The First Kings of Iberia: The Argaric Culture

More than 4,000 years ago something remarkable began in southern Iberia: the ancient Calinic societies came to an end and in their place a powerful society emerged that came to dominate the region for more than 600 years. They lived in densely populated fortified settlements on the tops of hills, protected by strong walls and even higher towers, as well as houses, they had workshops, granaries and large meeting halls. This was a strictly hierarchical society ruled by powerful chieftains or perhaps

kings

and queens supported by a wealthy aristocracy, a working class and slaves, as well as their magnificent settlements that we know of. society, due to its funerary tradition, buried its dead under the buildings of the settlements in pits, stone boxes or in enormous ceramic jars, they were buried with standardized sets of funerary goods that mark their age, sex and social rank within this society.

In society, elite men were always given copper and bronze weapons, while elite women had gold or silver jewelry and sometimes beautiful silver diadems. They had trade links that extended across the Mediterranean to North Africa, the Aan and the Near East and across Europe to the Baltic and thanks to the latest in ancient DNA analysis, it is now possible to reconstruct not only ancestry at the population level of these people, but also the relationships between the individuals buried in this intriguing way, shedding light on the kinship practices and social organization of this Bronze Age society, so who were they? people where they came from and how they exerted such tight control over their population and

culture

for six centuries and what ultimately led to their downfall.

This is the amazing story of the Bronze Age rulers of Spain, what some have called the

first

state. Society in Western Europe, lar

culture

. Later in this video we'll talk about how genetic testing has helped reveal not only the ancestry of the Lar people, but also their family relationships, if you ever wanted to know about your own ancestry. so I'm pleased to tell you that in this video I've partnered with my Heritage, a leading global DNA and family history service. It makes exploring your family history easier than ever. The my Heritage DNA test is easy to use when you get the box. you do a simple cheek swap, it takes only 2 minutes and then you send it back.

The results help you discover your origins and find new relatives. I have done this and am happy to share my results. Gives you an estimate of ethnicity. A percentage breakdown of your origins across 42 supported ethnicities and over 21,000 geographic regions, you can see that mine is mostly English and almost a quarter Irish, which makes sense since most of my family is from England and I had an Irish grandmother, 23% Scandinavian, although it was a real surprise, but then when doing my family tree with my Heritage, I discovered that my ancestors worked in shipping on the northeast coast of England, so maybe there It's where those links were made and I wonder where that small amount of Iberian ancestry came from, whatever the reason. answer, it is interesting considering that the subject of this video is ancient Iberia.

I will have to explore these links further and my Heritage helps you find new relatives based on your shared DNA. You can see how much DNA you share with them and how closely related they are. es and ancestral surnames common to both there is also this new feature called family relativity theory where you can also find out where a DNA match might fit in your family tree if you want to know your own ancestry like I did with my heritage. then click the link in the description box to purchase a DNA kit, use coupon code Dan for free shipping and as a bonus you can start a free 30-day trial of the best my Heritage subscription for research of family history, thanks to my Heritage. for sponsoring the video, the societies of the Iberian Peninsula are personified in the wonderful site of Los Malaras in Andalusia, with its scattered circular houses and famous perimeter walls that prospered for approximately a thousand years between 3200 and 2200 BC.

C. and suddenly, archaeologically speaking, these southern Iberian societies came to an end and something new began in their place, so what caused this? Well, a fantastic 2021 paper that analyzed DNA from human remains around this time helps shed light on what happened. It seems that from 2400 BC. C., new people moved to Iberia from the north and two centuries later their descendants were in southern Iberia. The men carried the r1b Y haa group and were also associated with genes originating in the Eurasian passage centuries before and after 2200 BC. The male lineages of Chalcoli Spain which date back thousands of years here came to an end and were replaced almost exclusively by the r1b W Happ group.

Now researchers cannot say for sure whether the newcomers took advantage of societies that had already collapsed due to internal problems or whether they caused the collapse. themselves, but it seems to me as if a tribe of men from the Bbean culture of northwestern Europe were steadily taking over Iberia, extinguishing existing male lineages in the process and taking wives from the existing Iberian population, in fact, during the rest of the Bronze Age, basically all men in Iberia would carry variations of the r1b wppa group that descended from a subclade originating in Central Europe and then, from 2200 BC.

C., we see the beginning of the lar culture established in the southeast. This was a new way of life, not like previous Chalcolithic societies and not. completely like the bell ringer culture, either on the one hand, they didn't use those ceramic bell-shaped vessels like their ancestors did in much of Western Europe, so what exactly was the alaga culture or the agaric culture from 2200 BC. C. in southeastern L

iberia

? Settlements were established on Hilltop ranging in size from 1 to 6 hectares. The name of the culture comes from the site of Elaga. One of the most powerful and important settlements.

Their settlements were not only made up of houses, but included storage rooms especially for barley and workshops and meeting rooms, some of these buildings were several stories high, they also had fortifications and infrastructure such as huge reservoirs. The history of Alaga as a society is a of increasing complexity, growth and sophistication over the centuries, this is reflected in the settlements themselves, one of the most important settlements was a site known as labastida in Mera covering 4 and a half hectares on a hill 450 m above the sea ​​level initially between approximately 2200 and 2025 BC. The original buildings were small oval or circular cabins like those of the Marara. but also like some houses of the Belbe culture in the rest of Iberia, it is difficult for archaeologists to know much about this

first

phase because around 2025 B.C. much of the settlement was destroyed by fire.

The most interesting thing about this first phase is the enormous fortifications they built to protect the settlement. The stone walls made of quarried sandstone blocks and clay mortar were up to 3 m wide and 5 to 6 m high originally, that's 20 feet high, in fact some sections are still 4m higher today the walls were plastered with a yellow or bluish violet clay, furthermore the wall had these solid square towers protruding from it. The wool towers had been seen in the Calico defenses as in the lost marara, but they were much further apart from each other, this is because the main weapon used at that time was the bow. and arrow warfare in the Alaga culture, however, was not based on bows but on hand-to-hand weapons.

The men defending the walls from these towers would have had to knock attackers off the walls with spears and halberds. There was a very narrow entrance with large wooden doors. which opened into a passageway leading to the settlement. These are sophisticated defenses intended to slow down and channel attackers. There is nothing like this right now anywhere closer than the eastern Mediterranean and they built these defenses immediately. It was the first thing these people did when they arrived. This place and make it your home clearly. Iberia in 2200 BC. C. was an incredibly violent place and from the beginning the elites could command a large amount of manpower, but its society became increasingly sophisticated and complex over the centuries, which is reflected in the architecture of their settlements after the first phase in Labasa burned down in 2025 BC.

During the next 100 years, the settlement was completely reorganized with stone buildings, some of them monumental, and they built a huge reservoir that could hold more than 300,000 liters of water. The final stage in Labasa from Between 1900 and 1550 BC. A dense layout of stone buildings of markedly different sizes was seen, all crowded close to each other with only a few narrow alleys between them. One wonders what it would have been like to live here, as if everything that happened had been hidden and Agaric's private society was characterized by this type of control of resources and people physically and socially.

Hilltop sites like Laasa were the homes of the elites and those who served them. There were maybe a thousand people living here. It is also likely that these sites housed slaves for work such as grinding barley into flowers and perhaps weaving textiles, but this was not where all the people in this society lived; There were other settlements in the lowlands and PLS that were subordinate to the power centers that controlled them, Labastida, for example, probably controlled a vast territory of more than 3,000 square kilometers of resources from the region, such as barley or cattle, were collected, and were taken to hilltop sites for storage and redistribution to other lowland sites specializing in metal working or textiles before the finished products were taken to the homes of the elites.

These hilltop sites, like Laesa. and Loca and Lar were probably the political capitals at the state level. All of Hilltop's elite settlements shared the same Ferary ritual characterized by burial beneath buildings. The bodies were placed in stone kisses. Artificial caves cut into the bedrock. Large ceramic ears or in simple pits. usually individuals, but some had two bodies together and occasionally there were three or more. These customs were surprisingly standardized with different grave goods specific to sex, age, and social class. So what can these wonderful burials tell us about these people and their society that I have mentioned?

This control is one of the aspects that stands out in this society and is expressed in various ways in its material culture, especially in objects such as pottery and jewelry included in the burials. They had only eight types of pottery, all without decoration and the shapes were Standardized for 600 years across the culture's geographic range, they were all made from the same type of clay. Imagine also the level of cultural control exerted over the workshops that produced these objects. No deviation was allowed. Imagine the authority and trust of people in One of the most notable types of pottery are the huge piton storage jars, with a capacity of between 100 and 200 liters, which were mainly used to store grain in central warehouses, sometimes fortified, in this arid environment barley was grown almost exclusively.

I'll talk more about this at the end of the video, but the centralization of the food supply for each region is perhaps the most important way in which they exerted their control. The other style of pottery that stands out are these famous cups, basically bowls on a tall stem. They are believed to be involved in rituals and are associated with the richest tombs. We know that Bela societies, especially those of Iberia, involved ritual drinking and other European bronze AG societies also developed drinking rights. We see special cups from England and Denmark to Greece, probably these communal rights. it included the swearing of oaths between, say, a king and his retinue of warriors or between two political leaders and perhaps to seal alliances at weddings and the like, more on that in a minute, just as pottery people were buried with metal objects such as halberds and daggers initially and later, swords and axes, SRO, chisels and ornaments such as bracelets, earrings, rings, beads and, later and rarely, the world famous diadems, the specific system of distribution of goods funeraries tells us about how society was organized, at least within the settlements in the hills, the regional capitals. 10% of the burials represent the elite class the rulers then 50% represent the middle class and the remaining 40% are the lower class who were buried with only one pot and some perhaps represent slaves who wereburied with nothing initially the tools and weapons were so cynical copper and after about 1800 to 1700 BC.

C. began to use tin bronze, silver and, more rarely, gold for jewelry produced in regional mines and local workshops controlled by elites. This fascinating 2022 study examined 68 people from a site called La Al maloya. and compared their DNA radiocarbon dates and archaeological contexts to understand kinship practices in Lar society, they discovered that elite marriage mares organized patrols locally, meaning that women moved to New Towns to marry husbands who They remained in their ancestral settlement. These people practiced reciprocal female exogamy. Men sent their daughters and sisters to neighboring and distant settlements to marry there and these settlements were ruled by patrilineal descent, meaning that authority was passed from father to son through the generations.

They found evidence of pedigrees extending up to five generations along the paternal line. They looked at double burials where an adult man and woman were buried together within a few years of each other, which at some sites can make up 20% of the burials, and found that they were married couples, what they call mating couples. unrelated and in three cases these couples had descendants also buried here who could be traced with DNA tests. It never ceases to amaze me that they can do this type of thing now it is incredible and they were also able to see that some men had children with more than a woman suggesting either that a man can marry more than one woman at a time or that they married a second time after the first died, the status of women in this Society has been much discussed because some women had these extraordinarily rich tombs and some had these incredible silver tiaras.

I think they have found five, now some argued that women were equal or even in charge in Alagar society, the reasoning being that women often had a greater quantity and variety of grave goods. Furthermore, there are more women buried than men and in the correct standardized burial, girls were given funerary goods at an earlier age than before. The children suggested that they were considered female at an earlier age than their brothers, but the DNA evidence suggests a deeply male-oriented society, where power resided and their blood was tied to the land. As for the funerary goods, it seems with double In the previous burials, the funerary goods were removed from the previous burial before placing the second, so if a man died and a few years later his wife died, his things were partially removed and she was buried on top with all her finery and perhaps. the symbols of male authority were simply simpler the weapons with which he maintained his position in society his position and that of his lineage these weapons were not just symbols the analysis shows that they all have signs of use all were used to fight against the weapons we call halberds were developed somewhere in Bela Europa and spread from Ireland to the Carpathians, perhaps the fighting style they required was especially effective and difficult to master, suitable for aristocrats rather than peasants and perhaps they also considered it as the weapon of their ancestors eventually.

Although the copper halberds were replaced by a clearly superior technology, the bronze sword, there are bodies that also show injuries, including one with a depressed skull fracture where a halberd crashed into his head, which was probably protected by a helmet of leather, perhaps the war also explains why more women were buried than men, more men died fighting outside the settlement of origin, their bodies were unrecoverable and perhaps girls became women at an earlier age because they could be married off earlier , while children had to be strong enough to defend themselves in Battle Before Their Coming-of-age ceremonies could be held despite being a patriarchal society.

Without a doubt, elite women were highly respected. A woman with a silver diadem was buried with her husband at Alaloa, beneath what has been described as a great hall, not a home, but a great gathering. space with benches lining the walls. I can imagine the king and queen holding court here with the sworn aristocracy making decisions about resource redistribution Local justice marriage alliances long distance trade Expeditions and wars before they were finally buried together beneath the structure Maybe I'm being glib, But how is it possible that a woman who wore a silver crown in death is not respected and powerful in life?

The alaloa was a compact, dense settlement that archaeologists say resembles what are called palace complexes in the eastern Mediterranean as Minoans. Palaces, for example, were centers of cultural and economic power for elites where they could store resources, oversee workshops, and exercise power. It is unclear how much direct contact they had with contemporary state societies in Europe and across the Mediterranean, but there was certainly trade. ties because they imported things like ivory from Africa and the eastern Mediterranean and amber from the Baltic As the centuries progressed, these proto-urban centers gradually extended their political and economic control until at their peak they had authority over 33,000 square kilometers, basically the entire southeast of Iberia. and their cultural influence extended Ed even beyond that, where it seems that local elites try to emulate the lar on a smaller scale;

However, around the year 1550 BC. The Lar way of life came to an end, it is not entirely clear why, however some settlements were burned down at this time. that and they were never reoccupied surely in some cases there was a violent end, we know from genetic testing that they were not conquered or replaced by Outsiders as their ancestors had conquered this land, so the violence must have come from within, perhaps a war waged between the settlements. or uprisings of the lower classes that could no longer be controlled, what may have triggered such conflict is that centuries of intense agriculture in this dry landscape eventually depleted the environment, leading to food shortages and social collapse throughout the ages. centuries, this culture had become increasingly focused on production. of barley as their main source of food, they previously grew wheat and legumes as well and consumed olives and flax figs, although it is not known if they were grown wild or cultivated, why would their agriculture have become a monoculture over time ?

Well, there is an argument that ancient states like in Egypt and Mesopotamia, for example, could only arise because of their mass utilization of grains, specifically grains can be grown, transported and stored as a kind of tax and divided and redistributed by those who controlled them, the control of the grains and the control of the people were inextricably linked, resulting in a peasant or slave class tired of the land and that is what we see in the cultivation of alaga barley is well adapted due to lack of water ideal for an area with little rainfall and can grow in soils with medium to low fertility had low and variable yields but these problems could be due to constant land clearing and a sufficient source of labor.

I wonder how much of the conflict in this Society was related to slave raids; However, unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia, there were no regular flooding of rivers to regenerate the soil for thousands of years. and in just a few centuries after about 1900 BC, successive barley crops depleted the soils, the system could have faced a final blow from a drought around 1600 BC. which may or may not be related to the Theo volcanic eruption in the aan, the actual collapse probably took place generations with sites abandoned over a period of decades before the way of life finally came to an end, the elites in their complexes of Hilltop Palace might have lost control of the land whose people fled the region, their political and economic systems had been so integrated that as they collapsed, the lifestyle of the elite could no longer be sustained and eventually many of the Hilltop sites were also abandoned.

We cannot yet say where they went, although there are suggestions that some elites attempted to establish an agaric type. Settlements further north, some of the former Hilltop sites continued to be occupied, but it is clear that the complex state-level society was over. Now there was no division between different social classes. There were no longer specialized workshops where multiple workers or slaves ground flour. textiles or hammered metal were made instead, work was done inside homes, social organization had become flatter again, resources were distributed more equitably, there were no longer grand burials, life was on a smaller scale , with smaller settlements and more diversity among them, people ate a wider variety of foods. including more hunted animals, central control over the economy and culture had come to an end and around 1550 BC.

C. lar culture no longer existed, you know, the more I read about agoric culture, the more it reminded me of a contemporary society in Central Europe that I knew. I have mentioned the Unka culture many times on this channel, they also existed between 2200 and 1600 BC. C., they also descended in part from the Bela culture, used bronze halberds, and had incredibly rich elite burials. They could also have been a highly organized state. They like society and had a huge influence on European history, they deserve a video too, so subscribe now if you want to watch it in the future. remember if you want to know more about your own ancestry with my heritage use the link in the description and be sure to use the coupon code Dan D an for free shipping and there is an added bonus where you can get a free 30 day trial of the best my Heritage subscription for family history research.

This is also a great way to help support the channel. and the work I do here now to find out more about B Beaker culture as it relates to Britain. Watch this video about the notable burial of the Asbury Archer. Thanks for seeing it.