Sociedad y cambio en Menorca: sistematización de los contextos arqueológicos de las navetas funerarias entre el 1400 y el 850 cal ANE

Funerary navetas are one of the most popular archaeological monuments of Menorca and are part of the island´s popular culture; especially of its landscape. In fact, the naveta dels Tudons is one of the identifying icons on of the island. However, its popularity is not matched by knowledge of its development and historical significance. While it is true that the funeral navetas had already been studied in the eighteenth century by the first British engineers who arrived on the island, and that studies of by many scholars and archaeologists have focused on them -Joan Ramis i Ramis, Francesc Hernández -Sanz, Margaret Murray, Maria Luisa Serra Belabre, Lluis Plantalamor or Cristobal Veny, to quote a few- the knowledge we have about them is scarce and and fragmentary. This doctoral thesis aims to collect and organize the information available about funeral navetas and its material contexts, ranging from architecture to grave goods, attempting to place them in the time and space in which they were located. Applying statistical methods of analysis, we offer a sorting method of navetas by architectural type, where we propose that a different architectural concept exists between circular and elongated navetas. These two architectural models perhaps mark social differences, observed more in the architecture than in the regalia deposited inside. In fact, we cannot say much about age, sex (or gender) or quality of life with regards those buried in navetas, as the parameters are quite similar to those buried in other types of tombs. The presence of other types of tombs contemporary to the navetas, such as natural caves with cyclopean enclosing walls leads us to propose a model of social differentiation by lineage. The analysis of metal, stone, bone and pottery items points to a significant degree of uniformity in the materials that accompanied the dead. Type 4 vessels pots and, later, the troncoconical Type 1 cups, are practically the only ones involved in funeral rituals. Punches, awls and bronze bracelets show us the paucity of deposited objects. However, analysis of the so-called "biconical beads", has shed light on the ingenuity of the Menorcan prehistoric communities, with the invention of a hitherto unknown artefact, likely to be associated with some practical not decorative part of an instrument. Diachronic analysis and classification of the grave goods, together with the available C14 dates, puts places the origin of funerary navetas around c.1400 BCE, continuing in use until 800 BCE when they fall in disuse, coinciding with important social changes in the so-called Talayotic period. However, the navetas also bear witness to an increase in contacts with the outside world, as well as certain changes in funeral rituals detected around 1100 BC, such as with the grouping of skulls and the introduction of weapons and ornaments of foreign origin. This is an indication that Menorca took part in the routes of trade and exchange ocurring in the Late Bronze Age that connected northern Europe with the Mediterranean. The unique location of the navetas, grouped at either ends of the island (east and west), suggest careful planning in the choice of location with a preference for arable farming land by certain communities