World Archaeology Seminars

»New research on the Copper and Bronze Ages in southern Spain - The settlement complex of Mesa Redonda in the Guadalquivir Valley«

Martin Bartelheim | University of Tübingen

The lower Guadalquivir valley is one of the historical hotspots of the Mediterranean region. Benefiting above all from a mild climate, good agricultural conditions, large deposits of raw materials in the immediate vicinity and a convenient location, it has been one of the economic and political centers of the Iberian Peninsula for several millennia. The advantages of the region have repeatedly attracted interest from outside, particularly from the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans and Arabs.

Since 2013, interdisciplinary teams from the Universities of Tübingen and Seville have been researching the Copper and Bronze Ages (3rd-2nd millennium BC) at various sites in the Seville region. The aim is to record the genesis of the landscape in connection with the use of resources as the basis for the functioning of local societies and to characterize the role of this region on the western edge of the Mediterranean world. The prospections, excavations and scientific investigations carried out for this purpose have yielded promising results. The focus is on the settlement center of Mesa Redonda (Villaverde del Río, Prov. Sevilla), which shows a settlement continuity from the Chalcolithic to the Middle Ages and provides the first evidence of the connection between settlement and associated necropolis for the Bronze Age.