3 - Early Island Exploitations: Productive and Subsistence Strategies on the Prehistoric Balearic Islands

Summary

This chapter explores the cultural adaptations to the particular environment of the human groups that inhabited the Balearic Islands in the Bronze Age. Previous studies of the cultural dynamics in the early prehistoric Balearic Islands have mostly been based on architecture, artefact typologies and radiocarbon dates. First, the chapter offers an alternative approach based on metallurgical and faunal studies, which are recent innovations in Balearic archaeology. These shed light on local strategies for exploiting mineral and animal resources and on contacts within and beyond the archipelago. The chapter contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the major transformation of Balearic prehistory that heralds the so-called Talayotic period in Majorca and Menorca and that is not only defined by more complex social organization but is also characterised by as many similarities as differences between the two islands. The evidence points to two processes underway in the Late Bronze Age: a demographic growth and a slight increase in the external contacts.