Conny Waters – AncientPages.com  – Archaeologists from the University of Granada have discovered several menhir-sculptures on the outer wall of the Los Millares that about 5,000 years ago,  was the biggest and most important town in Europe.

These people possessed highly developed technical knowledge and introduced copper metallurgy in the Western Mediterranean Sea.

These symbols were kept on the outer wall, which was built around 2900BC to expand the town of Los Millares, thus occupying the space of the old necropolis. Image credit:  University of Granada

Their settlement dates from the Copper Age and is located in the municipality of Santa Fe de Mondújar, in Almería. Thanks to very successful research conducted by the University of Granada many important findings linked to the entire European continent in the Copper Age.

These sculptures belonged to the old necropolis of Los Millares and were later kept at the main entrance when the expansion of the town occupied areas of the burial space. That outer wall that extended the settlement was erected around the year 2900 or so.

The research team from the University of Granada explains that the menhir sculptures, which were part of the symbology of the necropolis, were still highly honored during the further expansion of the metropolis (already confirmed as the first city in Europé) and reused later for symbolic purposes of the society.

Based on the study, the sculptures “served to reflect the rights of the populations of that time to occupy and exploit a territory.”

The menhir-sculptures justified, through the ancestors, the ability to access the settlement through the main door, with the menhir-statue located next to it; the exclusion of those not linked to all representations at both ends of the wall, and the integration of new populations, with the so-called Tomb 63 included in the layout of the wall.

According to the researchers, certain characters, the statue-menhir and the stele of Tomb 63, all played an important role.

Remains of tomb. Credits: Museo Arqueológico Nacional de España

“They served to reflect the rights of the populations of that time to occupy and exploit a territory,” details the study.

The statues justified, through the ancestors, “the ability to access the settlement through the main gate, with the statue-menhir located next to it; the exclusion of those not linked, with all representations at both ends of the wall; the integration of new populations, with Tomb 63 included in the layout of the wall; and the role of certain characters, with the statue-menhir and the stele of Tomb 63”, wrote the University’s researchers involved in the project.

The expert archaeologists have also highlighted that this enormous prehistoric site of Los Millares located in Santa Fe de Mondújar was a great innovative center of megalithism, where tholos – type tombs appeared for the first time and from where they spread to the rest of the Iberian Peninsula.

The researchers carried out a statistical and spatial analysis of 193 radiocarbon dates from the entire Iberian Peninsula, which has made it possible to demonstrate that one of the main megalithic monuments of the Iberian Peninsula and Europe appeared for the first time at the Los Millares site.

Approximately 5,200 years ago there was an innovation of enormous relevance in the development of prehistoric societies