Clay figurines in Iberian Late Prehistory

Abstract

The first clay figurines appeared in the Iberian Peninsula in the Neolithic, closely associated with their most characteristic craft expression, pottery. Figurines linked with the western Mediterranean, with the Neolithic on the central European plains and, above all, with the background of Iberian Schematic art, attest the variety of interactions that took place in Neolithic Iberia. In the fifth, fourth and third millennia cal BC, clay figures are mostly female and are especially frequent at the large sites in the south-west (Perdigões, Valencia and Marroquies Bajos). The presence of zoomorphs (small sculptures and vessels) as well as strictly functional objects, together with the simplicity of the raw material (clay) evoke the everyday world. The frequency of find at domestic sites is an argument supporting the need to add nuances to the generalized religious hypothesis that is still often proposed in the Iberian Peninsula as the only explanation. When these objects are found in mortuary sites, the religious sphere is superimposed on the multiple meanings condensed in the palimpsests of death, where the repertoires of mundane objects undoubtedly played a role.