LA EDAD DEL BRONCE EN LA CUENCA BAJA DEL RÍO JABALÓN: ESTRUCTURAS TUMULARES Y FORTIFICACIONES EN ALTURA, UNA COMPLEJIDAD MANIFIESTA

Abstract

At the end of the III and during the II millennia BCE, the La Mancha region knows a growing occupation of productive spaces and the necessary control of communication routes. This new reality shows, based on different placement patterns (in high places or on plains), various urban formations fortified in a complex or simple way and sometimes monumentalized through tumular architecture. The interrelation of these aspects evidences the complexity of the social organization and resource exploitation centered in water management. Their territorial distribution, sizes, shapes, and contents are different, not only from a chronological perspective but also from their ideological functions. Together with the last aspect, there is the emergence of conspicuous tumular structures that dominate the landscape and contrast with the Motillas. Their location, either inside the fortified settlements or outside them, placed at strategic points along the transit-access routes, are a new element of the settlement pattern.