Ancient site · Settlement
Los Millares
Los Millares, near Almería in southern Spain, was a fortified Copper Age town of perhaps 1,000 people. Three rings of stone walls with bastions protected it, and four small forts guarded the approach.
Inside were simple houses and a workshop for smelting copper. Outside lay a cemetery of about 80 passage-grave tombs. It was found in 1891 during railway building and first dug by Luis Siret. It is the type site of the Los Millares culture.
- Dates
- c. 3000–2000 BCE
- Still standing
- Yes
- Location
- 36.96° N, 2.52° W
How we know
No writing existed; radiocarbon dates and excavations since the 1890s tell its story.
Nearby sites
- El Argar c. 2200–1500 BCE
- Dolmen of Menga built c. 3750–3650 BCE
- Atlantis (legend) Plato (c. 360 BCE) set it c. 9600 BCE
- Pont du Gard 1st century CE; used perhaps until the 6th century
- Su Nuraxi di Barumini tower 17th–13th century BCE; village to the 6th century BCE
- Carthage founded c. 814 BCE (traditional date); destroyed 146 BCE; Roman city to 698 CE
Related
- Los Millares culture archaeological culture
- The world in 3000 BCE: The First Kings chapter