I would like to announce the release of the new expanded version of
the online thesis "The Early Minoan Colonization of Spain". This is
just one of several free, open-content publications and articles
available on the website. Each of which will be updated periodically
as new confirmed archaeological evidence comes to light. Enjoy.
The following is the full text-only version of "The Early Minoan
Colonization of Spain". The free full version with images and graphics
is available at:
http://www.minoanatlantis.com/Minoan_Spain.php
The Early Minoan Colonization of Spain
The author discusses the archaeological evidence for an Aegean Minoan
maritime colonization of southeastern Iberia. The primary causal
factor for this was the development of the alloying technology of
arsenical copper. The alloy's hardness and castability made the
woodworking tools of the saw, bow drill, and lathe possible. These
tools set the stage for the invention of the first planked wooden
****ps with keels in the Aegean that set out on voyages of exploration
early in the 4th Millennia B.C. in search of the prestige metals of
gold and silver resulting in the Los Millares culture in southeastern
Spain.
The discourse begins with the first archaeological evidence of human
travel on the open sea before 9000 B.C. and continues with the
development of the Aceramic Anatolian and Natufian Neolithic package,
the radiation of the Aegean Neolithic package, the rise and fall of
the Millaren culture, the Atlantic Tin trade with Britain during the
Bronze Age, and ends with the catastrophic collapse of the El Argar
culture in about 1350 B.C.
[Image - Los Millares, Andalusia, Spain - Reconstruction]
The First Evidence of Human Travel on the Open Sea - before 9000 B.C.
The earliest evidence of human trans****t over the rough open sea that
is known to me is the Akrotiri Aetokremnos rock shelter occupation
site on the southern coast of Cyprus (Swiny 2001). The remains of the
site associate humans with the burnt bones of the pygmy hippopotamus.
Before this time Cyprus was inhabited only by the indigenous
Pleistocene fauna. The minimum distance from the coast of Cyprus to
the mainland of Anatolia is 69 km. The undeniable deduction is that
some form of raft or boat must have been used to trans****t the humans
to the site. Akrotiri Aetokremnos is dated to the late Pleistocene in
the 10th millennia B.C.
A raft is a device that relies on the floatation of the material
(typically wood) used to construct it. For any given carrying capacity
a raft is much heavier and more unwieldy when compared to its boat
equivalent. This makes them extremely difficult to directionally
navigate in the current and winds of the open sea. A typical boat
relies on its shape to provide buoyancy from the water it displaces
and minimize the lateral forces of the current and wind on its hull as
it moves through the water. This allows its crew to more effectively
control and maintain a predetermined course. If you want to reliably
paddle or row a craft to a destination and return, you need the
control that some form of a boat provides.
The early maritime explorers of Cyprus may have used boats constructed
with a skeleton of wood covered with sewn animal skins, but boats of
this kind are much more vulnerable to the rough and stormy conditions
of the open sea than well-built wooden ones. Skin boats work well
enough in rivers and near land along the coast, but one split seam can
be deadly when out at sea far from land. It is possible that strong
sea-worthy wooden boats sculpted with stone tools and fire and
stitched together with the fibers of hemp or yew wood were navigating
the eastern Mediterranean Sea well over 11,000 years.
The Development of the Anatolian Aceramic Neolithic Package - 11000
B.C. to 6000 B.C.
The basic assemblage that comprised the Neolithic package developed
between 11000 B.C. and 7000 B.C. in places like Tell es-Sultan
(Jericho) in the Levant among the Natufians and Pinarbasi in
southwestern Anatolia. This was an amazingly innovative and creative
period in human recorded history. For the first time large groups of
people came together in an interdependent way to solve their problems
of survival and to improve their quality of life by settling
permanently in areas of natural abundance. The specialization of
productive labor that spread its benefits to everyone is perhaps the
greatest revolution in human socialization.
In about 10200 B.C. houses were being built in Hallan =C7emi Tepesi in
eastern Anatolia where they used stone incised bowls and made
extensive use of wild plants and animals. The site has some of the
earliest evidence of possible pig domestication. The settlement of
Cay=F6n=FC was formed in 8500 B.C. in southeastern Anatolia and developed
elaborate buildings with terrazzo floors. They used awls and fishhooks
of cold-hammered native copper, and show the earliest evidence of the
possible use of flax to weave linen textiles. At about this same time
Nevali Cori built monumental stone structures that were probably
shrines. After 8000 B.C. Asikli H=F6y=FCk became a real town surrounded by
a city wall with a large obsidian industry. Over the next 2,000 years
these trends toward urbanization culminated in the settlements of
=C7atal H=F6y=FCk and Can Hasan in Anatolia.
While maintaining the Mesolithic practices of hunting, fi****ng, and
gathering they began to systematically cultivate crops of wheat,
barley, rye, flax, legumes, peas, and vetch (faba beans). They
domesticated sheep, goats, pigs, and dogs and would begin the process
of domesticating cattle (bos taurus) which provided them with a stable
and reliable source of food, raw materials, and labor for the fields.
The domestication of the large Anatolian Aurochs would be completed
sometime between 6500 and 6000 B.C. Their toolkit included flint and
obsidian blades and bladelets, polished stone celts (axes), grinding
stones and mortars, and harpoons and fish hooks of bone. The
Anatolians developed stone and mud brick architecture, basketry, and
works of leather and the Natufians had stone shaft straighteners
indicating the use of spears or archery.
The Origin of the Aegean Minoans - 7000 B.C.
By 7000 B.C. the Neolithic culture at =C7atal H=F6y=FCk that wor****pped
the
Mother Goddess and Sacred Bull spanned Anatolia from =C7ay=F6n=FC in the
east to Hacilar in the west and boldly reached over the sea to
Khirokitia on Cyprus and, more profoundly, to the hill of Kephala
(Knossos) on the Aegean island of Crete. The Knossos settlement near
the coast of north-central Crete represents the origin of the Minoan
civilization. Before this time Crete was, like Cyprus before Akrotiri
Aetokremnos, uninhabited by humans. There can be no arguments of any
indigenous development here. This is unquestionably a case of
Anatolian maritime pioneer colonization. The boats they used must have
been built of solid wood and quite durable with a cargo capacity of,
at least, a few tons in order for the crew to trans****t their
domesticated sheep, goats, provisions, and passengers. None of the
domesticated animals the Anatolians brought with them to Crete had
ever existed on the island before.
The Development of Large Durable Wooden ****ps - 7000 B.C. - 6000 B.C.
At the time the first settlers set foot on Crete, the island was
carpeted by vast ancient forests of old-growth Cypress trees. Many of
them were over 40 meters in height with very thick trunk diameters. It
must have been a very arduous and time-consuming task for woodcutters
to take down one of these trees with their polished stone axes.
Cypress is an excellent wood for boat building and is still used for
that purpose today. It is relatively strong yet light and flexible and
is naturally repellent to insects. Its best feature from the point of
view of a crewman of a Cypress boat in distress out at sea is that the
wood floats in water. Under normal conditions a Cypress boat or ****p
will not sink. A person alone out at sea far from land stands little
chance of surviving, but if they could cling to their swamped, yet
still floating, ****p they have a good chance of eventually making it
to safety.
The Aegean Sea has over 1,400 islands and islets, many of which are
within sight of one other. This makes it a natural incubator for naval
and maritime technological development. The strong north winds and
uncompromising gales of the Aegean are well known and must have been
quite a challenge for any ancient boat builder. Given the rigors of
the Aegean and the abundance of huge Cypress trees, human innovation,
over the next 1,000 years, must have transformed the vessels of the
initial colonization into large rugged sea-going stitched wooden ****ps
that were capable of trans****ting their newly domesticated cattle in
wooden pens.
[Image - Ferriby Boat Reconstruction - Half Scale
~1800 B.C., North Ferriby, East York****re, England, UK.]
They were probably similar to the Ferriby Boats from Britain dated to
about 1800 B.C. They were constructed of thick Cypress planks sculpted
with fire and stone tools (axe, adze, chisel, awl, etc.) and stitched
together with yew fibers. Theoretically, some of these strong durable
boats could have easily exceeded 30 meters in length and may have used
a sail made of animal hide. With or without the use of the sail, they
were powered primarily by human muscle working the oars and tiller. A
30 meter ****p of this type could have been propelled by well over
thirty oars and carried a cargo of 30 to 50 tons.
The Radiation of the Anatolian Neolithic Package in the Aegean - 7000
B.C. to 6000 B.C.
By 6800 B.C. the Argissa settlement appeared in Thessaly on the
mainland of Greece. It was soon followed by establishment of Sesklo in
about 6500 B.C. together with the Araptepe-Bekirlertepe settlement
north of the Bay of Izmir in the eastern Aegean. Within about five
hundred years (6500 B.C.) of the settlement of Knossos the Anatolian
Neolithic package had moved into the Mesara Plain of south-central
Crete. The sea****t settlement of Kommos was founded on the coast to
the west of the plain at about this time. The settlements of Nea
Nikomedeia in northern Greece and Karanovo in Bulgaria and Thrace
appeared in about 6200 B.C. In the timeframe of 6000 B.C. Em****eio on
the island of Chios in the eastern Aegean was founded, but Khirokitia
on Cyprus and Pinarbasi in Anatolia seem to have been abandoned.
Hacilar in southwestern Anatolia would continue on for another 1,000
years of occupation before finally collapsing. Also, the Neolithic
Package reached the Franchthi Cave settlement on the Argolid Gulf in
the Peloponnese in about 6000 B.C. Franchthi Cave had been occupied
for at least 14,000 years before the arrival of the Neolithic.
The Development of Pottery - 6600 B.C. to 6000 B.C.
Pottery began to appear in Thessaly and Catal Hoyuk around 6500 B.C.
The invention of pottery solved several problems for the Neolithic
people. It enabled them to securely store large volumes of water and
other liquids in something other than a laboriously made stone vessel
or flask or bladder of sewn animal skins. Water is quite heavy and a
bladder's ability to securely and reliably hold it is limited. It also
allowed them to store grain and other food products much less
expensively while keeping them relatively free from contamination and
insects. Once pottery found its way to Crete among the builders of the
cattle-carrying ****ps, they must have immediately realized that they
could now economically provision their vessels for significantly
longer voyages without exhausting their supplies of water and food.
The Aegean Neolithic Package - 6000 B.C.
The invention of pottery, the domestication of cattle, and the
development of large durable wooden ****ps completed the Aegean
Neolithic assemblage that would soon spill into Europe through
exploration, colonization, and the assimilation of the local
Mesolithic peoples by two main routes. The southern route was
predominantly taken by ****pping from the Aegean that worked their way
west along the northern coastlines of southern Europe using the
Mediterranean Sea as a highway. The northern route rapidly spread into
central Europe using the Danube river basin as its highway. The
southern radiation is known as the Cardium Pottery or Cardial culture
after the incised Aegean pottery carried on their ****ps, much of which
was imprinted with the shells of the marine mollusk Cardium edulis.
The northern Danubian expansion of the Aegean Neolithic is mainly
represented initially by the Karanovo culture and then by the almost
simultaneous appearance in about 5600 B.C. of the Vinca, Cucuteni, and
Linear Pottery cultures in southeastern Europe. All four of these
cultures were based on the Aegean Neolithic package and directly
linked to it. While the Karanovo, Vinca, and Cucuteni generally
remained in the southeast, the Linear Pottery culture led the advance
up the Danube into central Europe. Mysteriously, after a rapid advance
over the next few hundred years the Aegean Neolithic's march to the
northern coast of Europe was suddenly halted and the southern route's
advance also stopped after reaching the Atlantic coast of Iberia
(****tugal). The only viable explanation for this is that there must
have been large populations of Mesolithic people inhabiting the
coastal regions of northern and western Europe that actively resisted
any further colonization, assimilation, or acculturation.
The Aegean Neolithic (Cardial) Package arrives in Iberia - 5600 B.C.
The first archaeological evidence of Aegean settlement in Iberia is
the appearance of shards of Cardium incised pottery around 5600 B.C.
(Price 2000). This pottery is also referred to as Cardial or Impressed
Ware. Much of it was imprinted with the shell of the marine mollusk
Cardium edulis. Cardium pottery has been found from the Levant in the
eastern Mediterranean to the Atlantic coast of Iberia (****tugal). When
the Aegean Neolithic package arrived in Iberia it included the same
stone and bone tools, cultivated crops, and breeds of domesticated
sheep, pigs and cattle when it started its advance a few hundred years
earlier (Zilh=E3o 2001, Pereira 2006, Kennett 2006). The settlement of
the Iberian coastlines seems to have been a relatively non-violent
process of both pioneer maritime colonization and inland diffusion to
the indigenous peoples until the sudden halt of its advance on the
Atlantic coast.
[Image - Cardium Pottery, La Sarsa Cave, Valencia, Spain]
The Iberian settlers lived in caves, rock shelters, and open-air
settlements like La Darga in Catalonia (Price 2000) with structures
estimated to be 3 to 4 meters high with several hearths. In Cabecicos
Negros they built small structures made of stone and mud with roofs of
vegetation. They used tools of bone, polished stone axes, wood
diggers, sickle blades, and stone hand mills. They produced stone
projectiles, pottery, basketry, leather work, and produced flour with
their mills. Textile production was limited to small looms, as
evidenced by weaving thread separators, similar to the backstrap
type.
The Age of Pure Copper - 8500 B.C. to 4000 B.C.
Copper is one of the few metallic elements that exists in its pure
form in nature (Native Copper). It is much more commonly found
combined with other elements in the form of oxide or sulfide mineral
ores. The oxide ores include Azurite, Cuprite, and Malachite while the
most abundant sulfide ore is Chalcopyrite. Tools of pure copper can be
hardened by reheating (annealing) and hammering, but there is a limit
to the degree of hardening that can be achieved. A copper axe would
have been superior to its polished stone equivalent only while it
retained its sharp edge. If freshly sharpened copper axes were rotated
in to replace those dulled from the pounding, the work required for
chopping down a tree would have been significantly reduced when
compared to axes of polished stone. Implements of pure copper would
have been valued as tools, but regular sharpening during usage would
have been required thus reducing the life of the tool. A subtle but
very im****tant property of tools of copper is that they are
recyclable. When worn out they can be returned to the furnace and
recast anew. But a harder, tougher metal tool that held its edge
indefinitely would have been the dream from the beginning.
Several isolated finds of copper objects have been discovered from
before the 6th Millennia B.C. The earliest artifact of pure copper
known to me is a 2.3 cm pendant found in the Shanidar Cave located in
northeastern Iraq that is dated to 9500 B.C. (Hummel 2004). The
pendant was shaped by cold-hammering native copper and could have been
carved with stone tools. Many objects of cold-hammered copper have
been found in Cay=F6n=FC in southeastern Anatolia including awls and
fishhooks dated to about 8500 B.C. A single copper bead was discovered
in Nevali Cori that has been dated from 8500 to 8000 B.C. Asikli H=F6y=FCk
produced several copper beads (8000 - 7500 B.C.) made from rolled thin
sheets of native copper (Yal=E7in 2000). Several copper beads like those
at Asikli have been unearthed at =C7atal H=F6y=FCk dated to about 6750
B.C.
(Mellaart 1967). A 14.3 cm long copper awl was found in Balomir,
Romania in a context dated before 6000 B.C. (Mulhy 1996). All of this
culminated in the discovery (6000 - 5900 B.C.) of a large mace head of
cast native copper in the Anatolian settlement of Can Hasan (Yal=E7in
1998).
Evidence of extensive copper working in a fully developed form has
recently appeared in the Neolithic Vinca settlement of Prokuplje in
southern Serbia. The unpublished site has been dated to 5500 B.C. by
archaeologist Julka Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic from the Prokuplje Museum and
Dusan Sljivar of Serbia's National Museum. This was not just the cold-
hammering of native copper. It included the extraction of copper oxide
ores from a mine located on the nearby Mlava river. The ores were
trans****ted to a local copper smelting workshop and melted for
casting. The tools found included a chisel, a two-headed hammer, and
an axe. By comparison the copper artifacts found at Hacilar in
southwestern Anatolia in 5300 B.C. were nothing more than a few beads
and pieces of pins. It appears that the origin of organized metallurgy
may have taken place in the Neolithic Balkans. Between 4500 and 4000
B.C. Balkan metal workers were mining copper ores in underground
shafts and galleries and they had discovered how to smelt the sulfide
ores of copper as well. They were producing hundreds of axes and adzes
(Betancourt 2006). The Balkans looms large over the entire Aegean
Neolithic period with respect to the development of metallurgy.
Metallurgy developed at a later time on Crete. There is no evidence
known to me of copper, or any other, mining on the island in ancient
times. Copper-bearing ores have been discovered in modern times but
they are very insignificant and uneconomical. All metals had to be
im****ted to Crete by ****p either as mineral ores, processed metal, or
finished products. Chrysokamino is a copper smelting site on the Bay
of Mirabello in northeastern Crete excavated in 1996-97 with dates
beginning in 4500 B.C. (Johnson 1996). The source of the ore smelted
at Chrysokamino has not been definitively identified by provenance
studies (Betancourt 2006). The nearest possible sources are Laurion in
Attica and the island of Kythnos in the Cyclades. The site is an
isolated, windswept place ideal for smelting operations. The wind
would heat the furnace and blow the fumes away from the workers.
During this period many new settlements were established in the
eastern part of the island and in the south-central Mesara plain.
The Prestige Metals - Gold and Silver
Besides Laurion in Attica, Macedonia and Thrace are the only areas
where significant deposits of gold can be found in Greece. The Balkans
have a relative abundance of gold and silver ores especially in
southern and western Bulgaria and some areas of Serbia. Silver
deposits are quite rare in Greece except again for Laurion. Copper is
much more commonly distributed throughout the region when compared to
gold and silver and availability should not have been a factor in its
development and production except in places like Crete which had no
useful mineral ores at all.
[Image - Varna Necropolis - Elite Grave Goods
4500 to 4000 B.C., Varna, Bulgaria]
Gold beads have been excavated in Dimitra in eastern Macedonia and are
claimed to be from 5500 to 5250 B.C. If confirmed they could be some
of the earliest gold objects yet discovered (Betancourt 2006). A disk
of gold has been found at Ftelia on the northern coast of the island
of Mykonos dated from 5000 to 4500 B.C. (Facorellis and Maniatas
2002). Objects of gold make their appearance in a very opulent way
especially in the period from 4250 to 4000 B.C. in the Balkans. The
Varna necropolis on the eastern coast of Bulgaria has hundreds of
graves. Just four of the most lavish ones contained some 2,200 golden
objects (Renfrew 1986). This is an indication of the immediate and
great value placed on gold by the elites of the period. Many of these
objects were disks and pendants of the "ring-idol" design with a
perforation in the center. This seems to have been a common theme in
the Aegean and Balkans at this time.
Many objects of gold and silver have been unearthed in the Aegean from
4500 to 3500 B.C. This was the period when gold and silver metallurgy
emerged to robustly develop throughout the region. The evidence
includes gold pendants from Theopetra cave, Anavissos, and
Platomagnoulia on the mainland of Greece. Silver pendants appear in
Alepotrypa cave in the Mani peninsula, Amnisos cave on Crete, and the
cave of Euripides on Salamis. A hoard of silver jewelry was discovered
in Gournes in Central Crete in an Early Minoan I cemetery that
included bracelets and 168 beads.
The Age of Arsenical Copper - 4000 B.C. to 2500 B.C.
Most of the Early Bronze Age was actually an age of arsenical copper
(Betancourt 2006) and the distinction should be made for the sake of
clarity. The advent of the controlled mixing of an alloying element
(arsenic) with copper in an effort to make their tools harder was a
great advance in tool making. Not only did it make their tools much
harder, the alloy melted at a lower temperature and its greater
fluidity made the casting of complex and finely shaped molds
practical. This led to the realization that they could now for the
first time cast tools like the drill head and saws with sharp, hard
teeth for cutting wood and stone that would stand up much better in a
production environment. This was the beginning of a revolution in
stone and wood working and especially ****p building. The alloy of
arsenical copper (nominally 1% to 6% arsenic) was related to the
development of furnace technology and to the use of copper ores and
not native copper (Lambert 1997).
[Image - Standard with Two Long-Horned Bulls
Arsenical Copper, 2400-2000 B.C., Early Bronze Age III, North Central
Anatolia
H. 6 1/4 in. (15.9 cm)
In Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
2000-. (October 2006)]
Finds of arsenical copper have been made throughout the Aegean and
especially on Crete - the island with no metals of its own. Four
artifacts, a dagger and three needles, surfaced in Thaurrounia cave in
Euboia with an average 3.12% arsenic content (Mangou-Ioannou 1999)
dated to about 4000 B.C. (Sampson 1996). Some 16 artifacts with an
arsenic content of 1% to 6% have been found in an Early Minoan context
in Hagia Photia on Crete (Gale 1990). These may be the earliest in the
Aegean besides those in the Thaurrounia cave. ****os, a harbor town for
Knossos on Crete, was an im****tant center for the production of
arsenical copper during the Early Minoan period (Betancourt 2006).
Daggers have been found in the Cyclades, Hagia Triadha, and the Pyrgos
cave associated with Early Minoan pottery. Long daggers, saws, knives,
chisels, and fishhooks have been recovered from the many tholoi on the
Mesara plain at this time. Nine artifacts with an average of 2.9%
arsenic were discovered in Petromagoula in Thessaly dated from 3700 to
3300 B.C. (Johnson 1999). Eight artifacts from the palace hoard of
Arslantepe level VIA in eastern Anatolia showed an average of 4.16%
arsenic (Hauptmann et. al 2002).
Since the 1980's the Skouries foundry site on the Cycladic island of
Kythnos was associated by pottery and radiocarbon dated charcoal found
in the slag to the first half of 3rd Millennia B.C. The lead isotope
analysis of trace elements in the ores and slag done at that time
suggested that the "fingerprint" matched many objects found in the
Cyclades and the copper based artifacts found in the Minoan Mesara
tombs (Platanos, Marathokephalo, Hagia Traidha, Koumasa, Kalathiana,
Hagios Onouphrios, ****ti) (Gale 1990) and those at Hagia Photia (Stos-
Gale 1999). But this came into serious question in the 1990s by the
Laboratory of Archaeometry at Demokritos in Greece when it was
established that the results of Gale could not be repeated by
succeeding investigations. Therefore the location of the source(s) of
the mineral ores used in "any" of these copper artifacts is presently
unknown (Betancourt 2006). It appears that all the copper ores smelted
at Kythnos were not mined on the island.
The Invention of the Planked Wooden ****p and the Beginning of the
Minoan Mediterranean Empire
Sometime after 4000 B.C. the first effective woodcutting saws were
cast in arsenical copper. This revolutionized woodworking in general
and ****pbuilding in particular. There must have been attempts to cast
saws with pure copper but the difficulty of casting such a thin piece
and the amount of sharpening required would have negated their use in
a production environment. When the new saws came into use on Crete it
allowed them to cut planks of wood with a consistent thickness to
almost any length and width they desired. The ****pbuilders must have
soon realized that if they could edge-join the planks they could make
much lighter yet still strong hulls for their ****ps. A lighter ****p
can carry more people, provisions, and cargo than an equivalent ****p
made by sculpting planks with the axe and adze.
In the beginning they were probably stitching the planks together with
yew, but in time they invented or adopted the use of the bow drill and
lathe so they could more securely mate the plank edges of their hulls
with locked mortise and tenon joinery. They would have to cut the
round holes for the binding pegs using a drill and cut the smoothly
rounded sides of the pegs on the lathe to fit them snugly into the
locking holes. This very strong wood joinery technique is still widely
used today. These large, lighter ****ps capable of long distance travel
would have placed greater im****tance on the use of the sail as a
supplementary source of power to increase their efficiency.
Great distances can be traveled by rowing ****ps primarily powered by
human muscle if their average speed is sustained over time. If you
assume that such a ****p could maintain an average velocity of eight
kilometers per hour, which is a brisk walking pace for most humans,
and maintain it constantly around the clock by rotating the work at
the oars in ****fts among the available men on board, the ****p would
travel 192 kilometers in 24 hours. The rowing distance between Kommos,
Crete and the southeastern coast of Spain is approximately 2,400
kilometers. This distance could be traveled in 12.5 days using these
parameters. The manpower requirements of such a ****p would be, at
least, double the number of oars to be worked. A ****p with 40 oars
would probably need to be manned by something like 100 crewmen to
maintain a good constant rowing pace.
[Image - Minature Frieze Flotilla - Close Up
Akrotiri (Santorini, Greece), The West House, Room 5, South Wall
H: 0.43 / L: 3.90 m]
Once the first of their large planked Cypress ****ps took to the seas
there was nothing anywhere else in the world that could compete with
them either economically or militarily. The Aegean Minoans were the
first true masters of ****p construction and the use of the movements
of the Sun and North Star(s) to determine their latitude were well
understood allowing them to confidently navigate on the open sea.
Their skills in navigation were not exceeded until John Harrison's
invention of the marine chronometer in the 18th century A.D. that
allowed ****ps at sea to accurately determine their position's
longitude. The Minoan technological maritime and naval advantage was
so great that they would eventually come to dominate and impose their
will on all ****pping in the entire Mediterranean Sea including the
Black Sea. Their commercial ****pping was probably unopposed, except by
pirates, anywhere they traveled in the Mediterranean until the massive
eruption of the Theran volcano (Santorini, Greece) in about 1630 B.C.
The First Minoan Settlements in Southeastern Iberia - 3800 B.C. to
3200 B.C.
The western Mediterranean area is much more heavily mineralized than
in the east except in the Balkans and northern Greece. Over time they
would come to a place in the west that provided them with all the
valuable mineral ores that they had so little of and could ever
desire. That place was Iberia. It is one of the most heavily
mineralized places on earth with an abundant supply of the prestige
metals of gold and silver as well as copper and tin that is still
being mined to this day.
The new Cypress ****ps must have been a source of amazement wherever
they were sighted by the coastal Neolithic peoples. During the time
since the completion of the spread of the Aegean (Cardial) Neolithic
package, local and regional coastal maritime trading was active as
well as the influx of new settlers every year from the eastern
Mediterranean. The Minoans probably began exploring the shores of the
Mediterranean for mineral ores between 3900 and 3700 B.C. and arrived
on the eastern coast of Iberia during this time. At least one person
on these ****ps of exploration would have been keenly observing the
beaches and rivers along the coast for the glittering signs of
alluvial gold in the sands and sediments. If gold was found at the
mouth of a river they would know that somewhere up that river would be
the quartz-bearing ores that produced it. The same would be true for
silver with its mineral ores of Argentite and Acanthite and the
brightly colored ores of copper (Azurite, Cuprite, and Malachite).
Aside from their ****ps, the use of metals, and their Mesaran Crete
funerary practices they would have used the same Neolithic agro-
pastoral technological package as the indigenous Iberians. When they
surveyed the river basins of Almeria in southeastern Spain they found
everything they were looking for. For several centuries they probably
would have been satisfied to sift the alluvial sediments for metals
and established settlements in the river basin areas. Eventually, they
would have moved up to the inland sources of the alluvial metals to
form permanent mining settlements and that's exactly what they did. By
3200 B.C. many of the fortified towns of the Aegean Minoan colony (Los
Millares culture) had been founded and all of them were directly
linked to mining operations or their defense (Almizaraque - Silver, El
Barranquete - Gold, El Tarajal - Gold and Silver, Los Millares -
Copper, Los Pilas - Gold, etc.).
The Question of the Origination of Metallurgy in Iberia
Before the early radiocarbon dates for the Millarens were confirmed,
many scholars mistakenly believed that the culture was the result of
Mycenaean colonization and associated their tholos tombs with the
famous shaft graves at Mycenae in Greece from the Late Bronze Age. The
Myceneans would not come onto the scene until much later. So it is
understandable that many of today's scholars believe that Iberian
metallurgy was an independent invention of the indigenous Neolithic
people. But this can't be correct.
Besides the obvious selection of settlement sites directly associated
with the Eastern Mediterranean prestige metals of gold and silver,
there appears to be no discernible period for the exclusive use of
purified copper by the Millarens as seen in the east where it truly
did originate. In about 3200 B.C. Otzi the Iceman was still using the
old technology of pure copper (axe head - 99.7 % pure copper) while
the Millarens were working with the advanced Aegean alloy technology
of arsenical copper. This does not speak well for the indigenous
origination of Iberian metallurgy. While artifacts of relatively pure
copper are found among the Millarens they appear to be contem****aneous
with those of arsenical copper. The Millarens seem to have bypassed
the "Age of Pure Copper" and began with, at least, a basic
understanding of the alloy technology of arsenical copper from the
beginning. Twenty-seven copper artifacts from the Los Millares site
have been found to contain an average of 2.3% arsenic and sixteen
objects from El Malagon had a concentration of 1.7% arsenic (Lambert
1997). The most probable conclusion from this evidence is that there
was no indigenous origination of metallurgy in Iberia. It was the
direct result of Minoan maritime exploration and pioneer
colonization.
The Millaren Tholoi of Iberia
[Image - Los Millares Tholos Tombs - Present Day]
Many of the towns and settlements of the Millarens had cemeteries
consisting of tholos (beehive) tombs. Los Millares had a necropolis of
some 90 tholoi built in the distinctive style of the Early Minoans of
the Mesara plain in south-central Crete that were used by the elites
of the society. The first evidence of tholos building techniques is
the mud brick "Tholoi of Arpachiyah" of the Halafian culture in
northeastern Syria which lasted for about seven hundred years in the
6th Millennia B.C. But they appear to have been used for domestic or
ceremonial purposes and not as tombs. The next appearance of tholos
construction is in Lebena in southern Crete in the 4th Millennia B.C.
This was at a time when caves and rock shelters served as the primary
means of burial of the dead on the island. Tholoi became the only
commonly used method for burial in southern Crete for well over 1,000
years with some tombs still being used into the Late Bronze Age.
[Image - Los Millares Tholoi - Sectional]
A typical Cretan tholos tomb was circular, constructed of unworked
fieldstones, and built above ground. The interior walls were corbelled
to slope inward in an arched beehive-shaped fa****on to enclose the
space near the top. How the roof was capped is still a matter of
debate. A passageway led to a small doorway that consisted of a
trilithon of two vertical standing stones capped by a horizontal
lintel. The door opening was closed with a slab of stone on the
exterior. Rectangular rooms or annexes were often built adjacent to
the outside wall of the tombs.
The appearance of Minoan tholoi among the Millarens is certainly more
than just a curiosity. The idea of the spontaneous origination of this
very unique style of funerary structure in Spain at the same time they
were being built and commonly used by the Aegean Minoans on Crete is
highly improbable. This is additional strong evidence for the
colonization of southeastern Iberia by Minoan maritime pioneers in
search of wealth.
The Extent of the Minoan's Western Exploration
There is no reason for the Minoan explorers to have halted their
endeavors in southeastern Iberia. Their new ****ps were certainly more
capable of traveling in the ocean that the stitched boats that reached
the Atlantic coast of Iberia during the Aegean (Cardial) Neolithic
period. They would have simply continued to methodically scour the
Atlantic coastlines and river valleys for evidence of metals to the
north and south once they had passed through the "Pillars of
Hercules". Notably, there is evidence from the analysis of alluvial
sediments that the vast Rio Tinto copper, silver, and gold mines in
southwestern Spain, north of Huelva on the Atlantic coast, began to be
worked during the 3rd Millennia B.C. (Nocete 2005). The nearby,
smaller Sao Domingos and Tharsis mines that are quite close to Rio
Tinto may have also been discovered at this time. It is highly
probable that the Rio Tinto ores were originally mined by the
Millarens, but I know of no archaeological finds at the site. After
5,000 years of mining, the Rio Tinto area is one of the most cratered,
destroyed, and polluted places on earth.
Apparently they found no metallic ores of interest south of the
Pillars of Hercules along the northwestern African coast. But the
sediments of the northern coastlines of western Europe would have
yielded the alluvial evidence of abundant metal ores. They may have
discovered the gold, silver, and tin in Brittany in northwestern
France before making the discovery of gold, tin, and other metals in
southwestern Britain and Wales. Even though the superior alloying
properties of tin with copper were unknown at this time its
availability should have noted by the explorers. Also, there were
deposits of gold, silver, and copper in Ireland. The explorers may
have discovered the Canary, Madeira, and Azore islands and traveled
far beyond, but I know of no archaeological evidence to sup****t this.
How far the Minoan voyages of discovery went north from the Pillars of
Hercules along the coastlines of Europe can only await future
archaeological evidence.
The Los Millares Culture - 3200 B.C to 2600 B.C.
[Image - Los Millares - Present Day 1]
The "Los Millares Culture", also known as the "Culture of the
Thousands", eventually covered an area of about 20,000 square
kilometers along the southeastern coast and possibly the lands to the
west around the Rio Tinto mines north of and including the modern city
of Huelva on the southern Atlantic coast. The town of Los Millares was
a large copper mining settlement of over 1,000 people about 17 km
north of Almeria on the southeastern coast near Santa Fe de Mond=FAjar
that was discovered in 1891 by Luis Siret. It was protected by several
outpost forts and used concentric rings of defensive stone walls.
There must have been considerable resistance to this foreign incursion
from the indigenous peoples.
[Image - Los Millares - Present Day 2]
The period of 3000 B.C. to 2600 B.C. was the height of the Millaren
Culture. There was an expansion of the town's walls and
fortifications. There is evidence of trade with the east from the
remains of pottery, hippopotamus ivory, and ostrich eggshells. The
distribution of ac***ulated wealth would have been uneven from the
beginning and led to the development of social stratification and
economic elites that justified their status with rituals and
symbolism. The hierarchical nature of the society was demonstrated by
the privatization of property and the presence of prestige objects
found in the graves of the elite. There is evidence for the existence
of an early form of nation state with centrally controlled commercial
networks.
The Rise of the Bronze Age and the Fall of the Millarens - 2600 B.C.
to 2200 B.C.
True bronze (copper with 6% to 15% tin) began to rise to dominance
over arsenical copper as the metal of choice among the Aegean Minoans
by 2600 B.C. and became one of the essential ingredients of their
economy. Many scholars believe that the change to bronze from
arsenical copper was because of the arsenic's poisonous effects on
humans and this may be true to an extent, but bronze is a superior
metal and is significantly harder than arsenical copper. Tin is rare
and sparsely distributed geographically relative to the sources of
gold, silver, and copper. Cassiterite and stannite are the main
mineral ores of tin. Cassiterite is the primary (oxide) ore of tin and
like gold can be found in alluvial settings. Stannite is a secondary
sulfide ore of tin. The ores of tin are very rare in the eastern
Mediterranean. The only known source of cassiterite in the area was
the mining town of Kestel-G=F6ltepe in the Taurus mountains of south-
central Turkey. It was occupied and supplying tin to the east from
3290 B.C. to 1840 B.C. when the ores became uneconomical or ran out.
Cassiterite was abundant in the west in places like central and
western Iberia, Brittany in northwestern France, and especially
Cornwall in southwestern Britain.
During the period of 2600 B.C. to 2400 B.C. there were signs of stress
beginning to appear in the Millaren culture. Their fortifications were
reinforced and enlarged to their maximum extent indicating violent
encounters or war with the neighboring peoples from the west and north
of them. It was in this period that the first Maritime Bell Beaker
pottery appeared among the Millarens. The pottery spread quickly
throughout the region on the existing maritime trade networks. By 2400
B.C. the social stress facing the Millarens began to worsen into a
crisis and the large settlements began to depopulate. The graves of
the elites were increasingly accompanied with weapons indicating the
violent nature of the time. By 2200 B.C. the town of Los Millares was
abandoned after a sequence of catastrophes (probably large-scale
warfare). There is evidence of widespread fires and damage to the
fortifications. But amid the destruction, the first settlements of the
El Argar arose to take their place. The period began with the use of
bronze in the Aegean in 2600 B.C. and ended in 2200 B.C. with it being
used by the Beaker people in Britain.
The Western European Bell Beaker Peoples
The whole of Iberia was populated with different groups of Beaker
people by 2600 B.C. that faced the borders of the Millarens in the
southeast. If there was a war involving the Millarens it may have been
a civil war rooted in the hierarchical nature of the society, but it
was more probably a war with one or more of the Iberian Beaker groups
over access to resources. The Bell Beaker Package of technologies most
probably originated in Iberia sometime after 3000 B.C. and over time
spread northward along the Atlantic and Mediterranean maritime trade
routes into the coastal regions of France, Britain, Ireland, the
Netherlands, Denmark, and eastward into the interior of central
Europe. These were the people that erected the first stones at
Stonehenge in about 2600 B.C.
The earliest known copper mining in the British Isles was in Ireland
at Ross Island in Killarney in about 2400 B.C. It is interesting to
note that the three small knife blades found in the grave of the
Amesbury Archer near Stonehenge in southern Britain dated to about
2300 B.C. were cast with purified copper that came from France and
Spain. This is the same technology used in Otzi the Iceman's axe head
almost 1,000 years earlier. Britain was still in the "Age of Pure
Copper" in 2300 B.C., but by 2200 B.C. bronze was available and in
use. There was, essentially, no "Age of Arsenical Copper" in Britain
and by 2000 B.C. bronze was being used in Brittany and Ireland. A
short time later the huge deposits of copper ore at Great Orme near
Llandudno in northern Wales began to be seriously mined in about 1860
B.C.
The El Argar Culture and the Atlantic Tin Trade with Britain
Just as in modern times where oil is a primary commodity necessary for
the functioning of the world economies, tin was a primary commodity in
the Bronze Age. There were three sources of tin available to the
Aegean Minoans before 1840 B.C. - the tin from faraway northeastern
Afghanistan, ores from the Kestel-G=F6ltepe mines in south-central
Turkey, and the vast amounts of tin in the west (Iberia, Brittany, and
Cornwall). In about 1840 B.C. the Kestel-Goltepe mines shut down and
tin from the west became more im****tant. The Minoans would have
totally monopolized the supply of western tin into the eastern
Mediterranean with their navy and ****pping.
The nearest tin ores available to the Millarens in 2600 B.C. in Iberia
were in the areas of Cardenas and Madrid in central Spain
(mindat.org). The stress that began to build in the Millaren society
at that time may have been due to their attempts to gain access to
these resources of tin. The Beaker groups affected by this policy may
have been highly resistant to any incursions into what they considered
their lands. Rather than have the Millaren colony fall to its complete
destruction in 2200 B.C. and be faced with the inevitable loss of
Iberia's vast mineral wealth the Aegean Minoans may have come to their
aid militarily to sustain the flow of metals. An influx of settlers
from the burgeoning populations of the east may have reinforced the
surviving Millarens to found the new settlements of the El Argar and
advanced to secure the sources of tin in the Iberian interior by
military force.
[Image - El Argar - Penalosa - Fortified Town Reconstruction]
It could be just a coincidence but the fall of the Millarens, the rise
of El Argar, and the first use of bronze in Britain occur at about the
same time - 2200 B.C. This may have been due to the beginning of a
Minoan Atlantic tin trade with Cornwall in Britain (the Cassiterides?)
based from their Iberian El Argar colony to supply the markets of the
eastern Mediterranean. The Minoan leader****p in the Aegean would have
to be strongly centralized, unified, and effective in order to
implement these aggressive and sustained policies. They may have
secured the supply of metals they desired but the friction and
hostility that had been long brewing among the Iberian Beaker peoples
would have been greatly exacerbated and smoldered into an evolving
conflagration.
The shutdown of the Kestel-G=F6ltepe mines in 1840 B.C. may have been
due to the Minoans flooding the market with cheap tin from the west or
the mines may have simply run out of tin. Whatever the case the
Minoans controlled the price of tin in the eastern Mediterranean until
something completely extraordinary occurred. In about 1630 B.C. the
huge Theran (Santorini, Greece) marine volcano in the south-central
Aegean Sea exploded with such colossal violence that it nearly
destroyed the Minoans in the Aegean. The social dynamic constructed on
economic imperatives had continued to build until the bubble was burst
by the volcanic eruption that changed the world.
Several decades after the eruption the Mycenaeans from mainland Greece
conquered the surviving Minoans in Crete and assumed control of the
western maritime trade networks of metals from the west. The Iberian
El Argar were incor****ated and continued to function as an Aegean
colony under the Mycenaeans. The Motillas (forts) of the Bronze of
Levante culture like the Motilla del Azuer in La Mancha were probably
Mycenaean era defenses for a "Tin Road" connecting the inland tin
mines of Cardenas and Madrid with their ****ts in the southeast. The
Mycenaean El Argar era lasted for about two hundred and fifty years
until its catastrophic collapse in about 1350 B.C.
W. Sheppard Baird
Created: June 20, 2007.
Updated: December 9, 2007.
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