05 Micó 2005 Definition of Politico Ideological Practices Prehistory of Minorca

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Towards a definition of politico-ideologicalpractices in the prehistory of Minorca (theBalearic islands)The wooden carvings from Mussol Cave

RAFAEL MICÓ PÉREZ

Departament de Prehistòria, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain

ABSTRACTArchaeological research into political relations and ideology amongprehistoric societies has often been seen as unreliable or intrinsicallyspeculative. Without denying the difficulties of this task, greatadvances can nevertheless be made when societies producedspecialized artefacts in order to enhance social communication.Starting from historical materialism, the goal of this article is to showhow Minorcan communities from the late second millennium BCconstructed social differences in the context of a changing non-classistsociety. The research is based upon a unique set of wooden carvingsrecently found inside the Mussol Cave (Minorca, Balearic Islands,Spain). The analysis begins with a careful description of these objectsand the place where they were used, before categorizing them as aform of specialized ‘communicative artefacts’. As such, they played acrucial role in the context of practices aimed at enabling certainpeople to acquire a new social condition.

Journal of Social Archaeology A R T I C L E

Copyright © 2005 SAGE Publications (www.sagepublications.com)ISSN 1469-6053 Vol 5(2): 276–299 DOI: 10.1177/1469605305053370

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277Micó Pérez Towards a definition of politico-ideological practices

KEY WORDScommunicative artefacts ● Minorcan prehistory ● Mussol Cave ●

political and ideological practices ● social production ● woodencarvings

■ SOCIAL PRODUCTION, COMMUNICATION ANDARCHAEOLOGY

Gaining access to the sphere of ideology or thought in prehistoric societiesis normally considered an almost unachievable archaeological objective.Faced with the lack of textual evidence, attempts to reconstruct the ‘spiri-tual life’ of prehistoric societies have traditionally been seen as unreliableforays into the mists of speculation. Such a lack of confidence is deeplyrooted in the field of cultural archaeology, although paradoxically, its propo-nents define their object of study – human cultures – as ideal realities. Thisparadox gives the impression that traditional archaeology was openlyconfessing its inability to carry out its own research programme properly.

In spite of the fact that the sceptical ‘Old Archaeology’ still representsmost of the professional archaeology (at least in many countries other thanthe UK and USA), the panorama has changed to a certain extent over thelast two decades.This is due to the development of a range of archaeologicalapproaches labelled as ‘post-modern’, ‘post-processual’, ‘symbolic-structuralist’ (Hodder, 1982; Shanks and Tilley, 1987) and, more recently,the so-called ‘cognitive archaeology’ (Mithen, 1996; Renfrew and Zubrow,1994). To discuss in some detail the multiple approaches and achievementsrelated to these developments is far beyond the scope of this article. Never-theless, I would like to underline a few critical remarks that may be relevanthere.

■ In general, these approaches stress the role of the ideological,symbolic or political dimensions when interpreting the cases understudy. Volitive or ideational factors like ‘agency’, ‘identity’, ‘power’,‘negotiation’ or ‘competition’ assume a key role. In contrast, littleeffort is devoted to showing how the ‘things’ were produced and usedor how this affects the sources and distribution of power. Materialproduction and producers remain passive or absent.

■ There is a strong reliance on the approaches and results stemmingmainly from French and German philosophy, anthropology andsociology, particularly in reference to the ‘post-processualarchaeology’. New interpretations have been ‘imported’ ready-to-use

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into English-speaking archaeology, usually replacing previous onesalso coming from the same disciplines. In short, I am not sure that,for example, replacing Linton, Fried and Service by Meillassoux,Turner and Foucault, at the data inference and interpretation stages,represents a radical rupture in archaeological practice. In this sense,why is a certain object found in a tomb now said to legitimizeideologically a relationship of domination (an object some years agocategorized as a ‘prestige goods item’ from a processual perspective)when the power relationship itself remains unproven? In both cases,archaeology shows a tendency to adopt too quickly premises andresults produced by other disciplines. I am convinced thatarchaeology has yet to develop its full potential for generatingknowledge by its own efforts.

Archaeology ‘interrogates’ material remains in order to discover how socialrelations were organized in the past. A great many of the archaeologicaldebates over recent decades have focused on defining the nature of thetheoretical and methodological tools used in this ‘inquiry’. Some approachesstate that these tools are mirrors that reflect our own images into aconstructed past. Thus, archaeology is not involved in an ‘inquiry’ proper,but rather in an endless monologue whose topics change according to theinterests of different people at different times and places. By contrast, othersargue that we have, or at least we aim to have, true analytical tools that canlead us to discover and explain new, forgotten past realities. Some eventsinvolving people really happened, independently of our perceptions aboutthem. The question is therefore whether we have mirrors or telescopes.

I feel more comfortable with the second position, although I includemyself in the group of those who still ‘aim at having’ good analytical tools.My starting point is a materialistic, but also a realistic one. This impliescalling into question the classic divergence between matter and mind, infra-structure and superstructure, body and soul. Let me begin with an example.We may discuss whether my own subjective thoughts and the socialrelationship established with my friends are strictly material facts explainedonly by reference to purely physical/mechanical processes (neuronallinkages and muscles in action, energetic inputs and outputs, environmentalconditions, etc.) or, alternatively, if they belong to the autonomous realmsof subjective choice and volition. Nevertheless, it is hard to deny that theyare real; they really do happen because they are produced.

Production is a basic human fact. Societies produce material goods (food-stuffs, artefacts), men and women, and the entire range of relationshipsbetween individuals and groups (economic, political). Production is alwaysa social, collective fact. It defines, perhaps better than any other thing, whatis specifically human. I follow Marx (1977[1857]) in separating socialproduction into three distinct dialectically related ‘moments’: the produc-tion itself, the distribution/change and the consumption/use. Production and

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consumption constitute a unit, since products are made to be consumed;moreover, all productive processes require the consumption of rawmaterials, the means of labour and labour force that, in turn, were previ-ously produced. Distribution stands between production and consumption,and its characteristics differ according to historical circumstances, from reci-procity to tribute.

Different groups occupy different places at each ‘moment’ of the socialproduction cycle. These differences may involve economic exploitationleading to property and class formation if there is a permanent imbalancebetween the labour contribution of a group at the ‘moment’ of productionand what it receives at consumption (Castro et al., 1998a,b). Nevertheless,exploitation is not an inherent trait of our species, so most human com-munities in the past probably lived without this kind of inequality. In anycase, societies contain different material contexts where specific relationalexperiences take place. These concrete relational experiences build upconsciences (ideas). Therefore ideas turn into real, produced elements thattake part, among many other societal elements, in the (re)production ofsocial life. Life always precedes the act of thinking about it (Lull, 2005).

The dialectical process of production involves communication betweenpeople, and that practice may be equally understood as a result of a processof production. We know that archaeology cannot gain access to the maincode of signification used by prehistoric societies: the spoken language.Thismakes it difficult to find out a great deal about the network of meaningsshared by social groups in their communicative practices. Nevertheless, Ithink we can make great advances in our knowledge of social communi-cation, particularly when certain groups have produced specialized artefactsto facilitate it. Archaeological research into this type of object, oftenlabelled under the categories of ‘art’, ‘writing or counting systems’, ‘orna-ments’ or ‘ritual objects’ (Whitehouse, 1996), can provide information abouthow the creation and transmission of certain knowledge in a specific societywas organized. This, in turn, allows for an insight into how social life wasproduced as a whole. Archaeological research should focus on the follow-ing issues:

1 The labour invested in the production of these specialized artefacts(signs or symbols considered as products used as means ofcommunication) and, also, in the arrangement of the spaces wherethey were used.

2 The complexity and costs of transmitting and learning syntactic andsemantic codes.

3 The kind of technical or politico-ideological meanings beingtransmitted.

4 The existence, or absence, of differences in access to and applicationof this knowledge by different social groups.

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Archaeology and communicative artefacts

Archaeological knowledge is based on research into the material remains ofthe past. In some of those material vestiges we are able to recognize thedirect action of human labour and to identify a social function or use value.Most of these products are known as ‘artefacts’.Within this general category,there is the possibility of making further subdivisions if we concentrate onthe specific uses of these objects in the production of social life. Those arte-facts used directly in other productive processes are referred to as ‘meansof labour’ or ‘tools’. Their morphology, their physical properties and themarks of their use and wear observable on their surfaces provide the surestmeans for identifying them within the archaeological record (Risch, 2002).However, there are artefacts that are not produced for mechanical use onother materials, but rather are designed exclusively for human communi-cation; that is, to be perceived and to signify (to refer to other entities, imag-inary or not). These ‘communicative artefacts’, from images to linguisticcodes, are specialized for the purpose of covering the communicativedemands of social relations, whether productive (labour processes-related)or not. As such they constitute a class of signs, since they fulfil the basiccommunicative characteristic of representing something other than them-selves. They reinforce or amplify the communicative capacity of spoken andgestural language, which functions basically using a series of human organs.As such, they can be qualified as ‘means of production’ in human communi-cation and learning. Obviously, as with any form of language, they requirethe establishment of grammars and codes of signification, generated in andby specific and habitual practices in social relations.

It is important to underline that this article will focus only on those arte-facts specialized in communication, and will leave to one side many otheraspects of the vast and complex world of communication – the field of studyof semiotics. It is well known that human groups are capable of communi-cation by means of systems of symbols, that is to say, through signs estab-lished in an arbitrary manner, as the classical Saussurean definition states.Natural elements such as a high mountain, the sun or the moon, as well asa range of artefacts, from knives to ceramic vessels, can symbolize conceptsduring their everyday use, which could differ from society to society. Never-theless, in these cases it is clear that their real reason for existing does notdepend, in the first place, on human communicative needs. Thus the sun isthe result of a cosmogenic history previous to its human conceptualization,while a specific cooking pot was modelled above all for cooking, althoughin both cases they can become symbols within the communicative historiesof a social group without abandoning, in the case of the artefacts, theirprimary and initial function.

Only under certain circumstances will contextual data allow us toidentify some of these objects as specialized for communication. Let us takethe example of an Acheulian stone axe displayed at an archaeological

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museum. Its specific location, in a singular building, inside a clean glass case,illuminated by indirect light and accompanied by present-day writingrecords, leads us to conclude that this former cutting tool is used here andnow as a communicative artefact. The same reasoning could be applied tosome relics: parts of the body, pieces of cloth or other daily objects touchedor used by Catholic saints and deserving a special and significant placeinside cathedrals and churches. Clearly, they have lost their original functionas fingers, clothes or tools and now they are placed in order to perform acommunicative function.

In short, we can define an object as specialized in communication accord-ing to its physical properties (‘by itself’) and/or depending on its contextualrelationships with other material objects. However, as I said before, my aimhere is limited to examining those objects included in the first group: arte-facts produced specifically and in a specialized fashion for a communicativefunction. With regard to the properties of communicative artefacts, I havesuggested that these ‘amplify’ or enhance the expressive capacities of thehuman body in a similar way to that by which a knife increases the cuttingpower of our teeth and nails, or a hammer the hitting power of our fists.Human communication does not always require such specialized products,but when a society uses them, the question ‘why’ must be asked, taking intoaccount three of their fundamental properties:

1 Durability/Perdurability. The very presence of these artefacts allowsthe message to be received in the absence of an emitter; that is to say,they make the act of communication permanent.

2 They increase the society’s mnemo-technical (mnemonical)resources, by favouring the capacity for evocation and, in certaincases, the storage of information at a scale enormously superior tothat of the human memory (for example, in writing).

3 They increase informative precision through concretizing, fixing,albeit momentarily, the production chain of significations. In this waythey contribute to reducing (if not eliminating) the margin of error,ambiguity and misunderstandings within a given social context.

My purpose in this article is to examine in greater depth some aspects ofthe characterization of ideology and politics among Minorcan communitiesfrom the end of the second and beginning of the first millennium BC, andhow this knowledge could be linked with the community’s social practiceas a whole. For this purpose, I will undertake an analysis of an exceptionalset of objects recently discovered in the Cova des Mussol site (Minorca, theBalearic Islands). Methodologically, I will begin with a description of theobjects themselves, before taking into account their material attributes andthe context in which they were used in order to categorize them. Finally, Iwill try to make a series of inferences about the organization of socialrelations in which those objects were embedded.

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■ THE MUSSOL WOODEN CARVINGS IN THE CONTEXT OFBALEARIC PREHISTORIC SEQUENCE

The cave known as Cova des Mussol was discovered in June 1997 by thespeleologist Pedro Arnau and was excavated by a research team from thePrehistory Department of the Autonomous University of Barcelona inAugust and September of the same year. It consists of a karstic cavity inthe middle of a sheer cliff some 40 m high, facing a small cove on the north-western coast of the island of Minorca (Figures 1 and 2).Access is extremelydifficult and dangerous. The cave has two entrances and some 200 m ofinternal passages, divided among various chambers, of which only the firsthad stratigraphic sedimentary deposits. In most of the chambers, archaeo-logical remains were visible on the surface, corresponding to differentmoments (always short stays) in the social use of the cave between c. 1600and 200 BC. The archaeological research was carried out over 2 years, andthe principal results have appeared in various publications (Lull et al.,1999a,b, 2001, 2002).

As I mentioned earlier, this article focuses on the research into a seriesof objects found in Chamber 3c of the Cova des Mussol and dated to the

Figure 1 Location of Minorca and the Mussol Cave

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end of the second millennium BC. Before considering them in detail, a fewwords about the Balearic prehistoric sequence are needed. The absolutechronology of the Chamber 3c objects corresponds to the Final Naviformperiod, according to a new dating based on nearly 600 radiocarbon datesand a careful examination of available typologies and stratigraphic records(Table 1) (Lull et al., 1999a, 2002, 2005; Micó Pérez, 2005). The humancolonization of Majorca and Minorca started one thousand years earlier. Itseems to be increasingly clear that Majorca was the first island to beinhabited, c. 2500–2300 BC (Alcover et al., 2001; Lull et al., 2004; Ramis etal., 2002) and that Minorca followed it at the end of the third millenniumBC. So, in contrast to the larger islands such as Corsica, Sardinia or Sicily,the Balearic Islands remained uninhabited during the Neolithic.

The first groups inhabited open-air settlements in the Majorcan valleysand plains, consisting of huts built of perishable materials, as for exampleat Son Ferrandell-Oleza (Waldren, 1998) and Ca Na Cotxera (Cantarellas,1972). Occupation of rock shelters, such as Son Matge (Waldren, 1982) andCoval Simó (Coll, 2001), is also well documented. Beaker pottery is acommon find in the living areas (Waldren, 1997, 1998). Later, at the transi-tion between the third and the second millennium BC, the settlementsexpanded into the islands of Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. From this time

Figure 2 View of the cliff in which the Mussol Cave is located

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on, the ritual of collective burial was adopted, carried out either in smalldolmenic tombs, such as S’Aigua Dolça (Guerrero et al., 2003) and SonBauló (Rosselló Bordoy, 1966), in rock-cut chambers (hypogea) with mega-lithic entrances, such as Biniai Nou (Plantalamor and Marquès, 2001), andin caves such as Can Martorellet (Pons Homar, 1999) or Son Marroig(Waldren, 1982).We know little about the social and economic organizationof the Balearic communities of the first centuries of the second millenniumBC. It seems that the groups would have been small, and with no socioe-conomic hierarchies. They would have practised subsistence strategies withan important element of mobility, and they used a relatively wide range ofobjects, such as metallic needles, awls and knives, stone ‘wrist guards’ andbone awls and buttons.

Towards 1600 BC, an important break occurred in the trajectory of theMajorcan and Minorcan societies, which was manifested at a number ofdifferent levels. This new period, called ‘Naviform’, developed betweenapproximately 1600 and 1050 BC. The most outstanding trait of this periodwas a new type of settlement, consisting of stone houses with a long apsidalplan (in the form of a boat, hence ‘naviform’), of approximately 15 m. Theyare found isolated or in more or less dense settlements, such as Alemany(Enseñat, 1971), Closos de Can Gaià (Calvo and Salvà, 1999) and Cala Blanca(Juan and Plantalamor, 1997). Inside the naviform structures evidence hasbeen found for the maintenance and production of various manufacturedgoods (hearths, low benches, stone polishing tools, bone, metal and stone toolsused in different production processes, ceramic vessels for consumption andstorage, remains of food and residues of metallurgical production). Theappearance of such materials is indicative of a new form of occupation of theterritory based on villages in the open air, which were spread over a largepart of the island territory, although with a predominance of settlements ata relatively lower altitude and with easy access to potentially fertile soils.

Period Chronology (cal BC) Traditional Ages

Beaker (Majorca only) 2500–2000 Late Chalc. / EBAEpicampaniforme/dolmenic 2000–1600Early Naviform 1600–1450/1400 MBAMiddle Naviform 1450/1400–1200Final Naviform 1200–1050 LBAProto-Talayotic 1050–850Talayotic 850–550 EIAPost-Talayotic 550–123 LIA

Table 1 Periodic and absolute chronology of Balearic prehistory

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The funerary practices at the beginning of the Naviform are remarkablyvaried in terms of the containers used: long and complex rock-cut tombs(Veny, 1968), caves (Pons Homar, 1999) and the last burials in dolmens.Parallel to this ritual diversity between 1600 and 1450/1400 BC, some deepcavities such as Es Càrritx and Es Mussol (Lull et al., 1999a) were the sceneof ideological practices of a diverse nature. They involved the cutting andreplacing of fragments of stalactites, rites of magical significance aroundhearths, and the depositing of a range of materials, such as portions of meatand pottery containers. These practices have been interpreted as ctoniccults, which perhaps linked the subterranean world of the depths with thefertility and life of the surface.

From c. 1450/1400 BC on, this type of practice appears to cease for atime. Ritual activity in the caves became restricted to the parts closest tothe outside, and was related to their use as collective tombs. A wallconstructed using large blocks of stone closed off the natural entrances tothe caves and delimited a space, which was to house the bodies of manygenerations. In some of these tombs, such as Chamber 1 of the Es Càrritxcave (Lull et al., 1999a), there is evidence of uninterrupted use over a periodof six centuries. The systematic analysis of the human remains (Rihuete,2003) and of the artefacts found in the Es Càrritx cave, together with theless systematic data from other habitational and funerary sites, permits anattempt at characterizing the main traits of Naviform society in its middleand late phases. In this respect it is interesting to see the high level ofmaterial uniformity compared to the previous phase, in terms of forms ofhabitat, burial rituals and mobile artefacts. Nevertheless, this seems to haveoccurred without the intervention of any process of political centralization.The people were organized into basically autonomous units in terms ofsubsistence production and food consumption. This can be inferred fromthe notably homogeneous distribution of the tools needed to carry out basicproductive activities (stone, metal, bone and ceramic tools), the storage offoodstuffs, as well as consumption, indicated in the form of remains of faunaand of fires used for food preparation. The presence of grinding stones, andthe frequency of settlements in areas suitable for cultivation, has led to theassumption that agriculture acquired a greater importance within the rangeof subsistence strategies. However, the abundance of remains of domesticfauna, and the first pathological, chemical and isotopic analyses of humanbones and teeth (Pérez Pérez et al., 1999; Rihuete, 2003; Van Strydonck etal., 2002), allow us to suggest that livestock played an important role in theeconomy of the island communities. In contrast, it is worth noting theminimal or non-existent contribution of foodstuffs of marine origin, despitethe island context.

The groups who inhabited the naviform structures probably maintainedco-operative relations with regard to such activities as the construction ofbuildings, the obtaining of raw materials (metal), and perhaps, the care of

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flocks and of fields. Doubtless, those relations implied the mobility of indi-viduals and the transmission of knowledge, since, in the absence of a politi-cally centralized context, only constant inter-group contacts would ensurethe transmission of social knowledge in such daily aspects as tool produc-tion, domestic architecture and funerary rituals. For the time being, there isno evidence to suggest that any group enjoyed positions of privilege in theconsumption of socially produced goods.

The Final Naviform groups (c.1200–1050 BC) used Chamber 3c of theMussol Cave for a series of practices whose material remains have allowedan understanding of the ideology and the social relations of the Minorcancommunities.

■ ‘OUT FROM THE DEEP ’. CHAMBER 3C OF THE COVA DESMUSSOL: DATA ON THE CONTAINER AND CONTENTS

Chamber 3c is a small space of approximately 5 � 2 m, entered via a verynarrow sloping passage (Chamber 3a), through an antechamber (Chamber3b), and after removing a slab that was used intentionally to cover a naturalopening. Chamber 3c has a highly irregular floor, made up of a series offallen blocks forming a ramp in an east-west direction. It is only possible tostand up at the western edge, while at the easternmost part the ceilingheight drops to 50 cm. On different parts of the floor, three small potteryvases (probably used as oil lamps), and 17 objects or fragments of objectsmade of wood (16 of wild olive wood – Olea europaea – and one of boxwood– Buxus balearica) were found (Piqué, 1999).All were found directly on therocky ground floor and apparently in situ or with minor displacements. Allshowed signs of having been worked, although in most cases it was hard todiscern the original form of the objects. Nevertheless, two pieces had clearlyrecognizable forms. Both were found complete and will be described indetail.

The first was an anthropomorphic carving the size of a fist, which waslying in the extreme western part of the chamber (Figure 3). It representsthe cranium, face and neck of an individual, probably male, judging by thegenerally robust appearance of the facial and cranial features. Technologi-cally, the piece shows a very careful finishing, with the final polishing havingalmost completely eliminated the carving marks. The first thing of note wasthe realism of the piece, despite the fact that it had suffered some damagein the process of extraction. In profile, it is possible to appreciate the faith-fulness achieved in the representation of, for example, the careful inflection,which differentiates the nape of the neck and the prominent aquiline nose.The production of this type of curvilinear form required a combination of

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very precise carving and polishing work, taking into account the small sizeof the piece. The neck, somewhat longer than normal, could have been thepart that allowed the object to be held, or permitted its insertion into sometype of support. The facial expression and the angle of the cranium relativeto the neck seem to indicate that the gaze was directed to a point higher up.The opening of the mouth suggests that the individual is emitting sounds orexpressing surprise. Altogether the anatomical features give an impressionof great realism.

The second piece, representing a human head with zoomorphic features,was deposited in the highest part of the chamber (Figures 4 and 5).The facehas an anthropomorphic form in which the forehead, strongly slanted eyesand a lengthened, hooked nose can clearly be distinguished. The mouth,marked by a relatively broad horizontal groove, gives the impression ofbeing half-open, while a strong chin, of surprising size, suggests a beard.There are no ears. The head is crowned by two appendages in the form ofhorns, springing out from a surface which is excessively flat for a humancranium. The horns have a curious form, since in the better-conservedappendage a wide base can be observed which narrows sharply to end in apointed tip. If we assume that the representation of these horns is not

Figure 3 Anthropomorphic carving at the moment of its discovery andprofile view (photographs by Peter Witte)

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schematic but realistic, the horns could correspond to those of a young deer(Maria Saña, 1998, personal communication).

The head is joined to a relatively long stylized neck, which was probablyused to hold the object, or to fit it to some type of support. Altogether, thefigure gives an impression of solemnity, with the sharp and oblique ocularfeatures and the straight horizontal mouth producing a serious andsomewhat menacing expression. On the other hand, the clearly humanfeatures of the face contrast with the lack of realism in the cranial arch,modelled with excessively straight lines, and, above all, by the presence ofthe two horns. In contrast to the previous carving, it seems clear that thiswas not meant to represent a specific individual, but rather a being whosenature I will attempt to define below.

The two Mussol carvings were dated by AMS. The results (with calibra-tion ranges calculated using Calib 4.3, method A) were:

■ Zoo-anthropomorphic figure: Beta-110138: 3060 ± 50 BP (1393–1295BC 1 sigma).

■ Anthropomorphic figure: Beta-110137: 2930 ± 50 BP (1192–1027 BC1 sigma).

Given the uncertainties inherent in the nature of the samples (wild olivewood), but also the fact that the objects were used together, I propose that

Figure 4 Zoo-anthropomorphic carving from the Mussol Cave (drawing byRamón Álvarez Arza, Universitat de Barcelona)

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the social practice in which both wereinvolved should be placed within the intervalc. 1200–1000 BC.

■ THE CARVINGS FROM THE COVADES MUSSOL AS COMMUNICATIVEARTEFACTS

The material and morphological character-istics of the two wooden carvings from theCova des Mussol offer only a limited marginof doubt when classifying them as communi-cative artefacts. There is nothing to suggestthat they were used in labour processes forthe mechanical transformation of othermaterials, while on the other hand, their mostimportant attributes suggest that they playeda strictly representational role. If above allthey were signs, it would be useful to estab-lish what sort of signs they were.

Over time the study of signs has resultedin the presentation of a range of differentclassifications. Without wishing to go in detailinto the underlying criteria of each of these,and much less to enter the debates surround-ing them, I will adopt the division proposedby Peirce (1960: 51–2) between icon, indexand symbol. The differences between thesecategories lie in the relationship between the

two dimensions or sources traditionally recognized in all signs: the signifieror image, and the signified or reality represented. In this scheme, icons aredefined by the existence of a direct relationship of similarity between thesignifier and the reference (for example, an oil painting). Indices imply acausal relation between the two (for example, smoke as an indicator of fire).Finally, symbols are signs whose relationship to the referent is fixed bysociety in an arbitrary way (for example, alphabetic writing with respect tothe objects or situations which it designates).

The realism expressed in the anthropomorphic carving of the Cova desMussol (see Figure 3) suggests an attempt at a likeness of a specific indi-vidual, represented with the faithfulness of a portrait. This would justify itsclassification as an icon. Eco (1972: 222) has stressed that the relationshipof similarity which underlies the definition of an ‘icon’ does not appear

Figure 5 Zoo-anthropomorphic carvingfrom the Mussol Cave(photograph byPeter Witte)

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naturally. In fact, it presupposes the sharing of a series of perceptive codeswhich select certain stimuli to achieve the same ‘signification’ as thereferent denoted. As such, even in icons there is a conventional componentunderlying them, which recalls the principal defining criterion of thesymbol. However, in the case of the anthropomorphic carving from theCova des Mussol, we could reasonably assume a continuity in the percep-tive codes of the human figure between the prehistoric users and ourselves.Thus, I maintain its classification as an icon, although the fact that it is arepresentation limited to the head introduces a metonymical relation (a synecdoche of a part for the whole) allowing the use of a part – a head– as an indicator for the whole – an individual.

On the other hand, the features expressed in the zoo-anthropomorphiccarving present a more complex situation. In a single sign there are bothhuman and animal attributes, which implies the physical linkage of twosynecdoches of the part for the whole: a face, which invokes a human being,and a set of horns, which invokes a deer. This operation must be producedfrom convention, and its consequence is the production of a symbol. Itscharacteristics locate the resulting entity in the category of ‘hybrid beings’,at the same level of complexity as other well-known composites from theancient Mediterranean world such as the sphinx, the minotaur and thecentaur, among others. These symbols make reference to non-existentbeings in the catalogue of living organisms, and as such, allude to imaginedrealities lacking a direct correlation in sensory experience. Their manifes-tation as sign-objects (communicative artefacts) presupposes, complementsand reinforces a very elaborate abstract discourse, which must includemetaphysical statements.

As a complement to this research, we tried to identify the figure desig-nated by the zoo-anthropomorphic figure within the iconographic array ofrecent European prehistory and antiquity (Lull et al., 1999a: 109–13). Tobegin with, it was assumed that the two appendages which crown thecarving can be identified as deer horns and so our aim was to find repre-sentations of beings with human and deer attributes. The search soonresulted in a significant number of cases, all with a later chronology thanthat of the carving from the Cova des Mussol. Among the best known andoldest, we should mention a seated figure, which appears on one of the sidesof the silver cauldron from Gundestrup in Denmark (Bergquist and Taylor,1987), as well as a figure engraved on rock from Valcamonica in Italy (Anati,1996: 162; Priuli, 1989: 29). However, perhaps the most famous is the stonesculpture found below the choir of the cathedral of Nôtre-Dame in Paris,dating from the first century AD (Saragoza, 2003), given that this repre-sentation of a being with a human head and deer antlers is accompaniedby a name: Cernunnos, ‘the Horned One’ or ‘He Who Wears Horns’.Cernunnos is one of the divinities of the Celtic pantheon, and is linked toconcepts of fertility, provision and wealth (Bober, 1951; Bodson, 1990).

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It would be bold to affirm that the character represented in the Cova desMussol can be matched with this precise divinity, but it allows us to askwhether this might be his predecessor from the Bronze Age. Whatever thecase, the existence of an analogous iconography in regions relatively closeto Minorca and with clear religious connotations, contributes at least toreinforcing the hypothesis that the zoo-anthropomorphic carving hadmeaning within the framework of a metaphysical discourse with mytho-logical or even theological components.

■ SOCIAL DISCOURSE AND SOCIAL PRACTICES:TOWARDS A SYNTAX OF THE CARVINGS AND THECONTEXT OF THE COVA DES MUSSOL

Having examined the communicative artefacts from Chamber 3c, the lastpart of this article will characterize the discourse in which they wereinvolved, and suggest the social relations which they may have producedand expressed. The two carvings have been defined as communicative arte-facts, but what type of discourse did they communicate? Who acceded toit, and in function of what social demand? In order to go beyond the ‘nouns’(the communicative artefacts) to the ‘sentences’, which made up thediscourse, it is necessary to propose syntagmatic links between the materialelements, which took part in a social practice.

Let us return once more to the Cova des Mussol and the two woodencarvings found in Chamber 3c. It is in this space that we should establishthe first sentence of the discourse. Apart from the two carvings, severalwooden fragments were recovered which might have formed part of objectsthat are today unrecognizable. The inventory of artefacts is completed bythree small ceramic vases, which could have been used as oil lamps toilluminate the natural space. Seven vases, very similar in shape and size tothose from Chamber 3c, were the only findings synchronic to the use ofChamber 3c recovered at different points of the cave (scattered through-out the main Chamber 2). The scarcity of findings and, above all, thecomplete absence from the whole cave of remains of food or domestic infra-structure excludes the possibility that this was a place used as a permanentsettlement. As such, the activities carried out must have been brief and,presumably, represented one, or at most a few, episodes.

The classification of the main findings from Chamber 3c as communi-cative artefacts allows the classification, in turn, of the social activitiescarried out there within the category of socio-political or politico-ideologi-cal practices (Castro et al., 1998b). Thus, Chamber 3c appears to have beena space specializing in the communication of ideological content. Further-more, it provides us with two extremely valuable pieces of data:

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1 The communicative activity carried out involved the use of a verysmall number of individuals – perhaps two or three at most – takinginto account the size of the chamber.

2 There was a priority on secrecy: the restrictive character expressed inthe previous point is reinforced by the location of Chamber 3c, inone of the most hidden corners of the cave.

The communicative activity carried out here appears to have been articu-lated around two focal points: the zoo-anthropomorphic carving, whichoccupies a pre-eminent place and designates a mythical-metaphysical char-acter, and the anthropomorphic carving, deposited at a lower level, whichrepresents a specific individual. The face of the zoo-anthropomorphiccharacter gives a hieratic appearance. It is placed in the highest part of thecavity, far from the entrance. The flat finishing at the back indicates that thecarving was made for being contemplated only from the front. One mightsay that it lived in the spot where it was placed, from where it presided overthe action. It has a mouth but no ears: it speaks but does not listen. Bycontrast, the human figure must look up to direct itself at the zoo-anthropomorphic one: its face transmits a feeling of surprise or admiration– perhaps it speaks or sings – and its ears allow it to listen. It is located closeto the entrance of the chamber. One would say that it is a visitor. Takingaccount of these circumstances and the iconic character of the artefact, Ipropose that the anthropomorphic carving represents the real human beingwho, alone or in very limited company, came to this hidden spot on theisland, and here carried out the practice to which Chamber 3c bears witness.What was the meaning of his presence here?

The meaning of the social practice carried out in Chamber 3c is indicatedboth by the cave’s location and by the type of practices it housed. Bothfactors provide direct information about the type of experience undergoneby a human being and, indirectly, about the social relations which demandedit. It is, above all, an exceptional experience of limits based on differentconsiderations:

1 The Cova des Mussol is located in a steep cliff, at the limit betweenland and sea. The land constituted the basic social space for theMinorcan communities in the Final Naviform and Proto-Talayotic.Only a few settlements were located on the coastline and, as I saidbefore, their inhabitants’ diet was based on a combination offoodstuffs of terrestrial origin. Although the Minorcan communitiesat this time were not isolated from the European continent (Lull etal., 2002), the sea was the limit of everyday life more than an activebackdrop for this.

2 Access to the Cova des Mussol is highly dangerous. Although we donot have evidence to determine whether the cave was reached by

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climbing down or up the cliff, both possibilities involved great risk.As such, reaching the cave was an experience of travelling along thelimit between life and death.

3 The activity carried out in the darkness in Chamber 3c was utterlyexceptional when compared with the daily social practices in thesettlements of the Naviform or Proto-Talayotic communities. In thesesettlements there is evidence of a range of basically economicpractices, among which the preparation, storage and consumption offoodstuffs and the production of labour means (metallic tools,ceramic recipients, bone and stone artefacts) stand out. There is noevidence of buildings used for politico-ideological practices. In thisperiod, the natural caves had a funerary use, but this was alwayslimited to the part closest to the outside, from which it was separatedby a cyclopean dry-stone wall. As such, the exceptional character ofthe activity in Chamber 3c comes from its location in the depths of acave (unfrequented and possibly taboo spaces), and above all, fromthe symbolic charge materialized in the representation of the zoo-anthropomorphic figure. Whoever reached that place would haveabandoned the world of social daily reality, and would have crossedthe limit, which gave access to the world it imagined.

Chamber 3c of the Cova des Mussol tells us about how Minorcan societysubjected a few individuals to exceptional practices. It tells us of one of thesteps, perhaps the decisive one, in the ‘preparation’ of certain individualswho, on returning ‘home’, would adopt a different social role from the rest.Society established the material conditions and the formal demands for theproduction of this difference: it instituted a real and dangerous voyage toa real and also an imaginary world and characterized this by means ofmytho-metaphysical discursive contents, whose communicative complexityrequired the materialization of some of its referents in symbols (communi-cative artefacts). From this perspective, Chamber 3c was a key area ofactivity in an initiation rite restricted to a very small social group. To under-take it successfully gave a person a different standing within the heart ofthe community and, in some way, qualified that person to take on a newsocial role. The experience lived through in the Cova des Mussol made thatperson different from the rest. Different, yes, but different for whatpurpose?

We know that the communities of the Final Naviform period were basi-cally egalitarian. We also know that they were engaged in deep transform-ations that first led to the Proto-Talayotic (c. 1050–850 BC) as a prologuefor the development of Talayotic society. Towards the end of the Naviform,and throughout the Proto-Talayotic, the population was progressivelyconcentrated in denser settlements, such as Es Figueral de Son Real(Rosselló Bordoy and Camps Coll, 1972) and S’Illot (Frey, 1968), at the same

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time as they constructed buildings which differed increasingly from theNaviform model. In fact, it is possible that the tower-shaped buildings instone, which were to be the direct predecessors of the typical talayots of thelater period (S’Illot, Trebalúger), were already being built at this time. Inparallel to this population-clustering tendency, a diversification of funerarypractices can be observed in Minorca, which has no correlation on the neigh-bouring island of Majorca. In Minorca, the age-old tradition of burials innatural caves with the entrance closed by cyclopean walls continued, suchas in the Cova des Càrritx. However, at that time there was a qualitative andquantitative increase in the funerary offerings left as grave goods. Theseincluded a greater number of metal pieces, almost always decorative (torcs,bracelets, needles, necklace beads, ‘pectorals’) in what constituted the onlyindication of a possible socioeconomic differentiation within the communi-ties. On the other hand, there was an increasing use of monumental cyclo-pean buildings with elongated apsidal plans: the navetas (such as Tudons orRafal Rubí), reflecting an important investment of collective labour.

At the end of the second millennium BC, the basically egalitarianMinorcan society was undergoing a process of change that finally led to theformation of Talayotic society. In this context, Cova des Mussol Chamber3c was a material ‘device’ used for building social differences. I consider itrealistic to suggest that the Cova des Mussol constituted a key piece in thequalifying of certain individuals in order to be able to carry out certainpolitico-ideological functions in their communities. Ethnographic andethnological literature offers us the term ‘shaman’ to designate ‘special’people who dedicate part of their time to curative, magic and mediatingactivities, among others. A social figure analogous to the shaman, in termsof being a figure partially devoted to the aforementioned relational func-tions, could match the profile which emerges from this study.

Nevertheless, I prefer to characterize the individuals ‘produced’ atMussol with a rather loose adjective: ‘mediators’. These people wouldperform a range of social functions, such as settling quarrels and conflictsbetween individuals or groups, being the representative of a localcommunity or being the ‘interpreter’ between the group and its imaginaryworlds. Other social roles being possible, why suggest ‘mediators’? Mainlybecause I stress that Chamber 3c was used to produce a few ‘special’, ‘non-ordinary’ people, without attaching to them any economic privileges. Thiscondition is needed to fulfil the aforementioned functions. A mediatorwould have to hold a differentiated social position from those betweenwhom he or she had to mediate. This social position must have been fairlydetached from the people who needed mediation, or we would no longerbe talking about a mediator, but rather about an individual acting on behalfof one of the parties in conflict. Like the whole experience surroundingbeing at Chamber 3c, the social role of ‘mediator’ was also at the limit ofsocial relations.

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Faced with this social need, the egalitarian Final Naviform groups madea low material investment.

1 In the first place, no specific and costly buildings were to be erectedfor political/ideological purposes, as was to become the case duringmost of the first millennium BC, in Talayotic and Post-Talayoticperiods, with the use of talaiots and taula sanctuaries. Instead of this,a natural subterranean setting was selected, probably conditioned bythe established condition of caves as ritual spaces, witnessedcenturies before in the Cova des Mussol itself and in the Cova desCàrritx, among others (Lull et al., 1999a).

2 The politico-ideological practices that allowed some people to gain adifferent social position involved only a small number of individualsduring a short period of time. There is no indication of the existenceof a large, full-time, specialized priestly group.

3 The production of artefacts needed to perform the rites does notrequire a huge labour investment. Olea wood was a locally availableraw material, easy to work, at least for the part-time craft specialist ofNaviform society.

4 Only the discourse that accompanied the artefacts was highlyelaborated. ‘Cheap’ and (in principle) perishable wooden carvedsymbols conveyed complex meanings which showed a mytho-metaphysical character and a previously unknown male iconographicprotagonism. This social discourse was communicated, and in factlived, by a few chosen people in the context of an impressive naturalsetting. An extraordinary experience, combined with a complexmetaphysical knowledge, was enough to transform them into a newsocial condition.

Late Naviform and Prototalayotic periods were times of change. Later,during the Talayotic period, ideological and political practices took place ina ‘more expensive’ setting. But this is part of a different story.

■ CONCLUSION

In this article, I have tried to apply a materialist approach to the analysisof a category of archaeological objects, which tends to be classified withinthe ideological sphere, and, as such, to be considered as the mute echo ofnow inaccessible codes of signification. This may well be true to a largeextent, but we should not forget that, above all, communicative artefactsare products destined for social use, and that an archaeological analysis thatsets out from the characterization of their material attributes and the

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context in which they were used can throw some light on the social organ-ization which once gave them meaning.

Symbols are material social products destined for social consumption.Both their form and the practices in which they take on meaning respondto social conventions, and so it can be said that they are arbitrary. However,arbitrariness should not be confused with fortuitousness or non-reducibility.The production of symbols in a society depends on several factors: the realproductive capacity of a group (sufficient raw materials, labour force andmeans for taking on production); the social cost implied by their mainten-ance, that is to say, the social conditions which allow the transmission andupdating of the signification codes; the depth or richness of the accumulatedsocial knowledge or memory and, finally, the demands for social relationswhich they are used to satisfy.

Acknowledgements

This article was undertaken in the framework of the ‘Economy, Society andEnvironment in the Central and Western Mediterranean Basin (c. 3000–200 BC)’project, financed by the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (Spain) as part of theRamón y Cajal programme. This works also benefits from the support of theDirecció General de Recerca of the Catalonian Autonomous Government (project2001SGR00156). I would like to thank my colleagues V. Lull, C. Rihuete Herradaand R. Risch for allowing me to use the issues derived from our joint research, andBob Chapman and several anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments onan earlier draft. I also thank Alex Walker and Dennis Jones for the translation ofthe original article into English.

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RAFAEL MICÓ PÉREZ is a full-time Researcher in Prehistory at theUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain). His research interests are theprehistory of Western Mediterranean Europe, with a focus on the BronzeAge in the Balearic Islands and south-east Iberia, where he has beenconducting fieldwork since 1987.[email: [email protected]]

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