The Bell Beaker phenomenon in the Northwest of Iberia: current considerations on its chronology, archaeological contexts and ceramic styles

Abstract

Based on a database that organizes the various categories of contexts in the Northwest of Iberia displaying Bell Beaker pottery, this text undertakes a critical analysis focusing on: (i) the contextual and stratigraphic nature as a determinant for interpretation; (ii) the geographical distribution of sites and its socio-economic and ideological expression in regional settlement during the Chalcolithic (3rd millennium BCE); (iii) the social role that Bell Beaker pottery may have played in each category of contexts - funerary and non-funerary (dolmen/mound, open settlement, walled/ditched enclosures, rock shelter/cave, and related to rock art). The stylistics of pan-European and regional pottery are also discussed. 14C dates are correlated with sites and ceramic styles, concluding the multifaceted character of the Bell Beaker phenomenon and its long-term use for more than eight centuries in this region, between the second quarter of the 3rd and the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE.