PROJECT ENTRE ILLES
Insularity, interaction with the exterior and social complexity: Bronze Age coastal settlements in the Balearic Islands.
Location:Coastal settlement of Cala Morell.
Project managers:
Team:Directors: Montserrat Anglada, Antoni Ferrer, Damià Ramis i Magdalena Salas.
Field work: Montserrat Anglada, Antoni Ferrer, Damià Ramis, Magdalena Salas and Maria José León.
Drawings of materials: Lluís Plantalamor.
Radiocarbon datings: Mark Van Strydonck.
Scientific objectives:The Bronze Age coastal settlements of the Balearic Islands are a type of settlement about which we have very little data, although they usually present a series of common characteristics: they are found on smaller coastal headlands, and have walls that impede access from land.
Objectives of the intervention in Cala Morell are:
- To collect new data that helps us to establish the functionality of these settlements.
- To carry out radiocarbon datings that let us specify a more accurate chronology of these sites.
- To establish the role of trade in the development of these places.
- To discover the construction technique of the elements that make up these finds and be able to compare it with the habitats of the Bronze Age of both islands.
- To reveal the relationships that the settlement had with its immediate environment.
Results obtained:Excavations so far on the Cala Morell site have included the interior of a naveta (number 11) and part of a second (number 12) whose excavation will be completed in future campaigns. It must be borne in mind that the settlement has a total of a dozen habitational navetas, as well as the wall that surrounded them, two central depressions that may have been used to collect rain water, and a cyclopean structure in its upper part.
In naveta 11 all the typical elements of a Bronze Age dwelling have been documented. The constructive elements documented in the usable space are:
- A structure for combustion or fireplace, rectangular in shape outlined by slabs, located in the central part of the dwelling.
- Two benches, situated on either side of the fire.
- A mill base built into a bench built using the dry stone technique, situated opposite the façade of the naveta.
- A clay structure associated with the base of a mill, roughly cylindrical, located near the mill.
The objects documented during the excavation come from worked stone (manual mills, hammers and a mortar), worked bone (two spatulas and a triangular button with a v-shaped perforation on the base), pottery (fragments of barrel, pithos, truncated cone shaped vessels, globular pots, etc.). Apart from some bronze elements, materials from outside the islands have not appeared.
There are also abundant bones of domestic mammals. Although the study is still under way, a significant presence of bovine remains is an interesting feature. As with the rest of sites in this era, evidence of consumption of marine resources is extremely bare.
As regards the chronology of occupation, the pottery forms recovered place it at approximately between 1500 and 1200 B.C.
Although excavation of naveta 12 has not been completed, it has also permitted the documentation of a series of elements, like a fireplace, typical of a dwelling of this era.
The finds made to date permit therefore indicate that the form of life and the activities of the inhabitants of Cala Morell did not differ much from that of the inhabitants of the navetas situated in the interior of the island.
It is possible that the location of the settlement of Cala Morell, like that of other settlements of navetas in places with difficult access and protected by walls, responds basically to questions of defence.
Supporting entities:Promoted by the Association of Friends of the History Museum of Manacor, the District Council of Porto Cristo and Ciutadella City Council.