Frontières et art mégalithique. Une perspective depuis le monde pyrénéen

Abstract

The presence of Atlantic themes in the most Mediterranean area of the North of the Iberian Peninsula serves as an invitation to reflect on the validity of the traditional boundaries which defined the Pyrenees as the border between the megalithic worlds of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Indeed, the territorial extension of the Iberian megalithic art coincides with that of the French megalithic art of which some of the best examples can be found in the South-east. The metal weapons represented in Vizcaya and Navarra draw attention to the strong symbolic facet of an area traditionally considered as marginal, and coincide with the metal resources of these rich environments of great potential for herding and agriculture. The engraved Palmela point of KTV is the first of its kind identified in the South of Europe. Its integration within a megalithic construction confirms the long course of development of these tombs which underwent in the mid-third millennium cal BC one of their greatest moments of inflexion, at a time contemporary to the use of the Beaker assemblage.