Elementos para el gobierno del caballo durante el periodo Tardo-Orientalizante/Ibérico Antiguo en la desembocadura del Segura a través de las evidencias arqueológicas

Abstract

A set of bronze items related to the management of horses (five circular bit guards, a horse bit, a rein ring and four conical ornamental sewn buttons) from the necropolis of El Molar (San Fulgencio, Alicante province), from the necropolis of El Llano de la Consolación (Albacete) and from the collections of the Archaeological Museum of Murcia are presented. In addition, a review of the existing faunal records from various sites in the Alicante area and along the Segura river is provided. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the presence and social use of the horse in the estuary of the Segura River during the Late Orientalizing and Early Iberian periods. The elements for riding horses appear at this time of cultural transit ex novo and find their parallels and influences in different areas of the south and west of the Iberian Peninsula. Although we have detected evidence for the use of horses as early as the Late Bronze Age at Peña Negra (Crevillent, Alicante province), it was during the transition between the Iron Age and the Early Iberian period when a number of individuals adopted elements such as horse riding gear or equipment for assembling chariots, including them in their grave goods in necropolises such as the one at El Molar, as clear markers of status. This adoption of foreign objects and behavior models is evidence of a need to affirm the social position of certain prominent figures. This occurred at particularly unstable or changing times, as we know was the case at the estuary of the Segura in the second half of the 6th century BC.