Motillas
Encyclopedia
The motillas were the first attested settlement of La Mancha
La Mancha
La Mancha is a natural and historical region or greater comarca located on an arid, fertile, elevated plateau of central Spain, south of Madrid, stretching between the Montes de Toledo and the western spurs of the Serrania de Cuenca. It is bounded on the south by the Sierra Morena and on the north...
(Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
), which took place in the Middle Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
by people belonging to the culture of Bronze of Levante
Bronze of Levante
Bronze of Levante is the name of the proto-Iberian culture extending approximately by the Land of Valencia in the 2nd millennium BCE. It is contemporary of the culture of El Argar by which it is strongly influenced.Between c...
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The motillas are human-made hills atop of which are placed fortified settlements. Most of the sites of this culture belong to this category. Only a few sites in the skirts of Sierra Morena
Sierra Morena
The Sierra Morena is one of the main systems of mountain ranges in Spain.It stretches for 400 kilometres East-West across southern Spain, forming the southern border of the Meseta Central plateau of the Iberian Peninsula, and providing the watershed between the valleys of the Guadiana to the...
make an exception, being these fortified towns of larger size. Their height is usually between four and five meters and the motillas are separated from each other by a distance of four or five kilometers.
The motillas were created as a consequence of the destruction of fortified enclaves that existed from c. 2200 BCE to c. 1500 BCE and were used as a control center of the resources the place offered; the motillas were thus erected c. 1500 BCE and abandoned c. 1300 BCE, coincident with the end of the Argarian civilization
El Argar
El Argar is the type site of an Early Bronze Age culture called the Argaric culture, which flourished from the town of Antas, in what is now the province of Almería, south-east of Spain, between c. 1800 BC and 1300 BC....
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The motillas were first believed to be antique burial mounds. However, this theory was ruled out when an excavation at the Motilla de Azuer that took place in the seventies proved their defensive and management faculties. This way, a wide area could be controlled easily.