The geometry and the metric used in the enclosure “Fortín 1” at Copper Age site of Los Millares (Almería, Andalusia)

Abstract

The use of geometric patterns to construct archaeological structures has been studied in Great Britain and Ireland, the Roman and Greek world, Egypt, etc., and some defensive structures at the Mediterranean area also show geometric patterns. Both geometric and statistic techniques are applied to analyze the construction of the Fortín 1 in the Los Millares settlement, through the III millennium B.C. with two different constructive phases. These analyses have shown two concentric ring enclosures with the same width and center having symmetric defensive bastions with respect to the West–East axis and situated in the nodes of a regular hexagon. The design and construction of these very complex structures and the time required one or more builders to continue the application of the same constructive patterns in the time. The results obtained by means of statistical and geometric analyses allow us to establish the emergence of the geometric and mathematical thinking during the III millennium B.C. in the European Mediterranean area. Regular geometric shapes such as hexagons, circles and ellipses, and the axis symmetry concepts were applied to design and build defensive structures with great precision. Furthermore, these conclusions are important evidence in favour of the argument that the geometry was discovered independently by widely ancient cultures, and constitute one of the most important multicultural symbols in the world of the architecture.