Editing Iberian Peninsula (section)

===Bronze Age===
The Bronze Age began on the Iberian Peninsula in 2100 cal. BC according to radiocarbon datings of several key sites.

[[Bronze Age]] cultures developed beginning {{circa}}&nbsp;1800 BCE,<ref>{{cite book |title=Caminos hacia la complejidad: el Calcolítico en la región cantábrica |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qSmCsApcrw8C&pg=PA72 |first=Roberto |last=Ontañón Peredo |publisher=[[Universidad de Cantabria]] |year=2003 |page=72 |isbn=9788481023466}}</ref> when the culture of [[Los Millares]] was followed by that of [[El Argar]].<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://gredos.usal.es/jspui/bitstream/10366/127681/1/Del_Calcolitico_al_Bronce_antiguo_en_el_.pdf |title=Del Calcolítico al Bronce antiguo en el Guadalquivir inferior. El cerro de San Juan (Coria del Río, Sevilla) y el 'Modelo de Reemplazo' |issn=0514-7336 |doi=10.14201/zephyrus2015761538 |first1=Daniel |last1=García Rivero |first2=José Luis |last2=Escacena Carrasco |date=July–December 2015 |access-date=1 September 2018 |journal=Zephyrus |volume=76 |publisher=[[Universidad de Salamanca]] |pages=15–38 |language=es|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www2.uned.es/geo-1-historia-antigua-universal/NOTICIAS/Recreacion_de_los_Millares.htm |first=Dra. Ana Mª |last=Vázquez Hoys |date=15 May 2005 |access-date=1 September 2018 |journal=Revista Terrae Antiqvae |language=es |title=Los Millares |publisher=[[UNED]] |editor-first=José Luis |editor-last=Santos |archive-date=22 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220522084636/https://www2.uned.es/geo-1-historia-antigua-universal/NOTICIAS/Recreacion_de_los_Millares.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> During the Early Bronze Age, southeastern Iberia saw the emergence of important settlements, a development that has compelled some archeologists to propose that these settlements indicate the advent of state-level social structures.<ref>{{Cite book|year=2019|title=The Archaeology of the Iberian Peninsula. From the Paleolithic to the Bronze Age|page=227<!--227–292-->|doi=10.1017/9781316286340.007|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|first=Katina T.|last=Lillios|chapter=The Emergence of Ranked Societies. The Late Copper Age To Early Bronze Age (2,500 – 1,500 BCE)|series=Cambridge World Archaeology |isbn=978-1-107-11334-3 |s2cid=240899082}}</ref> From this centre, bronze metalworking technology spread to other cultures like the [[Bronze of Levante]], [[South-Western Iberian Bronze]] and [[Las Cogotas]].

Preceded by the Chalcolithic sites of Los Millares, the [[Argaric culture]] flourished in southeastern Iberia in from 2200 BC to 1550 BC,<ref>{{Cite book|chapter=From systems of power to networks of knowledge: the nature of El Argar culture (southeastern Iberia, c. 2200–1500 BC)|first=Borja|last=Legarra Herrero|pages=47–48|editor-first=Lin|editor-last=Foxhall|publisher=[[Oxbow Books]]|year=2021|location=Oxford|title=Interrogating Networks Investigating networks of knowledge in antiquity|isbn=978-1-78925-627-7}}</ref> when depopulation of the area ensued along with disappearing of copper–bronze–arsenic metallurgy.{{Sfn|Carrión|Fuentes|González-Sampériz|Sánchez-Quirante|2007|p=1472}} The most accepted model for El Argar has been that of an early state society, most particularly in terms of class division, exploitation, and coercion,<ref>{{Cite journal|pages=209–210|last=Chapman|first=R|year=2008|title=Producing Inequalities: Regional Sequences in Later Prehistoric Southern Spain|journal=[[Journal of World Prehistory]]|volume=21|issue=3–4|doi=10.1007/s10963-008-9014-y|s2cid=162289282 }}</ref> with agricultural production, maybe also human labour, controlled by the larger hilltop settlements,{{Sfn|Chapman|2008|pp=208–209}} and the elite using violence in practical and ideological terms to clamp down on the population.{{Sfn|Legarra Herrero|2021|p=52}} Ecological degradation, landscape opening, fires, pastoralism, and maybe tree cutting for mining have been suggested as reasons for the collapse.<ref>{{Cite journal|journal=[[Quaternary Science Reviews]]|doi=10.1016/j.quascirev.2007.03.013|volume=26|year=2007|page=1472|title=Holocene environmental change in a montane region of southern Europe with a long history of human settlement|first1=J.S.|last1=Carrión|first2=N.|last2=Fuentes|first3=P.|last3=González-Sampériz|first4=L.|last4=Sánchez-Quirante|first5=J.C.|last5=Finlayson|first6=S.|last6=Fernández|first7=A.|last7=Andrade|issue=11–12 |bibcode=2007QSRv...26.1455C }}</ref>

The culture of the ''[[motillas]]'' developed an early system of groundwater supply plants (the so-called ''motillas'') in the upper [[Guadiana]] basin (in the southern ''meseta'') in a context of extreme aridification in the area in the wake of the [[4.2-kiloyear event|4.2-kiloyear climatic event]], which roughly  coincided with the transition from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age. Increased precipitation and recovery of the water table from about 1800 BC onward should have led to the forsaking of the ''motillas'' (which may have flooded) and the redefinition of the relation of the inhabitants of the territory with the environment.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=The hydrogeological and paleoclimatic factors in the Bronze Age Motillas Culture of La Mancha (Spain): the first hydraulic culture in Europe|first1=Luis Benítez de|journal=[[Hydrogeology Journal]]|year=2017|volume=25|doi=10.1007/s10040-017-1607-z|last1=Lugo Enrich|first2=Miguel|last2=Mejías|issue=7 |issn=1435-0157|page=1933; 1946|bibcode=2017HydJ...25.1931B |hdl=20.500.12468/512 |s2cid=134088522 |hdl-access=free}}</ref>