Barcelona Part 7: Life in the Late Bronze Age

Late Bronze Age hill fort. In Iberia, defensive structures on hills had been around since Los Millares, during the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) and El Argar of the Early Bronze Age (see Parts 4 & 5). However, those early fortified towns were more the exception than the rule. As militarization and warfare dramatically increased during the Late Bronze Age (see Part 6), so did protective fortifications.

All over Europe, including Iberia, people began to build distinctive structures that archeologists call "hill forts". They were usually--but not always--built on top of hills or ridges. The fortifications included one or more ditches which were sometimes circular or oval, but generally followed the contours of the top of the hill. The inside banks of the ditches rose to high walls topped by wooden palisades. Usually there was only one entrance, with a very strong gate.

In this posting, I'll give you a look at these fortified communities, the houses they contained, and the way in which people lived. In addition, I'll provide some insight into the role of women, including some surprising new information about how women traveled much more than men and how this may have made them the conduits for broad cultural changes. 

Drawing of a typical fortification. The builders used wood beams to form containers filled with rocks to create a barrier on top of the embankment. Defenders could stand on the ledge created behind the wood barrier at the top. While many of the hill forts were relatively small, some were as large as 6km (3.7m) across. Their positions at the tops of hills and ridges provided commanding views of the surrounding countryside and would have made them difficult to attack.

Recently, archeologists have begun to question whether all hill forts were built for defensive purposes. In some cases, no evidence has been found of any structures inside the embankments. This suggests that those "hill forts" may have been used to pen animals. In other cases, the artifacts found indicate that particular sites may have been used for markets and as production sites for bronze. 

Bronze Age Hoards

Flanged axeheads found in a large hoard in Catalonia. These may have been cast as ingots for trade. They would have been used by purchasers to melt down for casting into other useful objects. One activity that occurred in many hill forts was the production of bronze. While copper could be mined locally in Catalonia, the tin alloy had to be imported from western Spain or even as far north as the Cornish coast of Britain.

Bronze disks called tutuli were used for necklaces and pendants. The above objects were contained in the same hoard as the flanged axeheads. During the Early Bronze Age, much of the bronze produced would have initially been used for tools, weapons, and other practical gear. By the time of the Late Bronze Age, the metal was being produced in such quantity that it could be used for less practical purposes, including jewelry.

Collection of bronze bracelets from the same hoard. As noted in Part 4, the bronze hoards usually contain large numbers of objects of a similar type. For some, this suggests storage by metal workers who planned to return to their cache for supplies. Other hoards, particularly those found in bogs or rivers, are believed to have been buried as sacrificial offerings. Still others may have been secretly buried to protect valuable objects from raiding parties.

Bronze Age homes

Scale model of a village during the Late Bronze Age. Rectangular buildings started to replace round structures in Urnfield villages in central Europe. This style began to reach Iberia during the Late Bronze Age, but roundhouses also continued in use all through the Iron Age right up to the Roman invasion. Although the shapes may have changed, the construction materials largely remained the same: walls of wattle and daub or stone, with thatched roofs.

A family socializes around a central fire while waiting for dinner. The patriarch and his wife, distinguished by their grey hair, sit at opposite ends of the group. They are surrounded by younger people of various ages, including small children. By the Late Bronze Age, cloth had largely supplanted leather for clothing. Linen, made from locally grown flax, was widely used. In colder areas, garments woven from sheep's wool would have been popular.  

Reconstruction of a bronze age house. The fire pit in the floor would have served both for cooking and heat. The meats cooked on a grill like this would have included beef, pork, goat, and mutton. Leather from hides can be seen drying on the wall. It would have been used for belts, shoes, ropes, and various tools.

A kitchen pantry. Non-meat foods included those made from wheat, barley, millet, rye, and oats. Other foods were beans, peas, poppy seeds (used for oil or as a drug), hazel nuts, apples, pears, and acorns. Since Catalonia has a long sea coast, at least some seafood would have been consumed.

Beehive-style ovens like this are still used around the world.  I often seem them in my travels around Mexico. The remains of leavened bread left as offerings have been found in some Urnfield sites. The pottery on the shelf is unadorned, as was typical of Urnfield ceramics. 

Women of the Bronze Age

Woman of the Urnfields Culture. She wears a woolen robe over her linen blouse and leather shoes on her feet. A necklace made from bronze tutuli disks circles her neck. These disks are quite similar to those from those in the hoard shown in a previous photo. 

The contents of graves indicate that both men and women wore bronze jewelry, including arm bands and pins to hold their robes and cloaks together. Daggers were also found in both men's and women's graves. However, men's graves tended to contain razors and swords, while those of women contained large belt plates or buckles.

This bright copper bracelet once adorned an Urnfield woman. Tests on the remains of Bronze Age women, including DNA and tooth enamel, have shown some surprising results. As young adults, many of the women had traveled considerable distances from their places of origin before they settled in the communities where they were buried. By contrast, tests of male remains from those same communities showed little evidence of travel.

Further, the women did not come in groups, all from the same location, as they might if they had been captured in a war or a kidnapping raid. Instead, they arrived individually from multiple locations. When they were buried, these foreign women were treated no differently than local women, indicating that they were not slaves but had been accepted as equals by the community. 

Items of feminine decor included elaborate belt buckles. In most cultures, women raise the children. This makes them the most important transmitters of culture. All these foreign women arriving from various locations brought new ideas and new technologies. The result was much more rapid cultural change than had occurred in previous eras when people rarely traveled far from home.

A lot of this traveling was enabled by the extensive trade networks that had developed during the Bronze Age. One of the most important items of trade was the tin ore that was necessary to alloy with copper to make bronze. Many other goods were transported as well, including wine, oil, textiles and luxury objects such as jewelry. 

 

Various pins used by women to secure their hair or clothing. The Late Bronze Age cultures of Europe did not reach the cultural peaks of those to be found in the eastern Mediterranean such as the Minoans of Crete, the Mycenaens Greece, the Hittites of Anatolia or the Egyptians. Even so, the Europeans of this time were skilled metal workers and produced many beautiful artifacts of gold, silver, copper and bronze.

This completes Part 7 of my Barcelona series. I hope you found it interesting and, if so, you will leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below. If you leave a question, please include your email address so that I may respond in a timely manner.

Hasta luego, Jim