In the Mediterranean region there are relatively few integrated, specialist research teams enga- ged in long-term and ongoing field- work. One of these rare and productive scientific collaborations is the ASOME (Arqueoecología Social Mediterránea, or Mediterranean Social Archaeoecology) group from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. The three volumes under review are authored by this team's lead researchers, and represent the first book-length publications from a long-term research project (2009–) on the Earlier Bronze Age El Argar culture (2200–1550 BC). They report the results of several excavations in the province of Murcia, Spain, supported by a combination of public and private funding. This ambitious initiative addresses ground-breaking research questions and offers solid and sustainable solutions for the conservation and preservation of these formerly neglected sites. Its aims, as summarised on the project's website, are: to create a systematic archive of information on the dispersed collections from earlier investigations; to undertake large-scale fieldwork on a series of key sites and to develop their public presentation; and to lay the foundations for an interdisciplinary research centre on prehistoric and Mediterranean archaeology (http://www.la-bastida.com).

The nature and intended audiences of these three contributions are varied. The first volume for consideration, Primeras investigaciones en La Bastida, is a research monograph that initiates a new series on Argaric archaeology where future reports on the project's excavations are to be published. The volume presents the history of archaeological activities at the large but inconspicuous hilltop site of La Bastida, one of the first Bronze Age sites investigated in Iberia, with over 20 excavations carried out in the 140 years prior to ‘La Bastida Project’ (2009–2013). With painstaking detective work, the authors have tracked down scattered archaeological materials and documents in museums and archives, and even oral testimonies. Archaeological investigations at the site date back to the second half of the nineteenth century, with the early work of brilliant engineers such as Rogelio de Inchaurrandieta and Luis Siret: world-class pioneers in recording techniques. By contrast, the excavators of the 1920s and 1930s, were far less proficient, working in an antiquarian manner and leaving no publications. After the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) excavation was resumed, with four seasons of fieldwork between 1944 and 1950 supervised by Julio Martínez Santa-Olalla and others, under the auspices of the University of Madrid. This work on the lower slopes of the hill uncovered some 1800m², and identified nearly 20 buildings and around 125 intramural burials. Swift publication (Martínez Santa-Olalla et al. Reference Martínez Santa-Olalla, Sáez Martín, Posac, Sopranis and del Val1947; Ruiz & Posac Reference Ruiz and Posac1956) ensured that these campaigns became a fundamental reference point for studies of Bronze Age Iberia right through to the 1970s, when the first stratigraphic excavations at Argaric sites were undertaken. By contrast, the 1950 season, directed by John D. Evans and Francisco Jordá, remained unpublished and largely forgotten. Yet the documentary search by the Bastida Project team was especially fruitful in relation to this particular campaign, managing to locate the original hand-written field diaries; these are now published as appendices on the CD provided with the volume.

The two other books under review here are intended for wider audiences. Together, they form the first two volumes in a new series of archaeological guides to inform and assist visitors to the sites of La Bastida, La Almoloya and Tira del Lienzo. The significance of these richly illustrated and accessibly written books, however, goes beyond ‘tourist’ merchandise for the general public, as they provide the first detailed and contextualised archaeological accounts, in Spanish, of these three sites.

The guide to La Bastida y Tira del Lienzo presents the results of the recent excavations at these two sites. Between 2009 and 2012, some 7000m² were unearthed in three main sectors at La Bastida, a large agglomeration of terraced buildings arranged in a neighbourhood that can be plausibly considered as a proto-urban centre: a) the lower south-eastern slope, enlarging the area opened in the 1940s, providing accurate stratigraphic observations on a residential quarter in the outskirts of the city and uncovering a large water reservoir; b) the summit of the hill, severely truncated by reforestation in the 1970s, where a thick stone-walled monumental building and some of the richest burials have been found; and c) the north-east hillslope, revealing the lowest corner of the city, bounded by a steep cliff and enclosed by a well-preserved masonry rampart, originally up to 5–6m high and 3m thick with square towers, and pierced by a narrow entrance passage flanked by solid bastions (Lull et al. Reference Lull, Micó, Herrada and Risch2014). According to the excavators, the latter represents a stone-built fortification constructed to a single coherent plan. Radiocarbon dating puts the structure at c. 2200 BC—that is, the earliest phase of the site—and therefore from the very foundation of this city, its inhabitants relied on the wall to protect themselves from siege tactics. The book's visual reconstructions of the city, showing a dense terraced layout surrounded by a massive fortification with towers and finished with alternating yellow and bluish plaster, are magnificent. The absence of any contemporary Western European parallels for such specialised military architecture suggests unprecedented technological knowledge and expressions of materiality. Conscious of the powerful local roots of the Argaric communities, the authors are firm advocates of the endogenous origins of such cultural and technological advances, yet their narrative is gradually opening up to further interpretive possibilities that take into account eastern Mediterranean contacts. This is suggested here via subtle references to, for example, Troy (Turkey), and by illustrations of the wall of Kolonna in Aegina (Greece), and of the sheet-metal forging scene from an Egyptian tomb at Tebas. In short, as a result of the latest excavations, the early fortified urban centre at La Bastida, housing some 1000 inhabitants and occupied for six centuries, is regarded as the capital of a highly integrated territory: a state-like polity.

In order to improve understanding of the wider regional dimension of this phenomenon, the research team targeted a previously unexcavated site on a small hill named Tira del Lienzo, 7km from La Bastida. Excavations in 2010–2012 uncovered 80 per cent of the site. Some preliminary results have been published (Delgado-Raack et al. Reference Delgado-Raack, Lull, Martin, Micó, Herrada, Risch, Meller, Risch and Pernicka2014, Reference Delgado-Raack, Lull, Martin, Micó, Herrada and Risch2015) and are further addressed in the present volume. Tira del Lienzo is another unparalleled Argaric site, and one that is much better defined by what it was not: hence, it was not an ordinary rural village inhabited by peasants, nor was it a purely military or administrative centre. Rather, the site exhibits some features associated with each of these different functions, and it therefore eludes any simple classification. The excavators found a compound of small stone buildings (14–30m²) arranged in a fan-shaped plan around a larger (100m²) central square building, all enclosed by a wall. The smaller rooms yielded little material, but included burnt mastic seeds (probably valued for their medicinal properties) associated with an anthropomorphic stone ‘idol’, suggestive of magical symbolism. The central building contained skilfully produced ceramic vessels, high-quality and heavy querns, loom weights, sandstone sharpeners, and stones of volcanic origin that, according to use-wear and residue analyses, were used as anvils and hammers for forging and sheeting silver. Outside the fortified area, the excavations revealed two semi-sunken and mud-coated buildings, one with a masonry floor, hitherto unknown in Argaric architecture. Here, the discovery of burnt barley seeds in a hearth feature may suggest the storage of cereals; the proximity of these structures to a brackish watercourse may also indicate salt production and storage. In summary, the site of Tira del Lienzo functioned as a place of varied craft production and storage, including silver smithing, weaving and the preparation and storage of cereals, magical-medicinal remedies and even salt, all secured by a fortification. As the site appears to have produced beyond the needs of its population, it probably supplied staples and luxury items to other sites.

The third and final volume under review is a guide devoted to La Almoloya, a medium-sized hilltop site on a prominent flat plateau. The site was subject to a short excavation campaign in 1944 and, subsequently, to intense treasure hunting; ongoing work starting in 2013 has documented numerous looted tombs all around the site's periphery. The settlement has three main occupation phases, with the open-area excavations concentrated on the best-preserved third phase (c. 1750–1550 BC), corresponding to the heyday of the Argaric culture. Across the summit of the hill, the tightly packed urban plan was divided into nine architectural complexes connected by narrow passageways. Each complex was composed of several dwellings with internal rooms and rich underfloor burials, workshops and stores full of artefacts. An intense fire caused these rooms to collapse, sealing their contents inside and creating Pompeii-like contexts, offering valuable windows onto everyday life. The central quarters are the best preserved and include one of the most remarkable buildings from prehistoric Europe documented to date. It is a large (127m²), rectangular masonry structure divided into two plastered rooms: the smaller room featured painted red motifs on its walls; the larger, devoid of any evidence for craftwork or domestic refuse, was a hall with a continuous bench around the inside of the wall for 55–60 people, a podium and a large hearth. The excavators interpret this building as an ‘audience chamber’ for political gatherings, resembling eastern Mediterranean palaces (Lull et al. Reference Lull, Micó, Herrada and Risch2015). Beneath the bench and close to the hearth lay the richest burial discovered so far from Bronze Age Iberia: a ‘princely’ double inhumation (a man and a younger woman) in a large urn with more than 30 gold and silver objects, including a silver diadem, a silver-handled awl and a ceramic vessel wrapped in silver foil, possibly produced at Tira del Lienzo.

The ‘Bastida Project’ is challenging what we thought we knew about the second millennium BC. The bold research strategies of these scholars, combined with intuition and good practice, are providing radically fresh images of the Iberian past. The discoveries outlined here announce a highly ranked society, showing an accumulation of wealth and a division of roles far away from those found elsewhere in prehistoric Europe. The international archaeological community awaits with great interest the detailed publication of the final results and their evaluation for our wider understanding; once published, we will debate some of the contentious ideas posited therein for years to come. Yet what seems certain on the basis of these preliminary publications is that, after such a successful research effort, our understanding of the Iberian Bronze Age will never be the same.