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ARTICLE

Copyright 2005 SAGE Publications (www.sagepublications.com)

ISSN 1469-6053 Vol 5(2): 276299 DOI: 10.1177/1469605305053370

Towards a definition of politico-ideological

practices in the prehistory of Minorca (the
Balearic islands)
The wooden carvings from Mussol Cave
RAFAEL MIC PREZ
Departament de Prehistria, Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona, Spain

ABSTRACT
Archaeological research into political relations and ideology among
prehistoric societies has often been seen as unreliable or intrinsically
speculative. Without denying the difficulties of this task, great
advances can nevertheless be made when societies produced
specialized artefacts in order to enhance social communication.
Starting from historical materialism, the goal of this article is to show
how Minorcan communities from the late second millennium BC
constructed social differences in the context of a changing non-classist
society. The research is based upon a unique set of wooden carvings
recently found inside the Mussol Cave (Minorca, Balearic Islands,
Spain). The analysis begins with a careful description of these objects
and the place where they were used, before categorizing them as a
form of specialized communicative artefacts. As such, they played a
crucial role in the context of practices aimed at enabling certain
people to acquire a new social condition.

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KEY WORDS
communicative artefacts Minorcan prehistory Mussol Cave
political and ideological practices social production wooden
carvings

SOCIAL PRODUCTION, COMMUNICATION AND

ARCHAEOLOGY
Gaining access to the sphere of ideology or thought in prehistoric societies
is normally considered an almost unachievable archaeological objective.
Faced with the lack of textual evidence, attempts to reconstruct the spiritual life of prehistoric societies have traditionally been seen as unreliable
forays into the mists of speculation. Such a lack of confidence is deeply
rooted in the field of cultural archaeology, although paradoxically, its proponents define their object of study human cultures as ideal realities. This
paradox gives the impression that traditional archaeology was openly
confessing its inability to carry out its own research programme properly.
In spite of the fact that the sceptical Old Archaeology still represents
most of the professional archaeology (at least in many countries other than
the UK and USA), the panorama has changed to a certain extent over the
last two decades.This is due to the development of a range of archaeological
approaches labelled as post-modern, post-processual, symbolicstructuralist (Hodder, 1982; Shanks and Tilley, 1987) and, more recently,
the so-called cognitive archaeology (Mithen, 1996; Renfrew and Zubrow,
1994). To discuss in some detail the multiple approaches and achievements
related to these developments is far beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless, I would like to underline a few critical remarks that may be relevant
here.

In general, these approaches stress the role of the ideological,

symbolic or political dimensions when interpreting the cases under
study. Volitive or ideational factors like agency, identity, power,
negotiation or competition assume a key role. In contrast, little
effort is devoted to showing how the things were produced and used
or how this affects the sources and distribution of power. Material
production and producers remain passive or absent.
There is a strong reliance on the approaches and results stemming
mainly from French and German philosophy, anthropology and
sociology, particularly in reference to the post-processual
archaeology. New interpretations have been imported ready-to-use

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into English-speaking archaeology, usually replacing previous ones

also coming from the same disciplines. In short, I am not sure that,
for example, replacing Linton, Fried and Service by Meillassoux,
Turner and Foucault, at the data inference and interpretation stages,
represents a radical rupture in archaeological practice. In this sense,
why is a certain object found in a tomb now said to legitimize
ideologically a relationship of domination (an object some years ago
categorized as a prestige goods item from a processual perspective)
when the power relationship itself remains unproven? In both cases,
archaeology shows a tendency to adopt too quickly premises and
results produced by other disciplines. I am convinced that
archaeology has yet to develop its full potential for generating
knowledge by its own efforts.
Archaeology interrogates material remains in order to discover how social
relations were organized in the past. A great many of the archaeological
debates over recent decades have focused on defining the nature of the
theoretical and methodological tools used in this inquiry. Some approaches
state that these tools are mirrors that reflect our own images into a
constructed past. Thus, archaeology is not involved in an inquiry proper,
but rather in an endless monologue whose topics change according to the
interests of different people at different times and places. By contrast, others
argue that we have, or at least we aim to have, true analytical tools that can
lead us to discover and explain new, forgotten past realities. Some events
involving people really happened, independently of our perceptions about
them. The question is therefore whether we have mirrors or telescopes.
I feel more comfortable with the second position, although I include
myself in the group of those who still aim at having good analytical tools.
My starting point is a materialistic, but also a realistic one. This implies
calling into question the classic divergence between matter and mind, infrastructure and superstructure, body and soul. Let me begin with an example.
We may discuss whether my own subjective thoughts and the social
relationship established with my friends are strictly material facts explained
only by reference to purely physical/mechanical processes (neuronal
linkages and muscles in action, energetic inputs and outputs, environmental
conditions, etc.) or, alternatively, if they belong to the autonomous realms
of subjective choice and volition. Nevertheless, it is hard to deny that they
are real; they really do happen because they are produced.
Production is a basic human fact. Societies produce material goods (foodstuffs, artefacts), men and women, and the entire range of relationships
between individuals and groups (economic, political). Production is always
a social, collective fact. It defines, perhaps better than any other thing, what
is specifically human. I follow Marx (1977[1857]) in separating social
production into three distinct dialectically related moments: the production itself, the distribution/change and the consumption/use. Production and

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consumption constitute a unit, since products are made to be consumed;

moreover, all productive processes require the consumption of raw
materials, the means of labour and labour force that, in turn, were previously produced. Distribution stands between production and consumption,
and its characteristics differ according to historical circumstances, from reciprocity to tribute.
Different groups occupy different places at each moment of the social
production cycle. These differences may involve economic exploitation
leading to property and class formation if there is a permanent imbalance
between the labour contribution of a group at the moment of production
and what it receives at consumption (Castro et al., 1998a,b). Nevertheless,
exploitation is not an inherent trait of our species, so most human communities in the past probably lived without this kind of inequality. In any
case, societies contain different material contexts where specific relational
experiences take place. These concrete relational experiences build up
consciences (ideas). Therefore ideas turn into real, produced elements that
take part, among many other societal elements, in the (re)production of
social life. Life always precedes the act of thinking about it (Lull, 2005).
The dialectical process of production involves communication between
people, and that practice may be equally understood as a result of a process
of production. We know that archaeology cannot gain access to the main
code of signification used by prehistoric societies: the spoken language. This
makes it difficult to find out a great deal about the network of meanings
shared by social groups in their communicative practices. Nevertheless, I
think we can make great advances in our knowledge of social communication, particularly when certain groups have produced specialized artefacts
to facilitate it. Archaeological research into this type of object, often
labelled under the categories of art, writing or counting systems, ornaments or ritual objects (Whitehouse, 1996), can provide information about
how the creation and transmission of certain knowledge in a specific society
was organized. This, in turn, allows for an insight into how social life was
produced as a whole. Archaeological research should focus on the following issues:
1 The labour invested in the production of these specialized artefacts
(signs or symbols considered as products used as means of
communication) and, also, in the arrangement of the spaces where
they were used.
2 The complexity and costs of transmitting and learning syntactic and
semantic codes.
3 The kind of technical or politico-ideological meanings being
transmitted.
4 The existence, or absence, of differences in access to and application
of this knowledge by different social groups.

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Archaeology and communicative artefacts

Archaeological knowledge is based on research into the material remains of
the past. In some of those material vestiges we are able to recognize the
direct action of human labour and to identify a social function or use value.
Most of these products are known as artefacts.Within this general category,
there is the possibility of making further subdivisions if we concentrate on
the specific uses of these objects in the production of social life. Those artefacts used directly in other productive processes are referred to as means
of labour or tools. Their morphology, their physical properties and the
marks of their use and wear observable on their surfaces provide the surest
means for identifying them within the archaeological record (Risch, 2002).
However, there are artefacts that are not produced for mechanical use on
other materials, but rather are designed exclusively for human communication; that is, to be perceived and to signify (to refer to other entities, imaginary or not). These communicative artefacts, from images to linguistic
codes, are specialized for the purpose of covering the communicative
demands of social relations, whether productive (labour processes-related)
or not. As such they constitute a class of signs, since they fulfil the basic
communicative characteristic of representing something other than themselves. They reinforce or amplify the communicative capacity of spoken and
gestural language, which functions basically using a series of human organs.
As such, they can be qualified as means of production in human communication and learning. Obviously, as with any form of language, they require
the establishment of grammars and codes of signification, generated in and
by specific and habitual practices in social relations.
It is important to underline that this article will focus only on those artefacts specialized in communication, and will leave to one side many other
aspects of the vast and complex world of communication the field of study
of semiotics. It is well known that human groups are capable of communication by means of systems of symbols, that is to say, through signs established in an arbitrary manner, as the classical Saussurean definition states.
Natural elements such as a high mountain, the sun or the moon, as well as
a range of artefacts, from knives to ceramic vessels, can symbolize concepts
during their everyday use, which could differ from society to society. Nevertheless, in these cases it is clear that their real reason for existing does not
depend, in the first place, on human communicative needs. Thus the sun is
the result of a cosmogenic history previous to its human conceptualization,
while a specific cooking pot was modelled above all for cooking, although
in both cases they can become symbols within the communicative histories
of a social group without abandoning, in the case of the artefacts, their
primary and initial function.
Only under certain circumstances will contextual data allow us to
identify some of these objects as specialized for communication. Let us take
the example of an Acheulian stone axe displayed at an archaeological

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museum. Its specific location, in a singular building, inside a clean glass case,
illuminated by indirect light and accompanied by present-day writing
records, leads us to conclude that this former cutting tool is used here and
now as a communicative artefact. The same reasoning could be applied to
some relics: parts of the body, pieces of cloth or other daily objects touched
or used by Catholic saints and deserving a special and significant place
inside cathedrals and churches. Clearly, they have lost their original function
as fingers, clothes or tools and now they are placed in order to perform a
communicative function.
In short, we can define an object as specialized in communication according to its physical properties (by itself) and/or depending on its contextual
relationships with other material objects. However, as I said before, my aim
here is limited to examining those objects included in the first group: artefacts produced specifically and in a specialized fashion for a communicative
function. With regard to the properties of communicative artefacts, I have
suggested that these amplify or enhance the expressive capacities of the
human body in a similar way to that by which a knife increases the cutting
power of our teeth and nails, or a hammer the hitting power of our fists.
Human communication does not always require such specialized products,
but when a society uses them, the question why must be asked, taking into
account three of their fundamental properties:
1 Durability/Perdurability. The very presence of these artefacts allows
the message to be received in the absence of an emitter; that is to say,
they make the act of communication permanent.
2 They increase the societys mnemo-technical (mnemonical)
resources, by favouring the capacity for evocation and, in certain
cases, the storage of information at a scale enormously superior to
that of the human memory (for example, in writing).
3 They increase informative precision through concretizing, fixing,
albeit momentarily, the production chain of significations. In this way
they contribute to reducing (if not eliminating) the margin of error,
ambiguity and misunderstandings within a given social context.
My purpose in this article is to examine in greater depth some aspects of
the characterization of ideology and politics among Minorcan communities
from the end of the second and beginning of the first millennium BC, and
how this knowledge could be linked with the communitys social practice
as a whole. For this purpose, I will undertake an analysis of an exceptional
set of objects recently discovered in the Cova des Mussol site (Minorca, the
Balearic Islands). Methodologically, I will begin with a description of the
objects themselves, before taking into account their material attributes and
the context in which they were used in order to categorize them. Finally, I
will try to make a series of inferences about the organization of social
relations in which those objects were embedded.

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Figure 1

Location of Minorca and the Mussol Cave

THE MUSSOL WOODEN CARVINGS IN THE CONTEXT OF

BALEARIC PREHISTORIC SEQUENCE
The cave known as Cova des Mussol was discovered in June 1997 by the
speleologist Pedro Arnau and was excavated by a research team from the
Prehistory Department of the Autonomous University of Barcelona in
August and September of the same year. It consists of a karstic cavity in
the middle of a sheer cliff some 40 m high, facing a small cove on the northwestern coast of the island of Minorca (Figures 1 and 2).Access is extremely
difficult and dangerous. The cave has two entrances and some 200 m of
internal passages, divided among various chambers, of which only the first
had stratigraphic sedimentary deposits. In most of the chambers, archaeological remains were visible on the surface, corresponding to different
moments (always short stays) in the social use of the cave between c. 1600
and 200 BC. The archaeological research was carried out over 2 years, and
the principal results have appeared in various publications (Lull et al.,
1999a,b, 2001, 2002).
As I mentioned earlier, this article focuses on the research into a series
of objects found in Chamber 3c of the Cova des Mussol and dated to the

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Figure 2

Towards a definition of politico-ideological practices

View of the cliff in which the Mussol Cave is located

end of the second millennium BC. Before considering them in detail, a few
words about the Balearic prehistoric sequence are needed. The absolute
chronology of the Chamber 3c objects corresponds to the Final Naviform
period, according to a new dating based on nearly 600 radiocarbon dates
and a careful examination of available typologies and stratigraphic records
(Table 1) (Lull et al., 1999a, 2002, 2005; Mic Prez, 2005). The human
colonization of Majorca and Minorca started one thousand years earlier. It
seems to be increasingly clear that Majorca was the first island to be
inhabited, c. 25002300 BC (Alcover et al., 2001; Lull et al., 2004; Ramis et
al., 2002) and that Minorca followed it at the end of the third millennium
BC. So, in contrast to the larger islands such as Corsica, Sardinia or Sicily,
the Balearic Islands remained uninhabited during the Neolithic.
The first groups inhabited open-air settlements in the Majorcan valleys
and plains, consisting of huts built of perishable materials, as for example
at Son Ferrandell-Oleza (Waldren, 1998) and Ca Na Cotxera (Cantarellas,
1972). Occupation of rock shelters, such as Son Matge (Waldren, 1982) and
Coval Sim (Coll, 2001), is also well documented. Beaker pottery is a
common find in the living areas (Waldren, 1997, 1998). Later, at the transition between the third and the second millennium BC, the settlements
expanded into the islands of Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. From this time

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Table 1

Periodic and absolute chronology of Balearic prehistory

Period
Beaker (Majorca only)
Epicampaniforme/dolmenic
Early Naviform
Middle Naviform
Final Naviform
Proto-Talayotic
Talayotic
Post-Talayotic

Chronology (cal BC)

Traditional Ages

25002000
20001600
16001450/1400
1450/14001200
12001050
1050850
850550
550123

Late Chalc. / EBA

MBA
LBA
EIA
LIA

on, the ritual of collective burial was adopted, carried out either in small
dolmenic tombs, such as SAigua Dola (Guerrero et al., 2003) and Son
Baul (Rossell Bordoy, 1966), in rock-cut chambers (hypogea) with megalithic entrances, such as Biniai Nou (Plantalamor and Marqus, 2001), and
in caves such as Can Martorellet (Pons Homar, 1999) or Son Marroig
(Waldren, 1982). We know little about the social and economic organization
of the Balearic communities of the first centuries of the second millennium
BC. It seems that the groups would have been small, and with no socioeconomic hierarchies. They would have practised subsistence strategies with
an important element of mobility, and they used a relatively wide range of
objects, such as metallic needles, awls and knives, stone wrist guards and
bone awls and buttons.
Towards 1600 BC, an important break occurred in the trajectory of the
Majorcan and Minorcan societies, which was manifested at a number of
different levels. This new period, called Naviform, developed between
approximately 1600 and 1050 BC. The most outstanding trait of this period
was a new type of settlement, consisting of stone houses with a long apsidal
plan (in the form of a boat, hence naviform), of approximately 15 m. They
are found isolated or in more or less dense settlements, such as Alemany
(Enseat, 1971), Closos de Can Gai (Calvo and Salv, 1999) and Cala Blanca
(Juan and Plantalamor, 1997). Inside the naviform structures evidence has
been found for the maintenance and production of various manufactured
goods (hearths, low benches, stone polishing tools, bone, metal and stone tools
used in different production processes, ceramic vessels for consumption and
storage, remains of food and residues of metallurgical production). The
appearance of such materials is indicative of a new form of occupation of the
territory based on villages in the open air, which were spread over a large
part of the island territory, although with a predominance of settlements at
a relatively lower altitude and with easy access to potentially fertile soils.

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The funerary practices at the beginning of the Naviform are remarkably

varied in terms of the containers used: long and complex rock-cut tombs
(Veny, 1968), caves (Pons Homar, 1999) and the last burials in dolmens.
Parallel to this ritual diversity between 1600 and 1450/1400 BC, some deep
cavities such as Es Crritx and Es Mussol (Lull et al., 1999a) were the scene
of ideological practices of a diverse nature. They involved the cutting and
replacing of fragments of stalactites, rites of magical significance around
hearths, and the depositing of a range of materials, such as portions of meat
and pottery containers. These practices have been interpreted as ctonic
cults, which perhaps linked the subterranean world of the depths with the
fertility and life of the surface.
From c. 1450/1400 BC on, this type of practice appears to cease for a
time. Ritual activity in the caves became restricted to the parts closest to
the outside, and was related to their use as collective tombs. A wall
constructed using large blocks of stone closed off the natural entrances to
the caves and delimited a space, which was to house the bodies of many
generations. In some of these tombs, such as Chamber 1 of the Es Crritx
cave (Lull et al., 1999a), there is evidence of uninterrupted use over a period
of six centuries. The systematic analysis of the human remains (Rihuete,
2003) and of the artefacts found in the Es Crritx cave, together with the
less systematic data from other habitational and funerary sites, permits an
attempt at characterizing the main traits of Naviform society in its middle
and late phases. In this respect it is interesting to see the high level of
material uniformity compared to the previous phase, in terms of forms of
habitat, burial rituals and mobile artefacts. Nevertheless, this seems to have
occurred without the intervention of any process of political centralization.
The people were organized into basically autonomous units in terms of
subsistence production and food consumption. This can be inferred from
the notably homogeneous distribution of the tools needed to carry out basic
productive activities (stone, metal, bone and ceramic tools), the storage of
foodstuffs, as well as consumption, indicated in the form of remains of fauna
and of fires used for food preparation. The presence of grinding stones, and
the frequency of settlements in areas suitable for cultivation, has led to the
assumption that agriculture acquired a greater importance within the range
of subsistence strategies. However, the abundance of remains of domestic
fauna, and the first pathological, chemical and isotopic analyses of human
bones and teeth (Prez Prez et al., 1999; Rihuete, 2003; Van Strydonck et
al., 2002), allow us to suggest that livestock played an important role in the
economy of the island communities. In contrast, it is worth noting the
minimal or non-existent contribution of foodstuffs of marine origin, despite
the island context.
The groups who inhabited the naviform structures probably maintained
co-operative relations with regard to such activities as the construction of
buildings, the obtaining of raw materials (metal), and perhaps, the care of

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flocks and of fields. Doubtless, those relations implied the mobility of individuals and the transmission of knowledge, since, in the absence of a politically centralized context, only constant inter-group contacts would ensure
the transmission of social knowledge in such daily aspects as tool production, domestic architecture and funerary rituals. For the time being, there is
no evidence to suggest that any group enjoyed positions of privilege in the
consumption of socially produced goods.
The Final Naviform groups (c.12001050 BC) used Chamber 3c of the
Mussol Cave for a series of practices whose material remains have allowed
an understanding of the ideology and the social relations of the Minorcan
communities.

OUT FROM THE DEEP . CHAMBER 3C OF THE COVA DES

MUSSOL: DATA ON THE CONTAINER AND CONTENTS
Chamber 3c is a small space of approximately 5 2 m, entered via a very
narrow sloping passage (Chamber 3a), through an antechamber (Chamber
3b), and after removing a slab that was used intentionally to cover a natural
opening. Chamber 3c has a highly irregular floor, made up of a series of
fallen blocks forming a ramp in an east-west direction. It is only possible to
stand up at the western edge, while at the easternmost part the ceiling
height drops to 50 cm. On different parts of the floor, three small pottery
vases (probably used as oil lamps), and 17 objects or fragments of objects
made of wood (16 of wild olive wood Olea europaea and one of boxwood
Buxus balearica) were found (Piqu, 1999). All were found directly on the
rocky ground floor and apparently in situ or with minor displacements. All
showed signs of having been worked, although in most cases it was hard to
discern the original form of the objects. Nevertheless, two pieces had clearly
recognizable forms. Both were found complete and will be described in
detail.
The first was an anthropomorphic carving the size of a fist, which was
lying in the extreme western part of the chamber (Figure 3). It represents
the cranium, face and neck of an individual, probably male, judging by the
generally robust appearance of the facial and cranial features. Technologically, the piece shows a very careful finishing, with the final polishing having
almost completely eliminated the carving marks. The first thing of note was
the realism of the piece, despite the fact that it had suffered some damage
in the process of extraction. In profile, it is possible to appreciate the faithfulness achieved in the representation of, for example, the careful inflection,
which differentiates the nape of the neck and the prominent aquiline nose.
The production of this type of curvilinear form required a combination of

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Figure 3 Anthropomorphic carving at the moment of its discovery and

profile view (photographs by Peter Witte)

very precise carving and polishing work, taking into account the small size
of the piece. The neck, somewhat longer than normal, could have been the
part that allowed the object to be held, or permitted its insertion into some
type of support. The facial expression and the angle of the cranium relative
to the neck seem to indicate that the gaze was directed to a point higher up.
The opening of the mouth suggests that the individual is emitting sounds or
expressing surprise. Altogether the anatomical features give an impression
of great realism.
The second piece, representing a human head with zoomorphic features,
was deposited in the highest part of the chamber (Figures 4 and 5). The face
has an anthropomorphic form in which the forehead, strongly slanted eyes
and a lengthened, hooked nose can clearly be distinguished. The mouth,
marked by a relatively broad horizontal groove, gives the impression of
being half-open, while a strong chin, of surprising size, suggests a beard.
There are no ears. The head is crowned by two appendages in the form of
horns, springing out from a surface which is excessively flat for a human
cranium. The horns have a curious form, since in the better-conserved
appendage a wide base can be observed which narrows sharply to end in a
pointed tip. If we assume that the representation of these horns is not

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Figure 4 Zoo-anthropomorphic carving from the Mussol Cave (drawing by

Ramn lvarez Arza, Universitat de Barcelona)
schematic but realistic, the horns could correspond to those of a young deer
(Maria Saa, 1998, personal communication).
The head is joined to a relatively long stylized neck, which was probably
used to hold the object, or to fit it to some type of support. Altogether, the
figure gives an impression of solemnity, with the sharp and oblique ocular
features and the straight horizontal mouth producing a serious and
somewhat menacing expression. On the other hand, the clearly human
features of the face contrast with the lack of realism in the cranial arch,
modelled with excessively straight lines, and, above all, by the presence of
the two horns. In contrast to the previous carving, it seems clear that this
was not meant to represent a specific individual, but rather a being whose
nature I will attempt to define below.
The two Mussol carvings were dated by AMS. The results (with calibration ranges calculated using Calib 4.3, method A) were:

Zoo-anthropomorphic figure: Beta-110138: 3060 50 BP (13931295

BC 1 sigma).
Anthropomorphic figure: Beta-110137: 2930 50 BP (11921027 BC
1 sigma).

Given the uncertainties inherent in the nature of the samples (wild olive
wood), but also the fact that the objects were used together, I propose that

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the social practice in which both were

involved should be placed within the interval
c. 12001000 BC.

THE CARVINGS FROM THE COVA

DES MUSSOL AS COMMUNICATIVE
ARTEFACTS
The material and morphological characteristics of the two wooden carvings from the
Cova des Mussol offer only a limited margin
of doubt when classifying them as communicative artefacts. There is nothing to suggest
that they were used in labour processes for
the mechanical transformation of other
materials, while on the other hand, their most
important attributes suggest that they played
a strictly representational role. If above all
they were signs, it would be useful to establish what sort of signs they were.
Over time the study of signs has resulted
in the presentation of a range of different
classifications. Without wishing to go in detail
Figure 5 Zoointo the underlying criteria of each of these,
anthropomorphic carving
and much less to enter the debates surroundfrom the Mussol Cave
ing them, I will adopt the division proposed
(photograph by
by Peirce (1960: 512) between icon, index
Peter Witte)
and symbol. The differences between these
categories lie in the relationship between the
two dimensions or sources traditionally recognized in all signs: the signifier
or image, and the signified or reality represented. In this scheme, icons are
defined by the existence of a direct relationship of similarity between the
signifier and the reference (for example, an oil painting). Indices imply a
causal relation between the two (for example, smoke as an indicator of fire).
Finally, symbols are signs whose relationship to the referent is fixed by
society in an arbitrary way (for example, alphabetic writing with respect to
the objects or situations which it designates).
The realism expressed in the anthropomorphic carving of the Cova des
Mussol (see Figure 3) suggests an attempt at a likeness of a specific individual, represented with the faithfulness of a portrait. This would justify its
classification as an icon. Eco (1972: 222) has stressed that the relationship
of similarity which underlies the definition of an icon does not appear

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naturally. In fact, it presupposes the sharing of a series of perceptive codes

which select certain stimuli to achieve the same signification as the
referent denoted. As such, even in icons there is a conventional component
underlying them, which recalls the principal defining criterion of the
symbol. However, in the case of the anthropomorphic carving from the
Cova des Mussol, we could reasonably assume a continuity in the perceptive codes of the human figure between the prehistoric users and ourselves.
Thus, I maintain its classification as an icon, although the fact that it is a
representation limited to the head introduces a metonymical relation
(a synecdoche of a part for the whole) allowing the use of a part a head
as an indicator for the whole an individual.
On the other hand, the features expressed in the zoo-anthropomorphic
carving present a more complex situation. In a single sign there are both
human and animal attributes, which implies the physical linkage of two
synecdoches of the part for the whole: a face, which invokes a human being,
and a set of horns, which invokes a deer. This operation must be produced
from convention, and its consequence is the production of a symbol. Its
characteristics locate the resulting entity in the category of hybrid beings,
at the same level of complexity as other well-known composites from the
ancient Mediterranean world such as the sphinx, the minotaur and the
centaur, among others. These symbols make reference to non-existent
beings in the catalogue of living organisms, and as such, allude to imagined
realities lacking a direct correlation in sensory experience. Their manifestation as sign-objects (communicative artefacts) presupposes, complements
and reinforces a very elaborate abstract discourse, which must include
metaphysical statements.
As a complement to this research, we tried to identify the figure designated by the zoo-anthropomorphic figure within the iconographic array of
recent European prehistory and antiquity (Lull et al., 1999a: 10913). To
begin with, it was assumed that the two appendages which crown the
carving can be identified as deer horns and so our aim was to find representations of beings with human and deer attributes. The search soon
resulted in a significant number of cases, all with a later chronology than
that of the carving from the Cova des Mussol. Among the best known and
oldest, we should mention a seated figure, which appears on one of the sides
of the silver cauldron from Gundestrup in Denmark (Bergquist and Taylor,
1987), as well as a figure engraved on rock from Valcamonica in Italy (Anati,
1996: 162; Priuli, 1989: 29). However, perhaps the most famous is the stone
sculpture found below the choir of the cathedral of Ntre-Dame in Paris,
dating from the first century AD (Saragoza, 2003), given that this representation of a being with a human head and deer antlers is accompanied
by a name: Cernunnos, the Horned One or He Who Wears Horns.
Cernunnos is one of the divinities of the Celtic pantheon, and is linked to
concepts of fertility, provision and wealth (Bober, 1951; Bodson, 1990).

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It would be bold to affirm that the character represented in the Cova des
Mussol can be matched with this precise divinity, but it allows us to ask
whether this might be his predecessor from the Bronze Age. Whatever the
case, the existence of an analogous iconography in regions relatively close
to Minorca and with clear religious connotations, contributes at least to
reinforcing the hypothesis that the zoo-anthropomorphic carving had
meaning within the framework of a metaphysical discourse with mythological or even theological components.

SOCIAL DISCOURSE AND SOCIAL PRACTICES:

TOWARDS A SYNTAX OF THE CARVINGS AND THE
CONTEXT OF THE COVA DES MUSSOL
Having examined the communicative artefacts from Chamber 3c, the last
part of this article will characterize the discourse in which they were
involved, and suggest the social relations which they may have produced
and expressed. The two carvings have been defined as communicative artefacts, but what type of discourse did they communicate? Who acceded to
it, and in function of what social demand? In order to go beyond the nouns
(the communicative artefacts) to the sentences, which made up the
discourse, it is necessary to propose syntagmatic links between the material
elements, which took part in a social practice.
Let us return once more to the Cova des Mussol and the two wooden
carvings found in Chamber 3c. It is in this space that we should establish
the first sentence of the discourse. Apart from the two carvings, several
wooden fragments were recovered which might have formed part of objects
that are today unrecognizable. The inventory of artefacts is completed by
three small ceramic vases, which could have been used as oil lamps to
illuminate the natural space. Seven vases, very similar in shape and size to
those from Chamber 3c, were the only findings synchronic to the use of
Chamber 3c recovered at different points of the cave (scattered throughout the main Chamber 2). The scarcity of findings and, above all, the
complete absence from the whole cave of remains of food or domestic infrastructure excludes the possibility that this was a place used as a permanent
settlement. As such, the activities carried out must have been brief and,
presumably, represented one, or at most a few, episodes.
The classification of the main findings from Chamber 3c as communicative artefacts allows the classification, in turn, of the social activities
carried out there within the category of socio-political or politico-ideological practices (Castro et al., 1998b). Thus, Chamber 3c appears to have been
a space specializing in the communication of ideological content. Furthermore, it provides us with two extremely valuable pieces of data:

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1 The communicative activity carried out involved the use of a very

small number of individuals perhaps two or three at most taking
into account the size of the chamber.
2 There was a priority on secrecy: the restrictive character expressed in
the previous point is reinforced by the location of Chamber 3c, in
one of the most hidden corners of the cave.
The communicative activity carried out here appears to have been articulated around two focal points: the zoo-anthropomorphic carving, which
occupies a pre-eminent place and designates a mythical-metaphysical character, and the anthropomorphic carving, deposited at a lower level, which
represents a specific individual. The face of the zoo-anthropomorphic
character gives a hieratic appearance. It is placed in the highest part of the
cavity, far from the entrance. The flat finishing at the back indicates that the
carving was made for being contemplated only from the front. One might
say that it lived in the spot where it was placed, from where it presided over
the action. It has a mouth but no ears: it speaks but does not listen. By
contrast, the human figure must look up to direct itself at the zooanthropomorphic one: its face transmits a feeling of surprise or admiration
perhaps it speaks or sings and its ears allow it to listen. It is located close
to the entrance of the chamber. One would say that it is a visitor. Taking
account of these circumstances and the iconic character of the artefact, I
propose that the anthropomorphic carving represents the real human being
who, alone or in very limited company, came to this hidden spot on the
island, and here carried out the practice to which Chamber 3c bears witness.
What was the meaning of his presence here?
The meaning of the social practice carried out in Chamber 3c is indicated
both by the caves location and by the type of practices it housed. Both
factors provide direct information about the type of experience undergone
by a human being and, indirectly, about the social relations which demanded
it. It is, above all, an exceptional experience of limits based on different
considerations:
1 The Cova des Mussol is located in a steep cliff, at the limit between
land and sea. The land constituted the basic social space for the
Minorcan communities in the Final Naviform and Proto-Talayotic.
Only a few settlements were located on the coastline and, as I said
before, their inhabitants diet was based on a combination of
foodstuffs of terrestrial origin. Although the Minorcan communities
at this time were not isolated from the European continent (Lull et
al., 2002), the sea was the limit of everyday life more than an active
backdrop for this.
2 Access to the Cova des Mussol is highly dangerous. Although we do
not have evidence to determine whether the cave was reached by

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climbing down or up the cliff, both possibilities involved great risk.

As such, reaching the cave was an experience of travelling along the
limit between life and death.
3 The activity carried out in the darkness in Chamber 3c was utterly
exceptional when compared with the daily social practices in the
settlements of the Naviform or Proto-Talayotic communities. In these
settlements there is evidence of a range of basically economic
practices, among which the preparation, storage and consumption of
foodstuffs and the production of labour means (metallic tools,
ceramic recipients, bone and stone artefacts) stand out. There is no
evidence of buildings used for politico-ideological practices. In this
period, the natural caves had a funerary use, but this was always
limited to the part closest to the outside, from which it was separated
by a cyclopean dry-stone wall. As such, the exceptional character of
the activity in Chamber 3c comes from its location in the depths of a
cave (unfrequented and possibly taboo spaces), and above all, from
the symbolic charge materialized in the representation of the zooanthropomorphic figure. Whoever reached that place would have
abandoned the world of social daily reality, and would have crossed
the limit, which gave access to the world it imagined.
Chamber 3c of the Cova des Mussol tells us about how Minorcan society
subjected a few individuals to exceptional practices. It tells us of one of the
steps, perhaps the decisive one, in the preparation of certain individuals
who, on returning home, would adopt a different social role from the rest.
Society established the material conditions and the formal demands for the
production of this difference: it instituted a real and dangerous voyage to
a real and also an imaginary world and characterized this by means of
mytho-metaphysical discursive contents, whose communicative complexity
required the materialization of some of its referents in symbols (communicative artefacts). From this perspective, Chamber 3c was a key area of
activity in an initiation rite restricted to a very small social group. To undertake it successfully gave a person a different standing within the heart of
the community and, in some way, qualified that person to take on a new
social role. The experience lived through in the Cova des Mussol made that
person different from the rest. Different, yes, but different for what
purpose?
We know that the communities of the Final Naviform period were basically egalitarian. We also know that they were engaged in deep transformations that first led to the Proto-Talayotic (c. 1050850 BC) as a prologue
for the development of Talayotic society. Towards the end of the Naviform,
and throughout the Proto-Talayotic, the population was progressively
concentrated in denser settlements, such as Es Figueral de Son Real
(Rossell Bordoy and Camps Coll, 1972) and SIllot (Frey, 1968), at the same

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time as they constructed buildings which differed increasingly from the

Naviform model. In fact, it is possible that the tower-shaped buildings in
stone, which were to be the direct predecessors of the typical talayots of the
later period (SIllot, Trebalger), were already being built at this time. In
parallel to this population-clustering tendency, a diversification of funerary
practices can be observed in Minorca, which has no correlation on the neighbouring island of Majorca. In Minorca, the age-old tradition of burials in
natural caves with the entrance closed by cyclopean walls continued, such
as in the Cova des Crritx. However, at that time there was a qualitative and
quantitative increase in the funerary offerings left as grave goods. These
included a greater number of metal pieces, almost always decorative (torcs,
bracelets, needles, necklace beads, pectorals) in what constituted the only
indication of a possible socioeconomic differentiation within the communities. On the other hand, there was an increasing use of monumental cyclopean buildings with elongated apsidal plans: the navetas (such as Tudons or
Rafal Rub), reflecting an important investment of collective labour.
At the end of the second millennium BC, the basically egalitarian
Minorcan society was undergoing a process of change that finally led to the
formation of Talayotic society. In this context, Cova des Mussol Chamber
3c was a material device used for building social differences. I consider it
realistic to suggest that the Cova des Mussol constituted a key piece in the
qualifying of certain individuals in order to be able to carry out certain
politico-ideological functions in their communities. Ethnographic and
ethnological literature offers us the term shaman to designate special
people who dedicate part of their time to curative, magic and mediating
activities, among others. A social figure analogous to the shaman, in terms
of being a figure partially devoted to the aforementioned relational functions, could match the profile which emerges from this study.
Nevertheless, I prefer to characterize the individuals produced at
Mussol with a rather loose adjective: mediators. These people would
perform a range of social functions, such as settling quarrels and conflicts
between individuals or groups, being the representative of a local
community or being the interpreter between the group and its imaginary
worlds. Other social roles being possible, why suggest mediators? Mainly
because I stress that Chamber 3c was used to produce a few special, nonordinary people, without attaching to them any economic privileges. This
condition is needed to fulfil the aforementioned functions. A mediator
would have to hold a differentiated social position from those between
whom he or she had to mediate. This social position must have been fairly
detached from the people who needed mediation, or we would no longer
be talking about a mediator, but rather about an individual acting on behalf
of one of the parties in conflict. Like the whole experience surrounding
being at Chamber 3c, the social role of mediator was also at the limit of
social relations.

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Faced with this social need, the egalitarian Final Naviform groups made
a low material investment.
1 In the first place, no specific and costly buildings were to be erected
for political/ideological purposes, as was to become the case during
most of the first millennium BC, in Talayotic and Post-Talayotic
periods, with the use of talaiots and taula sanctuaries. Instead of this,
a natural subterranean setting was selected, probably conditioned by
the established condition of caves as ritual spaces, witnessed
centuries before in the Cova des Mussol itself and in the Cova des
Crritx, among others (Lull et al., 1999a).
2 The politico-ideological practices that allowed some people to gain a
different social position involved only a small number of individuals
during a short period of time. There is no indication of the existence
of a large, full-time, specialized priestly group.
3 The production of artefacts needed to perform the rites does not
require a huge labour investment. Olea wood was a locally available
raw material, easy to work, at least for the part-time craft specialist of
Naviform society.
4 Only the discourse that accompanied the artefacts was highly
elaborated. Cheap and (in principle) perishable wooden carved
symbols conveyed complex meanings which showed a mythometaphysical character and a previously unknown male iconographic
protagonism. This social discourse was communicated, and in fact
lived, by a few chosen people in the context of an impressive natural
setting. An extraordinary experience, combined with a complex
metaphysical knowledge, was enough to transform them into a new
social condition.
Late Naviform and Prototalayotic periods were times of change. Later,
during the Talayotic period, ideological and political practices took place in
a more expensive setting. But this is part of a different story.

CONCLUSION
In this article, I have tried to apply a materialist approach to the analysis
of a category of archaeological objects, which tends to be classified within
the ideological sphere, and, as such, to be considered as the mute echo of
now inaccessible codes of signification. This may well be true to a large
extent, but we should not forget that, above all, communicative artefacts
are products destined for social use, and that an archaeological analysis that
sets out from the characterization of their material attributes and the

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context in which they were used can throw some light on the social organization which once gave them meaning.
Symbols are material social products destined for social consumption.
Both their form and the practices in which they take on meaning respond
to social conventions, and so it can be said that they are arbitrary. However,
arbitrariness should not be confused with fortuitousness or non-reducibility.
The production of symbols in a society depends on several factors: the real
productive capacity of a group (sufficient raw materials, labour force and
means for taking on production); the social cost implied by their maintenance, that is to say, the social conditions which allow the transmission and
updating of the signification codes; the depth or richness of the accumulated
social knowledge or memory and, finally, the demands for social relations
which they are used to satisfy.

Acknowledgements
This article was undertaken in the framework of the Economy, Society and
Environment in the Central and Western Mediterranean Basin (c. 3000200 BC)
project, financed by the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologa (Spain) as part of the
Ramn y Cajal programme. This works also benefits from the support of the
Direcci General de Recerca of the Catalonian Autonomous Government (project
2001SGR00156). I would like to thank my colleagues V. Lull, C. Rihuete Herrada
and R. Risch for allowing me to use the issues derived from our joint research, and
Bob Chapman and several anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on
an earlier draft. I also thank Alex Walker and Dennis Jones for the translation of
the original article into English.

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RAFAEL MIC PREZ is a full-time Researcher in Prehistory at the

Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona (Spain). His research interests are the
prehistory of Western Mediterranean Europe, with a focus on the Bronze
Age in the Balearic Islands and south-east Iberia, where he has been
conducting fieldwork since 1987.
[email: rafamip@terra.es]

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