This trend seems to come from the Eastern Mediterranean, most likely from Mycenaean Greece (skipping Sicily and Italy, where the collective burial tradition remains for some time yet).

From the Argarian civilization, these new burial customs will gradually and irregularly extend to the rest of Iberia.

In the phase B of this civilization, burial in pithoi (large jars) becomes most frequent (see: Jar-burials). Again this custom (that never reached beyond the Argarian circle) seems to come from Greece, where it was used after. ca 2000 BC.

Out of 36 males tested from La Almoloya and La Bastida sites, 35 were assigned to haplogroup R1b-M269 (the exact phylogenetic position on the Y haplogroup tree could be resolved further in 14 males, who carry the derived variant at Y-SNP P312, and the derived subvariant Y-SNP Z195 in 18 males), only an individual was from another clade, E1b-L618. The Argar Culture was likely formed from a mixture of new groups arriving from north-central Iberia (which already carried the predominant Y-chromosome lineage and central European steppe-related ancestry) and local southeastern Iberian Copper Age groups that differed from other Iberian regions in that they carried an Iran Neolithic-like ancestry (similar to that found in eastern and/or central Mediterranean ancient groups). The major additional ancestry source resembled central European Bell Beaker groups, which first contributed ancestry to northern Iberia, followed by a southward spread. The distal sources were ~60% Anatolian farmer, ~25% Western Hunter-Gatherer, ~15% Yamnaya. Some phenotypìc traits were: absolute majority of brown eyes, pale skin was majoritary, and brown hair was more usual than black hair. [12]

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  Grave goods
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  Typical jar burial
  El Argar B
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  Woman's skull
  with diadem
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  Bronze sword with gold-covered hilt
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  Bronze axe and dagger blade
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  Ceramic cup
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  Pottery
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  Silver diadem from La Almoloya.[13][14]
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  Pottery
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  Pottery
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  Ceramics
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  Ceramics
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  La Bastida Totana archaeological site
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  Remains of a house at La Bastida Totana
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  Excavation at Peñalosa
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  Treasure of Cabezo Redondo

• Los Millares: its antecessor culture.
• Bell Beaker culture: its antecessor culture.
• Bronze of Levante: extending by the Land of Valencia: with smaller towns but very related to El Argar.
• Motillas (La Mancha): what would seem a military march of these proto-Iberian peoples.
• Cogotas culture was influenced by El Argar.
• South-Western Iberian Bronze circle.
• Mycenaean Greece: some cultural exchanges across the Mediterranean are very clear, with Argarians adopting Greek funerary customs (individual burials, first in cist and then in pithos), while Greeks also import the Iberian tholos for the same purpose.
• Nuragic civilization: Cultural exchange and probably influenced the Nuragic people with their tholos.

• Vila Nova de Sao Pedro
• Prehistoric Iberia
• Treasure of Villena
• Unetice culture
• Bronze Age Britain
• Bell Beaker culture
• Levantine bronze

• F. Jordá Cerdá et al. History of Spain 1: Prehistory. Gredos ed. 1986. ISBN 84-249-1015-X

Media related to Argaric culture at Wikimedia Commons

• Proyecto Bastida Research into Argaric society
• Emblems and spaces of power during the Argaric Bronze Age at La Almoloya, Murcia (Lull et al. 2021)
• The Society of El Argar by the Museum of Almería
• El Argar settlement reconstruction

37.2521°N 1.9175°W / 37.2521; -1.9175