Meanings
- archaeologyAn archaeological site and the prehistoric centre of an early to middle Bronze Age culture, located near present-day Antas, in the province of Almería, Spain.
From its centre the El Argar culture spread eastwards towards Granada and northwards to Murcia and Valencia, though losing some traits on the way.
1975, I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, E. Sollberger, editors, The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume II, Part 2: History of the Middle East and the Aegean Region c. 1380-1000 BC, 3rd edition, Cambridge University Press, page 7642 more examples
The site of El Argar sat on a plateau 1000 x 330 ft (300x90 m) on the Rio Antas in southeastern Spain, 7 mi (12 km) from the sea.[…]El Argar was the largest and most important of some forty other fortified villages that were within a 50 mi (75 km) length along the coast.
1998, Harry Mountain, The Celtic Encyclopedia, Volume 1, Universal Publishers, page 44The palynological interpretations of the overexploitation and forest degradation of El Argar have been taken from archaeological and bioarchaeological research in the 1980s and 1990s, which in turn have served as the basis for a large number of anthracological studies in the early 20th^([sic]) century.
2021, Mireia Celma Martínez, “Long-term effects of forest exploitation in the southeastern Iberian Peninsula: An anthracological synthesis for El Argar (2200-1550 cal BC)”, in Marian Berihuete-Azorín, María Martín Seijo, Oriol López-Bultó, Raquel Piqué, editors, The Missing Woodland Resources, Barkhuis Publishing, page 85 - broadlyArgaric culture, the Bronze Age culture of which said archaeological site is the type site; the people of the Argaric culture.
2011, Gavin Menzies, The Lost Empire of Atlantis, Hachette (Swordfish), unnumbered page, Then, in turn, a mysterious new people, the El Argar, quite suddenly took over from the Millares.
2 more examples
El Argar is remarkable not only because of the rapid establishment of a new model of habitat and burial that broke with the Copper Age tradition, but also because of a combination of easily recognizable social practices and material features that were present for almost seven hundred years.
2013, Vincente Lull, Rafael Micó, Cristina Rihuete Herrada, Roberto Risch, “Chapter 33: Bronze Age Iberia”, in Harry Fokkens, Anthony Harding, editors, The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age, Oxford University Press, page 603Although, a profound change has also been observed at the beginning of the El Argar Early Bronze Age in south-eastern Spain, around 2200 BCE, which saw the introduction of narrow concave/convex grinding tools operated with wooden grinders, no trough-shaped grinding slabs are known from El Argar sites (Delgado-Raack & Risch, 2015).
2021, Roberto Risch, Harald Meller, Selina Delgado-Raack, Torsten Schunke, “6: The Bornhöck Burial Mound and the Political Economy of an Únĕtice Ruler”, in Stefanos Gimatzidis, Reinhard Jung, editors, The Critique of Archaeological Economy, Springer Nature, page 105
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
- SpanishEl Argar
- EnglishEl Argar
Borrowing from Spanish El Argar.
More words from Spanish
Full word history & related roots →Translations
French El Agrar
- El Agrararchaeological site
Cite this entry
El Argar. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/El%20Argar
“El Argar.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/El%20Argar. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “El Argar,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/El%20Argar.
Source: El Argar on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.