With an extension of more than 20 ha, the large moat enclosure of Camino de las Yeseras is a strategic and long-occupied site located in the centre of the peninsula. Thanks to the close collaboration between management archaeology and the Camino de las Yeseras research team of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, it has been possible to undertake interdisciplinary studies of pits, huts and funerary spaces.
Some 10,000 structures documented over almost two thousand years of prehistoric occupation make up a complex landscape of the past. The treatment of ancestors and the management of the domestic and wild animal world stand out, forming a sophisticated system of beliefs of societies in which their rituals in time and space form surprising records.

The different works on megalithic art by the team of the Prehistory Department of the UAH have characterised the informative potential of the study of the decorations of Iberian megalithic supports, within the framework of systematic elaborate funerary scenarios. Components of the past visible in the reuse of supports, figurines, recovery of ancient corpses…, are added to applications of artificial colour to establish some patterns of funerary rituals that extend to other areas of Atlantic Europe.

Research into the role of the first large stones in the most ancient megalithic constructions, which had been located almost exclusively in Brittany in France, offers a rich record in Iberia, which constitutes a very revealing argument for the presence of a megalithic system at least as old as the Breton one. The demonstration that the study of the paint applied to some of these pieces offers C14 dating opens up a new line of research that already has initial results in Iberia, France and the Orkney Islands, based on the results obtained in this project.

This presentation will present some of the methodological aspects that we have developed and the results already obtained.

Although archaeological research began as early as the 1840s, the Menga dolmen, the true ‘flagship’ of the Antequera dolmen site (listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2016) has been largely unknown until very recently.

In this conference we present the main results of the scientific research carried out in the last eight years in this great monument. Special attention will be paid to the study of the evidence collected during the excavations carried out between 2005 and 2006, which has been a decisive step forward in the understanding of the origins, temporality, biography, architecture and social and cultural significance of this great dolmen.

This research has been carried out as part of the projects “Megalithic Biographies: The Monumental Landscape of Antequera in its Temporal and Spatial Context” and “Nature, Society and Monumentality: High Resolution Archaeological Investigations of the Megalithic Landscape of Antequera”, funded under the National R&D Plan of the General Secretariat for Research of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, and developed between 2014 and 2021.

International Museum Day. Museums for equality: diversity and inclusion.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and, endowed with reason and conscience, should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948)

Human beings are equal but also very diverse: different backgrounds, ethnicity, gender, language, beliefs, culture… It seems that this diversity has often separated and set us against each other instead of being a source of richness and mutual understanding.

The pieces in the Museum are an expression of different eras and cultures. We invite you to discover in these videos some aspects related to diversity in some of them. History can thus be a starting point for reflecting on these same issues in our present.