Queens of the Bronze Age? Strong Evidence of Female Leaders in Argaric Culture

Figure 1: La Amoloya site (Image Credit: La Arqueoecologia Social Mediterrania Research Group)

 

Matriarchal societies are ones wherein women rule the group, but they are incredibly rare both historically and today (the closest today being that of the Minangkabau).  This has led scholars to default to the notion that men automatically ruled societies and cultural groups, but recent new evidence is turning that notion on its head and making scholars reexamine this idea.  One of the more recent studies to show that there may have been women rulers in the past comes from the Argaric sites of La Almoloya and El Argar in modern day Spain.  This blog post will discuss this new evidence and what it tells us about the sociopolitical organization of the Argaric culture and specifically for Argaric women.

 

In 2004 archaeologists were excavating at what is believed to be a palace structure at the site of La Almoloya (Figure 1).  Associated with the Argaric culture it was already known that this was a state level society based on it meeting several of the key characteristics to be distinguished as such, including specialized laborers and social stratification.  This state level society flourished in the Early Bronze Age (between 2200 and 1550 BC).  Previous excavations at the site of El Argar, where the cultural group gets its namesake, had yielded a bounty of evidence about the people and how they lived and died, but there remains much more to learn. 

 

The recent find of a double burial at La Almoloya has produced interesting new interpretations of four previously excavated burials at El Argar.  The new La Almoloya burial contained two individuals, a man and a woman buried together under the palace floors.  They were unrelated to each other but were the parents of an infant buried nearby, suggesting that they were intimately connected to each other.  The man’s skeletal remains demonstrated that he was most likely a warrior, gathered from occupational markers and a facial injury as well as his modest grave goods of swords and daggers.  The woman’s burial goods, however, provided a very different interpretation of her occupation and status.  She was buried with over 30 lavish and rich burial goods, including a silver diadem (crown) that rested on her head (Figure 2).  Several of her other grave goods were also made or adorned in silver, including items of personal adornment (e.g., ear plugs and hair pins) and pottery and daggers, all adorned with silver sheeting.  The sheer number of grave goods compared to that of the man was astonishing, but it was the value of those grave goods, which based on modern conversions equate to several thousands of dollars, that led the archaeological team to conclude that she was most likely of upper class or ruling class status.  

 

Figure 2: Silver Diadem worn by the woman found at the site of La Almoloya (Image Credit: J.A. Soldevilla)

 

Hers is not the only Argaric burial found, though.  Four other women’s burials found at the site of El Argar previously have also demonstrated rich burials, along with women wearing a diadem crafted the same as the one found on the woman buried at La Almoloya.  The differences between the woman at La Almoloya and those at El Argar is the number of persons buried with them.  The women at El Argar were interred with several others, who appear to have been buried with them long after the principal woman was buried.  This is interpreted as continuing the pay homage and reverence to the dead woman long after she was initially buried.  All of the evidence taken together scholars have begun to question the previous interpretations of what sociopolitical life was like in Argaric society, which initially promoted the idea of male warrior leaders.  Now with this new evidence it seems that the leaders of this society may have been women.

 

There is additional evidence to support this notion of women leadership among the Argaric.  There is substantial evidence that shows that young girls reached adulthood far earlier than their male counterparts.  Girls as young as age 6 were already designated as adults, whereas boys did not earn or receive that designation until they reached adolescence.  Furthermore, historians have pointed out that women occupied various high-class occupations, including textile manufacture and metallurgy.  The latter is believed to have been regarded very highly among the Argaric given their specialized skills.

 

Critics of this interpretation of the women’s burials have pointed out that there is too little evidence available at this time to certify that the Argaric were a matriarchy, but they do agree that this latest discovery at La Almoloya is significant.  They simply caution that additional research needs to be completed.  The initial report on this discovery notes that more analysis of the site remains, including the confirmation that the structure where the woman was buried was indeed a palace, but initial review of the evidence points to that conclusion.  Thus far this discovery is amazing and sheds new light on the Argaric culture, and if it does show that this was a matriarchal society then it is just further evidence that these may not have been as rare as currently believed.

 

References

Davis-Marks, I. (2021, March 12). Silver Diadem Found in Spain May Point to Bronze Age Woman’s Political Power. Smithsonian Magazine.

Lull, V., Rihuete-Herrada, C., Risch, R., Bonora, B., Celdrán-Beltrán, E., Fregeiro, M. I., . . . Micó, R. (2021). Emblems and spaces of power during the Argaric Bronze Age at La Almoloya, Murcia. Antiquity, 95(380), 329–348.

Metcalfe, T. (2021, March 7). Ancient woman may have been powerful European leader, 4,000-year-old treasure suggests. National Geographic.