ICONICAL SIGNS, INDEXICAL RELATIONS: BRONZE AGE STELAE AND STATUE-MENHIRS IN THE IBERIAN PENINSULA *

by

Marta Díaz-Guardamino Uribe **

Abstract: The adoption of theories of social action in Archaeology has opened up the way to consider the mutually constitutive relationship between the social and the material. In this context, Peircean semiotics – a theory of meaning embedded in experience – helps understanding the unfolding of this meaningful relationship in the past and the present. The case of Bronze Age (ca. 2200-825 BC ) decorated stelae and statue-menhirs in the Iberian Peninsula is illustrative. They have been generally conceptualized as static containers of symbolic meanings. But understanding stelae and statue-menhirs as an integral and active part of social relations entails addressing them as signs of practices historically situated within a wider complex network of practices structuring social relations in a meaningful way. Stelae and statue-menhirs suggest multiple indexical relations that can be taken as evidence for social practices related to the structuration of collective identities, memories and places. This approach contributes to a renovated understanding of the historicized relationships between people and this type of remains. Key-words: Materiality; Iconography; Bronze Age.

Resumen: La adopción de teorías de acción social en Arqueología ha contribuido a que la interrelación entre lo social y lo material, su mutua constitución, sean reconocidas y consideradas. En este contexto, la semiótica Peirceana – una teoría de significado fundamentada en la experiencia – nos ayuda a entender el desarrollo de esta significativa relación, tanto en el pasado como en el presente. En este sentido el caso de las estelas decoradas y estatuas-menhir peninsulares durante la Edad del Bronce (ca. 2200-825 BC) puede ser ilustrativo. Generalmente han sido conceptualizadas como estáticos contenedores de significados simbólicos. No obstante, para entender las estelas decoradas y estatuas-menhir como parte integral y activa de las relaciones sociales es necesario analizarlas como signos de prácticas sociales que están históricamente situadas en una compleja y amplia red de prácticas que estructuran las relaciones sociales de una forma llena de significado. Estelas y estatuas-menhir sugieren múltiples relaciones indéxicas que pueden ser consideradas como evidencias de

* This work is the written version of a paper presented at the WAC6, Dublín (2008), in the session “Materializing Practices”, organized by Prof. Rosemary Joyce (Berkeley) and myself, hosted within the Theme “Materializing Identities II: materials, techniques, practice” organized by Johanna Brück and Chris Fowler. I am very grateful to Rosemary Joyce for her invitation to co-organize this session, which was a very rewarding experience for me. The session benefited from the interesting papers presented by the varied contributors, which included a wide range of topics and points of view, “materializing” a stimulating diversity. ** Departamento de Prehistoria, Universidad Complutense de Madrid. [email protected]

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prácticas sociales relacionadas con la estructuración de identidades, memorias y lugares colectivos. Este acercamiento contribuye a una comprensión renovada sobre las relaciones históricamente situadas entre personas, estelas, estatuas-menhir. Palabras-Clave: Materialidad; Iconografía, Edad del Bronce.

FAUST: «[…] Ich schau in diesen reinen Zügen Die wirkende Natur vor meiner Seele liegen. Jetzt erst erkenn ich, was der Weise spricht: “Die Geisterwelt ist nicht verschlossen; Dein Sinn ist zu, dein Herz ist tot! […] 1”» (J. W. Goethe, Faust – erster Teil, 1808)

1. MATERIALITY AND MEANING This paper sets out from a premise that argues that the interrelation between the social and the material takes place through practices that are materialized creating temporal and spatial structures (Gosden 1994, 74-80, 124-5). George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, partially inspired by the argumentation of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, have recently drawn on substantial evidence to suggest that human beings conceptualize the most basic bodily experience through signs, primary conceptual structures – conceptual metaphors – that function at the level of the pre-consciousness (Merleau-Ponty 2003[1945]: 129, 181-3, 206-9; Lakoff & Johnson 1999, 56-7, 77-93). In this context, it can be considered that the materialization of practices is a meaningful process (Reckwitz 2002). Nonetheless, as recently argued by Rosemary Joyce, when we talk about meaning we don’t necessarily talk about symbolic or linguistic meanings (Joyce 2007, 107-8). The theory of meaning of Charles Sanders Peirce is an alternative to previous logocentric conceptualizations of the material – such as linguistic structuralism – that could not account for the relationship between meaning and the material (Olshewsky 1995, 4423; Preucel & Bauer 2001; Bauer 2002; Keane 2003, 412-3; Preucel 2006, 44-89; Joyce 2007). Peirce’s theory of meaning is based on the triadic relation of the material form of the sign (representamen), its object (referent) and its interpretant (the sense made of the sign), considering the very materiality of the sign, and the active role of the interpreter, his or her experience, in the process of signification through the concept of the interpretant (Pape 1998, 2019-22; Preucel 2006, 50-60). Depending on the relationship between the sign vehicle (representamen) and the object (referent) experienced by the interpreter, the arbitrariness of meaning varies, and based on this variation is the most fundamental and 1

In these pure lineaments I see Creative Nature’s self before my soul appear. Now first I understand what he, the sage, has said: “The world of spirits is not shut away; Thy sense is closed, thy heart is dead! (Translation by George Madison Priest)

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known classification of signs of Peirce: icon, index and symbol (Peirce 1998, 5-10). As Webb Keane has recently summarized, iconicity is a matter of resemblance, of potential and possibility, symbolicity is a matter of rules and conventions. Finally, indexicality is a matter of proximity, contiguity and causality, there is an intrinsic relationship between representamen and object independent of the sign relation. There is a real, an existential or dynamical connection (Keane 2005, 7-10). These modes of signification are a triad and co-exist and the dominance of any of them will depend on the experience of the interpreter and the context.

2. INTERPRETING STELAE AND STATUE-MENHIRS 2 From this perspective, given the nature of stelae and statue-menhirs, the main modes of signification explored by researchers until now have been iconicity and symbolicity. Nevertheless, the linguistic perspective that has dominated their study has favoured their treatment as passive recipients of final, extant and static meanings. Their materiality has not been considered, neither their role in the process of signification (Díaz-Guardamino 2006, see also Joyce 2007 for a similar case in Mesoamerican research). Iconicity has been explored to establish chronological parameters and to develop typological studies. Through symbolicity authors have mainly made inferences regarding social prestige and hierarchization, commonly concluding that the stelae and statue-menhirs represent elitist individuals that through this medium tried to implement their own and particular “discourse of power” during the Bronze Age (e.g. Almagro-Gorbea 1977; Barceló 1989, 238; Jorge 1999a; Celestino 2001; Harrison 2004; Bueno, Balbín & Barroso 2005b). On the other hand, indexicality, which provides us with real physical connections that could be explored to approach the active and meaningful roles of stelae and statue-menhirs in social processes, has been generally under-explored. The rather narrow concept of “context” that framed the work of most researchers has contributed to this situation. The actual scarcity of stelae and statue-menhirs known within (vertical) stratigraphical contexts drove most researchers to focus on the stelae and statue-menhirs themselves and their engravings, considering them as closed compositions, as static remains isolated in time and space. The concept of indexicality, which includes physical contiguity and causality, involves an enlarged notion of context in which practices and materials are indexically interrelated. A Bronze Age statue-menhir found by a water spring and an old megalithic necropolis indexes the practices involved in its elaboration and placement, and refers to those surrounding material features, materializing a relationship that might have been an integral part of those past practices as, for example, those involved in mortuary rituals. In this sense, besides vertical stratigraphic relations, indexicality comprises the physical contiguity

2 When I talk about ‘decorated stela’ and ‘statue-menhir’ I refer to free standing, potentially mobile but not portable-, most of the times monumental, worked stones that implicitly or explicitly refer to the human body, allude to persons that might be visually articulated through elements that have been labelled as ‘emblems’, ‘clothing’, ‘ornaments’, ‘objects of personal care’, ‘prestige elements’ or ‘weaponry’. From an interpretive point of view, ‘stela’ and ‘statue-menhir’ are heuristic concepts that let us explore the material aspects of these remains that we interrelate in the present and interpret in varied directions.

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between material features on the one hand, between material features and practices on the other, at varied spatial scales and beyond temporal structures. Nevertheless, to make sense of indexical relations within the dynamic of social relations and the interrelation between the social and the material, it is necessary to “historize” them. In short, the analysis of indexicality should account for stratigraphical relations (vertical and horizontal), including “re-usages” of older menhirs or statue-menhirs, the engravings and modifications made in different “stages”, material features found in a place (stelae, statue-menhirs, other archaeological remains or “natural” features) not so “evidently” interrelated, or even wider relations as the ones suggested by the stones and their sources. Therefore, there are varied ways in which stelae and statue-menhirs index practices (see Joyce 2007 for a relevant case study) involved in their elaboration, placement, maintenance and “afterlife”. Practices might have been repetitive or diverting from the norm, at least from our partial and actual perspective. In any case, as we consider these practices, they structure our knowledge about stelae and statue-menhirs in the present, as well as they might have structured social relations in the past. Either way, it is precisely the materialization of those practices what promotes engagements that structure meanings. Indexical relations might suggest normative practices related to the elaboration of statuemenhirs and stelae, as repetitive trends in the selection of the “raw” materials, locations, or the performance of their engravings. Nevertheless, there are further indexical relations that are not considered at all or regarded as “outliers” that could be interpreted in, at least, three ways. From a perspective that considers stelae and statue-menhirs as static containers and change is attributed to external and self-contained events, these are exceptions that rarely are integrated in a social or cultural interpretation. From a point of view that attempts to consider stelae and statue-menhirs as elements that actively structured social relations, these outliers might be interpreted as heterodox 3 materialized practices of the Past that had an active role altering social relations. On the other hand, these outliers might change our general perception of stelae and statue-menhirs in the Present, either considering them as part of heterodox practices in the Past or as indication of a wider set of orthodox practices in the Past still to be acknowledged by researchers in the Present. In recent works some indexical relations have been noted, such as the varied interventions implicated in the engravings we see today in some stelae (Harrison 2004, 4452) or the existence of varied archaeological remains in the places where stelae or statuemenhirs were found (Bueno, Balbín & Barroso 2005a; García Sanjuan et al. 2006; Díaz-Guardamino 2006). But a pioneering research in this sense was the work of Eduardo Galán, who used an enlarged concept of “context” to explore the relationship between Late Bronze Age stelae and passage zones, within a wider framework that considered them as

3 Bourdieu defined “doxa” as the non-discursive sphere in which one experiences an almost total correspondence between the objective order and the subjective organization principles, when the natural and the social spheres seem self-evident, the world of tradition is experienced as “natural” (Bourdieu, [1972]1977: 164). On the other hand, “orthodoxy” and “heterodoxy” are experiences that belong to the discursive sphere of the conscious reflection: “Orthodoxy, straight, or rather straightened, opinion, which aims, without ever entirely succeeding, at restoring the primal state of innocence of doxa[3],. Exists only in the objective relationship which opposes it to heterodoxy, that is, by reference to the choice… made possible by the existence of competing possibles and to the explicit critique of the sum of total of the alternatives not chosen that the established order implies” (Bourdieu, [1972]1977: 169).

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elements actively engaged in a process of social differentiation (Ruiz-Gálvez & Galán 1991; Galán, 1993). Nevertheless, besides disregarding collective identities and social action in this process (as pointed out in Díaz-Guardamino 2006), his analysis relating stelae and passage zones ends in a fairly reductionist way, interpreting stelae as territorial markers but neglecting “places”, their particular historicity and materiality, and the role of stelae structuring them. As I will argue, indexical relations suggest that stelae, statue-menhirs and the “places” where they were located were part of complex networks of practices structuring social relations through merging temporalities and spatialities.

3. EXPLORING INDEXICALITY: NORMATIVE PRACTICES & “OUTLIERS” The incipient analysis of indexical relations has disclosed the existence of repetitive patterns involved in the elaboration and placement of Late Bronze Age stelae, such as their systematic placement in passage zones (Ruiz-Gálvez & Galán 1991) or the usage of stones present in the immediate surroundings of their location to elaborate them (e.g. Celestino 2001, 79-80), an aspect that was recently supported by the preliminary analysis of the stelae of Almadén de la Plata (Sevilla) (García Sanjuan et al. 2006, 142-3). Except for some cases, research on Bronze Age stelae, statue-menhir and their contexts (in the “enlarged” sense previously mentioned) has not been systematic (but see i.e. García Sanjuan et al. 2006). Today’s available data is qualitatively restricted. Some of the studies of recently “discovered” stelae and statue-menhirs unveil “exceptional” details that enrich the list of already known “odd” situations, inviting us to look at them from alternative points of view. The selection and sources of the “raw” material, for example, is a topic with enormous potential but still under-explored by research on Iberian Bronze Age stelae and statuemenhir. Although it can be argued that related images made in perishable materials (i.e. wood) might have also existed, as it is known in other areas of Europe (Van der Sanden & Capelle 2001), stone stelae and statue-menhirs are the ones that have endured through time. Permanence is a material quality that might have played a relevant role in the selection of stone, while its provenience, texture, colour or previous biography might have influenced the choice of a particular stone. Stones constitute fields of action in which practices are materialized incorporating different temporal and spatial referents, providing an interesting interpretative potential still to be explored. Regarding Bronze Age stelae and statue-menhirs, the few available data suggests the existence of a promising variability. In the case of stones that are being modified for the first time, preliminary impressions suggest that most of the Late Bronze Age stelae incorporated stones from the surroundings. Nevertheless, in the case of Talavera the analysis concluded that the nearest source for the raw material was 25 km away towards the North of the location were it was found, at the other side of the river Tajo (Portela & Jiménez 1996). This case is especially interesting because the Late Bronze Age images were engraved on a – most probably older – statuemenhir, while the area of extraction might have been spatially related to a place where another stela and a Middle Bronze Age necropolis were found (Fig. 1). On other occasions older menhirs or statue-menhirs are used to perform new modifications or engravings. This selection might be significant, as the places that are better known suggest. This would be

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the case of Collado de Sejos (Cantabria) or Soalar (Navarra), both in the North of the Iberian Peninsula. The Early Bronze Age statue-menhir of Soalar (Baztán, Navarra), which probably reuses a pre-existing menhir, is situated by an open air activity site and it is located in an area where there are several megalithic structures, none of them systematically excavated till now (Ondarra 1976a; 1976b; Bueno, Balbín & Barroso 2005a, 28, Fig. 18; Barrero et al. 2005; Cabodevilla & Zabalza 2006, 167-75). The Early Bronze Age stelae of Collado de Sejos were engraved in two selected menhirs that were part of a cromlech (Bueno, Piñon & Prados 1985; Díez Castillo & Ruíz Cobo 1993, 49-50). In the surroundings there are numerous structures, some of which could pre-date the stelae: menhirs, another possible cromlech, smaller stone circles, mounds and outcrops with cupules (Fig. 2) (Díaz-Casado 1993, 42; Díez-Castillo 1996-1997, Fig. 4.18). Other known examples are the Early/Middle Bronze Age stela of Alfarrobeira, possibly also Passadeiras 1, reusing a menhir and situated in an Early/ Middle Bronze Age necropolis (Gomes 1994), the late Bronze Age stelae of Magacela and Cancho Roano, reusing falic menhirs (Celestino 2001, 386-7; Harrison 2004, 255-7), or the Late Bronze Age stelae of São Martinho 1 and 2 (Celestino 2001, 357-60; Harrison 2004, 229-33), the second made on a falic menhir and the first possibly on a statue-menhir. Both stelae were found with a third stelae – or statue-menhir – in a settlement with remains that reveal a Late Bronze Age occupation (Vilaça 1995, 80, 250). Finally, the stela of Bayuela 1, displays a schematic human figure similar to the ones found in Late Bronze Age stelae, but in this case without related objects, using a falic menhir (Fig. 1) (Gutierrez 2002; Pacheco & Deza 2003). This stela was found on the foot of a hill where there is a Middle Bronze Age necropolis (Gil Pulido et al., 1988). Although information is still very poor, the latest engravings or modifications performed in these menhirs and statue-menhirs refer to them as pre-existing materials that, at the same time, index practices related to their manufacture and, possibly, their placement. These cases suggest the existence of complex chains of practices (following Joyce & Lopiparo 2005) structuring these places, especially in the cases where further material evidence has been documented, as in Collado de Sejos (Fig. 2), Soalar, Alfarrobeira, São Martinho or Bayuela (Fig. 1). But the engravings of stelae and statue-menhirs might as well refer to pre-existing engravings, reproducing the previous composition or modifying it. Richard Harrison has recently reviewed Late Bronze Age stelae that present modification of their iconography during that period or later (Harrison 2004, 46-51) but there are also earlier exemplars that might have undergone similar modifications, such as Peñatú (Balbín, 1989, 29, 31, but see Bueno 1992, 508; 1995, 83), Chaves (Jorge & Almeida 1980, 5-24 y figs. 3-7), Guarda (Silva, 2000: 230, 233) or Muiño de San Pedro (Taboada Cid 1988-1989) to cite some examples. Groups of stelae and statue-menhirs materialize multiple references between them, indexing practices that sought this physical contiguity. The place of Cabeço da Mina (Vilariça, Bragança) is paradigmatic of this situation. This is placed on a prominent hill located in the middle of a fertile valley (Sousa 1996; 1997; Jorge 1999b). The top of the hill was partially excavated and this work exhumed part of an enclosure made of stelae, some decorated, others not. Decorated stelae sometimes depict facial traits, but the representation is mainly focused on clothing/emblems. The stratigraphy of the site revealed a possible single phase of construction but did not provide further material remains to date or to deepen in the history and nature of this place.

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During the Early/Middle Bronze Age stelae and statue-menhirs might appear as single pieces of this category, grouped and/or spatially related to other archaeological remains. As occurs in the mentioned cases of Collado de Sejos (Fig. 2) or Soalar, the related Early Bronze Age image of Peña Tú is engraved and painted on a massive outcrop that spatially structures the flat mountain range of La Borbolla, where there are several mounds, one of them providing an anthropomorphic stela, and areas of activity dated to the late fourth, early third Millenia BC (Menéndez 1931; Pérez & Arias 1979, 714; Bueno & Fernández Miranda 1980, 451-67, Fig. 3-5; Arias & Pérez 1990, 100; Blas 2003). Recent research in Moimenta da Beira (Viseu) has disclosed the material richness of the place of Chã das Lameiras, in which there are several dolmens of varied typology, one of them reused during the early second Milennium BC , as well as a mound possibly constructed in this moment, a third Milennium BC settlement and two statue-menhirs that probably date to the early second Milennium BC (Cruz 2001, 150, 173-6, 374-8, Fig. 54, 167, Pl. 62-5). Another relevant place is the Dehesa Boyal of Hernán Pérez (Northern Extremadura), where seven -probably Early/Middle Bronze Age- anthropomorphic stelae depicting hairdresses and necklaces and the fragment of a Late Bronze Age stela were found in an area were there are at least six megalithic monuments, two of them were excavated during the 1970s (Almagro Basch 1972; Almagro-Gorbea & Hernández 1979; Díaz-Guardamino 2006, Fig. 8). The stela of Granja de Toniñuelo (Southern Extremadura), also with hair-dress and necklace, probably dated in Early/Middle Bronze Age, was found in an unspecified spot of a valley (Leisner 1935) where is situated the impressive corbelled monument of Granja de Toniñuelo (Carrasco 2000). Recent works in this monument have documented an anthropomorphic stela that was part of the corridor (Carrasco 2000, 303, Figs. 8, 9, Pl. V) and rests of the decoration of the monument (Bueno and Balbín 1997). Other references situate the findings of the stelae of Paredes de Abajo (Santa Maria de Castro de Rei, Lugo) and Boulhosa nearby mounds (Vazquez Seijas 1936, 281-3, Figs. 1-2; Vasconcelos 1910, 31-3, Fig. 2; Jorge, V. & S. 1993, 29-31). Other early/middle Bronze Age stelae are found, sometimes in groups of two or more stelae or fragments of stelae, around more or less contemporary burial structures but with no stratigraphical connection to them (e.g. Ervidel 1, Passadeiras 1, 2 and 3, Gomes Aires, Panoias) (Gomes & Monteiro 1977; Gomes 1994, 86-9, Figs. 57-61 A & B; Paço, Nunes Ribeiro & Franco 1965, 99-103, Fig. 2; Almagro 1966, 120-1, Fig. 41, Pl. 36; Coelho 1975, 196; Vasconcelos 1908, 304, Fig. 8; Almagro 1966, 59-60, Fig. 17, Pl. 13). Some cases were found, most probably reused, as cist covers, as it was reported for the stelae of Mombeja 1, 2 and 3, Trigaxes 1 and 2, and the stela of Santa Vitória (Vasconcelos 1906, 182-5, Pl. 1,2, Figs. 5, 6, 8; Almagro 1966, 41-5, 48-9, Figs. 7, 9, 11, Pl. 5, 6, 8). The only case in which researchers documented a possible primary context was in the stela of Alfarrobeira, found in the eponymous cist necropolis (Gomes 1994). Data recovered in the excavation of this site suggested that this stela could have been placed by one of the smallest and most recent cists of the cemetery (Gomes 1994). The stela 1 of Ervidel might have been originally located in the “Sitio da Fonte” (Herdade do Pomar, Ervidel, Aljustrel, Beja), where two cists contemporary to this stela 1 were documented and also a Late Bronze Age stela (Ervidel 2) (Gomes & Monteiro 1977). In some occasions Late Bronze Age stelae are grouped with – or close by – other stelae with similar or different iconography – in some cases of earlier chronology as seen in the cases of Hernán Pérez (Almagro Basch 1972) or Ervidel (Gomes & Monteiro 1977)

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–, as in Pedra da Atalaia (Lobão, Marques & Neves 2006, 35), S. Martinho (Harrison 2004, 231-4), Torrejón Rubio 1 and 2 (Harrison 2004, 195-8), Capilla 5, 6 and 7 (Enríquez 2006, 165), Zarza Capilla 1, 2 and 3 (Celestino 2001, 380-4; Harrison 2004, 250-4), El Viso 2, 6 and 3 (Celestino 2001, 396-8, 402), Almadén de la Plata 1 and 2 (García Sanjuán et al. 2006), Écija 2 and 4 (Harrison 2004, 291-4), Cortijo de la Reina 1 and 2 (Murillo, Morena & Ruiz 2005, 25-32, Fig. 4) or Cerro Muriano 2 (Murillo et alii 2005, 17-9, Fig. 2). There is an increasing number of Late Bronze Age stelae found on the top of hills, some of which have documented -or are spatially related to- previous, contemporary or later occupations, as the mentioned stelae of São Martinho 1-3 (Almagro Basch 1966, 368, Pl. 3; Vilaça 1995, 80, 250), Las Herencias 1 (Moreno Arrastio 1995, 275-94; Harrison 2004, 224-6) and maybe Las Herencias 2 (Moreno Arrastio 1990, 277; De Álvaro, Municio & Piñón 1988), Valencia de Alcántara 2 (Diéguez Luengo 1964, 129-30, Pl. 2), La Bienvenida 2 and 3 (Murillo et alii 2005, 35, Note 57), Setefilla (Aubet 1997), Écija 2 and 4 (Harrison 2004, 291-4) or Montemolín (Chaves & De la Bandera 1982, 137-47, Figs. 13). Late Bronze Age stelae have traditionally been interpreted as tomb markers, as indirect oral accounts described the existence of possible cremated bones in relation of two of these stelae: Granja de Céspedes (Almagro Basch 1966, 105-7, Fig. 34, Pl. 29; Harrison 2004, 275-7) and Solana de Cabañas (Roso de Luna 1898; Harrison 2004, 218-20). Other references indicated that the stela of Figueria was covering a cist when it was found (Gomes & Silva 1987, 46, map B), although there is much confusion about the context of its discovery, as summarized by E. Galán (1993, 110). The stela of Haza de Trillo was documented sealing the entrance of a ‘collective’ tomb (Mergelina 1944; Harrison 2004, 283-4). In the following decades this interpretation was questioned as the existing data didn’t offer sufficient confidence and none of the following discoveries provided contextual findings in this direction (Galán 1993, 16-8). Two recent discoveries confirm this possibility but also suggest the existence of diverse situations. In Cortijo de la Reina, 50 m away from the Guadalquivir River, two stelae were found buried in probable primary position, one covering three urns of Late Bronze Age-Early Orientalizing typology with rests of cremation. In the same region there are also oral accounts that refer the existence of ashes and bones associated to the stela of Cerro Muriano 2 (Murillo et alii 2005, 17-9, Fig. 2). In Almadén de la Plata two stelae were found together on an artificial mound made of white quartz stones. In this case the stelae were not related to any stratigraphy and the mound has not been excavated, but this spatial relation is believed to be significant (García Sanjuán et al. 2006). Other features equally relevant have to be considered as part of this interplay as, for example, rivers, water springs or rock outcrops, as in the mentioned case of Peña Tú. The published data in hand and the information recorded by myself exploring some of these sites reveal that varied Early and Middle Bronze Age stelae and statue-menhirs were documented close to natural fountains (e.g. Tremedal, Moimenta da Beira, Ervidel 1), permanent or seasonal rivers (e.g. Paredes de Abajo, Chaves, Quinta de Vila Maior, Longroiva, Hernán Pérez, Abela, Tapada da Moita, Monte de Abaixo, Santa Vitória), even in the cases situated in mountain landscapes, as Collado de Sejos or Soalar. This relationship with seasonal or permanent rivers is also very frequent in the case of Late Bronze Age stelae (Celestino 2001, 76) as, to note mentioned cases, the stelae of Hernán Pérez, Almadén de la Plata 1 and 2 or Cortijo de la Reina 1 and 2.

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4. INDEXICAL RELATIONS & RESEARCH Considering that the materialization of practices is a meaningful process, Peirce’s theory of meaning provides a suitable framework to explore these meaningful processes – to acknowledge the meaningful interrelation between practices and the material – in the Past and the Present. The concept of indexicality inspired by Peirce supplies us with a suitable working tool to explore stelae and statue-menhirs as links within a wider network of materialized practices, transcending time and space. In the present, the archaeological record suggested by stelae and statue-menhirs has an active role in the generation of narratives about them. In our present situation research aimed to interpret the processes of the past related to stelae and statue-menhirs incipiently seeks normative trends through the concept of indexicality. Nevertheless, indexical relations also direct our attention towards several exceptional cases or situations that have an interpretive potential to be explored. If explored in depth, these indexical relations might confirm the exceptionality of the practices involved in their making in the past, promoting their interpretation as heterodox practices aimed to re-structure social relations. On the other hand, the outcome of investigating indexical relations further could open up a rather new and rich matrix of data through which we could explore in depth the dynamic relationships between the material and the social during the Bronze Age in these areas, in short, the active role of stelae and statue-menhirs within the social relations of the collectivities related to them. Exploring indexicality would contribute to acknowledge the dynamism of the material and to approach its active interplay with people through social practices in the past and in the present. To assume this task it is necessary to rethink our research strategies regarding stelae and statue-menhirs considering that, regardless of the concrete situation in which the stela or statue-menhir has been found (reused, stratified or not, isolated in the landscape, etc.) it is necessary to undertake detailed studies of those places. This would mean a botton-up approach; as Fredrik Fahlander recently noted regarding research on burial places of the Late Mesolithic in South Sweden: “Such microarchaeological studies focus on social practice involved in the disposal of the dead as a mediating level between the local and particular on one hand and the normative and general on the other.” (Fahlander 2008, 29).

In this sense, the study of these places at a micro – and mesoscale is a necessary and preliminary step to dynamize our actual knowledge about these stelae and statue-menhirs, as suggested by the recent case study published by a team of the University of Seville (García Sanjuan et al. 2006). The detailed study of the topography or the development of systematic field surveys in these places, with the versatility and potential that they can offer today, would greatly enrich our knowledge about countless aspects related to stelae and statuemenhirs. The entanglement of materials and practices, time and space, is best documented at the micro-scale. In this sense, excavations have a great potential but whenever they are set out as “open area excavations” that also provide time depth and while they are developed within interdisciplinary teams. The same could be said about the stones, their extraction or reusage, the engravings and modifications performed in stelae and statue-menhirs. Their dynamic nature could be fully acknowledged through detailed and systematic analyses.

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It normally seems that because of their iconographic nature stelae and statue-menhirs provide substantial information to interpret them in social terms. Nevertheless, the concerns of today require that we open our mind, let icons, stones and places suggest novel relations, analyze them from different perspectives and dynamize our narratives about them. BIBLIOGRAPHY Almagro Basch, M. (1966). Las Estelas Decoradas del Suroeste Peninsular. Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Almagro Basch, M. (1972). Los ídolos y la estela decorada de Hernán Pérez (Cáceres) y el ídolo estela de Tabuyo del Monte (León). Trabajos de Prehistoria, 29: 83-124. Almagro-Gorbea, M. (1977). El Bronce Final y el período Orientalizante en Extremadura. Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Almagro Gorbea, M. J. & F. Hernández (1979). La necrópolis de Hernán Pérez (Cáceres), in Estudios Dedicados a Carlos Callejo Serrano. Cáceres, Diputación de Cáceres: 53-77. Arias Cabal, P. & C. Perez Suarez (1990). El fenómeno megalítico en la Asturias Oriental. Gallaecia, 12: 91-110. Aubet, M. E. (1997). A propósito de una vieja estela. Saguntum (PLAV), 30: 63-72. Balbín Behrmann, R. (1989). El arte megalítico y esquemático del Cantábrico, in Cien años después de Sautuola, M. R. G. Morales (ed..). Santander, Diputación Regional de Cantabria: 15-96. Barceló, J. A. (1989). Las estelas decoradas del suroeste de la Península Ibérica, in Tartessos. Arqueología Protohistórica del Bajo Guadalquivir, M. E. Aubet (ed.). Barcelona, Ediciones Ausa: 189-208. Barrero, B., I. Gaztelu, A. Martínez, G. Mercader, L. Millán, M. Tamayo & I. Txintxurreta, I. (2005). Catálogo de monumentos megalíticos en Navarra. Cuadernos de Arqueología de la Universidad de Navarra, 13: 11-86. Bauer, A. A. (2002). Is what you see all you get? Recognizing meaning in archaeology. Journal of Social Archaeology, 2(1): 37-52. Blas Cortina, M. A. (2003). Estelas con armas: arte rupestre y paleometalurgia en el norte de la Península Ibérica, in El Arte Prehistórico desde los Inicios del Siglo XXI: Primer Symposium Internacional de Arte Prehistórico de Ribadesella, R. Balbín Behrmann & P. Bueno Ramírez (eds.). Ribadesella: Asociación Cultural Amigos de Ribadesella: 391-416. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Bueno Ramírez, P. (1992). Les plaques décorées alentéjaines: approche de leur étude et analyse. L´Anthropologie, 96(2-3): 573-604. Bueno Ramírez, P. (1995). Megalitismo, estatuas y estelas en España, in Statue-stele e massi incisi nell’Europa dell’Età del Rame, S. Casini, R. C. De Marinis & A. Pedrotti Bergamo. (eds.). Bergamo: Civico Museo Archeologico di Bergamo (Lombardia): 77-129. Bueno Ramírez, P. & R. Balbín Behrmann (1997). Arte Megalítico en sepulcros de falsa cúpula. A propósito del monumento de Granja de Toniñuelo (Badajoz). Brigantium, 10: 91-121. Bueno Ramírez, P., R. Balbín Behrmann & R. Barroso Bermejo (2005a). La estela armada de Soalar. Valle de Baztán (Navarra). Trabajos de Arqueología Navarra, 18: 5-39. Bueno Ramírez, P., R. Balbín Behrmann & R. Barroso Bermejo (2005b). Hiérarchisation et métallurgie: statues armées dans la Péninsule Ibérique. L’ Anthropologie, 109: 577-640. Bueno Ramírez, P. & M. Fernández Miranda (1980). El Peñatu de Vidiago (Llanes, Asturias), in Altamira Symposium: 451-67. Bueno Ramírez, P., F. Piñón Varela, F. & L. Prados Torreira (1985). Excavaciones en el Collado de Sejos (Valle de Polaciones, Santander). Campaña de 1982. Noticiario Arqueológico Hispánico, 22: 27-58.

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Cabodevilla, I. & M. I. Zabalza (2006). Catálogo Megalítico del Valle de Baztán. Pamplona, Gobierno de Navarra. Carrasco Martín, M. J. (2000). El sepulcro megalítico de la Granja de Toniñuelo. Jerez de los Caballeros (Badajoz), in El Megalitismo en Extremadura (Homenaje a Elías Diéguez Luengo), J. Jiménez Ávila & J. J. Enríquez Navascués (eds.) (Extremadura Arqueológica, 8). Mérida, Junta de Extremadura: 291-324. Celestino Pérez, S. (2001). Estelas de guerrero y estelas diademadas. La precolonización y formación del mundo tartésico. Barcelona, Bellaterra. Chaves, F. & M. L. De la Bandera (1982). Estela decorada de Montemolín (Marchena, Sevilla). Archivo Español de Arqueología, 55: 137-47. Coelho, L. (1975). Nueva estela insculturada proveniente del Baixo Alentejo (Ervidel, Portugal). Trabajos de Prehistoria, 32: 195-7. Cruz, D. J. (2001). O Alto Paiva: Megalitismo, Diversidade Tumular e Práticas Rituais Durante a Pré-história Recente. Coimbra, Universidade de Coimbra, 2 Vols. De Álvaro, E., L. J. Municio & F. Piñón (1988). Informe sobre el yacimiento de “Los Castillos” (Las Herencias, Toledo): un asentamiento calcolítico en la Submeseta Norte, in Actas del I Congreso de Historia de Castilla-La Mancha. Toledo: 181-92. Díaz Casado, Y. (1993). El Arte Rupestre Esquemático en Cantabria: una revisión crítica. Santander, Universidad de Cantabria. Díaz-Guardamino, M., (2006). Materialidad y acción social: el caso de las estelas decoradas y estatuas-menhir durante la Prehistoria peninsular, in Actas do VIII Congresso Internacional de Estelas Funerarias. Lisboa, Museu Nacional de Arqueología: 15-33. Diéguez Luengo, E. (1964). Nuevas aportaciones al problema de las estelas extremeñas. Zephyrus, 15: 125-30. Díez-Castillo, A. (1996/1997). Utilización de los Recursos en la Marina y Montaña Cantábricas: una Prehistoria Ecológica de los Valles del Deva y Nansa. Gernika, Asociación Cultural de Arqueología AGIRI. Díez-Castillo, A. & J. Ruiz Cobo (1993). Cromlechs y círculos de piedras: los datos en el sector central de la Cornisa Cantábrica, in Actas del XXII Congreso Nacional de Arqueología, Vigo, 1993. Zaragoza: 47-53. Enríquez Navascués, J. J. (2006). Arqueología Rural y Estelas del SO (desde la Tierra, para la Tierra y por la Tierra). Trabajos de Arqueología Navarra, 14: 151-75. Fahlander, F. (2008). A Piece of the Mesolithic. Horizontal Stratigraphy and Bodily Manipulations at Skateholm, in The Materiality of the Death: Bodies, Burials, Beliefs, F. Fahlander & T. Oestigaard (eds.). Oxford, Archaeopress, 29-45. Fernández Miranda, M. (1986). La estela de las Herencias (Toledo), in Estudios en Homenaje al Doctor Antonio Beltrán Martínez. Zaragoza: 463-75. Galán Domingo, E. (1993). Estelas, paisaje y territorio en el bronce final del suroeste de la Península Ibérica. Madrid, Universidad Complutense de Madrid. García Sanjuán, L., D. W. Wheatley, P. Fábrega Álvarez, M. J. Hernández Arnero & A. Polvorinos del Río (2006). Las estelas de guerrero de Almadén de la Plata (Sevilla). Morfología, Tecnología y Contexto. Trabajos de Prehistoria, 63 (2): 135-52. Gil Pulido, J. L., M. L. Menéndez Robles, F. Reyes Tellez & J. L. Reyes Tellez (1988). Excavaciones en el yacimiento del Bronce Medio del Cerro del Obispo de Bayuela (Toledo), in I Congreso de Historia de Castilla-La Mancha, Tomo III: Pueblos y culturas prehistóricas y protohistóricas (2): 93-100. Gomes, M. V. (1994). A Necrópole De Alfarrobeira (S. Bartolomeu de Messines) E A Idade Do Bronze No Concelho De Silves. Silves, Cámara Municipal de Silves. Gomes, M. V. & J. P. Monteiro (1977). Las estelas decoradas do Pomar (Beja-Portugal). Estudio comparado. Trabajos de Prehistoria, 34: 165-212.

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Gomes, M. V. & C. T. Silva (1987). Levantamento Arqueológico do Algarve. Concelho de Vila do Bispo, Delegaçao Regional do Sul. Secretaria de Estado da Cultura. Gosden, C. (1994). Social Being and Time. Oxford, Blackwell Publishers. Gutiérrez Pulido, D. (2002). La estela antropomorfa de Castillo de Bayuela. Aguasal, 26: 14-7. Harrison, R. J. (2004). Symbols and Warriors. Images of the European Bronze Age. Bristol, Western Academics & Specialist Press Ltd. Jorge, S. O., (1999a). Stelen und Menhirstatuen der Bronzezeit auf der Iberischen Halbinsel: Diskurse der Macht, in Götter und Helden der Bronzezeit. Europa im zeitalter des Odysseus. Ostfildern, Hatje Cantz Verlag: 114-22. Jorge, S. O. (1999b). Cabeço da Mina (Vila Flor, Portugal). Ein Kupferzeitliches Heiligtum mit “Stelen”, in Götter und Helden der Bronzezeit. Europa im Zeitalter des Odysseus. Ostfildern, Hatje Cantz Verlag: 137-41. Jorge, V. O. & C. A. F. Almeida (1980). A estátua-menir fálica de Chaves. Trabalhos do Grupo de Estudos Arqueológicos do Porto, 6: 1-24. Jorge, V. O. & S. O. Jorge (1993). Statues-menhirs et stèles du nord du Portugal, in Les Representations Humaines du Néolithique à L´Age du Fer. Actes du 115e congrès national des sociétés savantes. Avignon, 1990, J. Briard & A. Duval (eds.). París, Éd. du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques: 29-44. Joyce, R. A. (2007). Figures, Meaning, and Meaning-making in Early Mesoamerica, in Material Beginnings: A Global Prehistory of Figurative Representation, C. Renfrew & I. Morley (eds.). Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research: 107-16. Joyce, R. A. & J. Lopiparo (2005). PostScript: Doing Agency in Archeology. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 12(4): 365-74. Keane, W. (2003). Semiotics and the social analysis of material things. Language and Communication, 23: 409-25. Keane, W. (2005). The hazards of new clothes: what signs make possible, in The Art of Clothing. A Pacific Experience, S. Küchler & G. Were (eds.). London, University College London Press: 1-16. Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh. The Embodied Mind and its Challenges to Western Thought. New York, Basic Books. Leisner, G. (1935). La estela-menhir de la Granja de Toniñuelo. Investigación y Progreso, 5: 129-34. Lobão, J. C., A. C. Marques, D. Neves (2006). Património Arqueológico do concelho de Celorico da Beira: subsídios para o seu inventário e estudo. Praça Velha. Revista Cultural, 19 (1): 15-37. Menéndez, J. F. (1931). La necrópolis dolménica de la Sierra Plana de Vidiago. Sociedad Española de Antropología Etnografía y Prehistoria. Actas y Memorias, 10 (1-2): 163-90. Mergelina, C. (1944). Tugia. Reseña de unos trabajos. Boletín del Seminario de Arte y Arqueología, 10: 27-30. Merleau-Ponty, M. (2003). Phenomenology of Perception. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Originally published in French in 1945). Moreno Arrastio, F. J. (1990). Notas al contexto de Arroyo Manzanas (Las Herencias, Toledo), in Actas del Primer Congreso de Arqueología de la Provincia de Toledo. Toledo, Diputación de Toledo: 275-308. Moreno Arrastio, F. J. (1995). La estela de Arroyo Manzanas (Las Herencias II, Toledo). Gerión, 13: 275-94. Murillo Redondo, J. F., J. A. Morena López & D. Ruiz Lara (2005). Nuevas estelas de guerrero procedentes de las provincias de Córdoba y de Ciudad Real. Romula, 4: 7-46. Olshewsky, T. M. (1995). The Construction of a Peircean hermeneutics, in Peirce´s Doctrine of Signs. Theory, Applications, and Connections, V. M. Colapietro & T. M. Olshewsky (eds.). Berlin & New York, Mouton de Gruyter: 126-66.

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Ondarra, F. (1976a). Nuevos monumentos megalíticos en Baztán y zonas colindantes y III. Príncipe de Viana, 142-143: 21-54. Ondarra, F. (1976b). Nuevos monumentos megalíticos en Navarra. Príncipe de Viana, 144-145: 329-63. Pacheco Jiménez, C. & A. Deza Agüero (2003). Castillo de Bayuela (Toledo). Una nueva estela decorada. Revista de Arqueología, 262: 48-53. Paço, A., F. Nunes Ribeiro, F. & G. L. Franco (1965). Inscriçao ibérica da Corte do Freixo (Almodóvar). Zephyrus, 16: 99-107. Pape, H. (1998). Peirce and his followers, in Semiotik. Ein Handbuch zu den zeichentheoretischen Grundlagen von Natur und Kultur – Semiotics. A Handbook on the Sign-Theoretic Foundations of Nature and Culture, R. Posner, K. Robering & T. A. Sebeok (eds.). Berlin & New York, Walter der Gruyter: 2016-40. Peirce, C. S. (1998). The essential Peirce: selected philosophical writings. Volume 2 (18931913). Bloomington, Indiana University Press. Pérez Suarez, C. & P. Arias Cabal (1979). Túmulos y yacimientos al aire libre de la Sierra Plana de la Borbolla (Llanes, Asturias). Boletín del Instituto de Estudios Asturianos, 98: 695-715. Portela Hernando, D. & J. C. Jiménez Rodrigo (1996). Una nueva estela de guerrero. La estatuamenhir-estela de guerrero de Talavera de la Reina. Revista de Arqueología, 188: 36-43. Preucel, R. W. (2006). Archaeological Semiotics. Oxford, Blackwell Publishing. Preucel, R. W. & A. A. Bauer (2001). Archaeological Pragmatics. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 34(2): 85-96. Reckwitz, A. (2002). The Status of the “Material” in Theories of Culture: From “Social Structure” to “Artefacts”. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 32(2): 195-217. Roso de Luna, M. (1898). Lápida sepulcral de Solana de Cabañas, en el partido de Logrosán (Cáceres). Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 32-33: 179-82. Ruiz-Gálvez, M. & E. Galán, (1991). Las estelas del Suroeste como hitos de vías ganaderas y rutas comerciales. Trabajos de Prehistoria, 48: 257-73. Silva, M. D. O. (2000). Estátua-menir de A-de-Moura (Santana de Azinha, Guarda). Estudos Pré-Históricos, 8: 229-36. Sousa, O. C. F. (1996). Estatuária Antropomórfica Pré e Protohistórica do Norte de Portugal. Porto, Universidade do Porto. Sousa, O. C. F. (1997). A estação arqueológica do Cabeço da Mina, Vila Flor. Noticia Preliminar. Estudos Transmontanos e Durienses, 7: 186-97. Taboada Cid, M. (1988/1989). Estela funeraria antropomorfa do Muiño de San Pedro (Verín). Boletín Auriense, 18-19: 79-93. Teira Mayolini, L. C. & R. Ontañón Peredo (2000). Revisión de los grabados rupestres del Collado de Sejos (Polaciones), in Actuaciones arqueológicas en Cantabria 1984-1999, R. Ontañón Peredo (ed.). Santander, Gobierno de Cantabria, Consejería de Cultura: 285-7. Van der Sanden, W. & T. Capelle (2001). Mosens Guder. Antropomorfe traefigurer fra Nordog Nordvesteuropas fortid/ Immortal Images. Ancient anthropomorphic wood carvings from northern and northwest Europe. Silkeborg: Silkeborg Museum. Vasconcelos, J, L. (1906). Estudos sobre a época do Bronze em Portugal. O Arqueologo Português, 11: 179-89. Vasconcelos, J. L. (1908). Estudos sobre a época do Bronze em Portugal. O Arqueologo Português, 13: 300-13. Vasconcelos, J. L. (1910). Esculpturas prehistoricas do Museu Ethnologico Portugués. O Archeologo Português, 15: 31-9. Vazquez Seijas, M. (1936). Una curiosa Placa-ídolo en piedra granítica. Boletín de la Academia Gallega, 22 (263): 281-3. Vilaça, R. (1995). Aspectos do Povoamento da Beira Interior (Centro e Sul) nos Finais da Idade do Bronze. Lisboa, IPPAR.

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Fig. 1 - Statue-menhirs and stelae documented in the area around the Talavera ford (“Vado”), in the province of Toledo, middle Tajo valley (Schematic drawings made by the author after the original drawings and photos of Fernández Miranda 1986, Moreno Arrastio 1995, Portela & Jiménez 1996, Gutiérrez 2002 and Pacheco & Deza 2003. Topographic map generated through the Carta Militar Digital de España 2000).

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