The ordered space. Landscape, orientations and astronomy at the dawn of iberian epoch in Mazaleón (Teruel)

Abstract

We present an archaeoastronomical study of the so-called Room 2 of the pre-Iberian settlement of San Cristóbal de Mazaleón (7th-6th centuries BC) and of several burial mounds from its associated necropolis. Room 2 is oriented quite precisely along the cardinal axes and shows a marker of the sunrise around the equinoxes on the central part of the hill that dominates the eastern horizon, a common feature in several Iberian sanctuaries in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. These results, together with the typology of the archaeological material found inside Room 2, lead us to propose its use as a sacred space, where fertility-related rites would be carried out around the equinoxes, or as the place for redistribution and social negotiation ceremonies. Comparison of the chronology of the site with those of other Protohistoric sanctuaries with similar archaeoastronomical findings suggests that this space is, by now, the earliest of them all. The burial mounds of the necropolis show a well-defined pattern of orientations towards the west-southwest, coinciding with that shown by most of the Protohistoric burial mounds of other necropolises of Bajo Aragon and perhaps related to the sunset.