Territory and materiality in the lower valley of the Segura River during the early Late Bronze Age: new data from the settlement of Cobatillas la Vieja (Santomera, Murcia)

The population dynamics during Late Bronze Age in Southeast of the Iberian Peninsula caused a reorganization of its settlements and the beginning of a new political-territorial landscape of the region. In the lower Segura valley, the abandonment of part of the post-argaric occupations led to an orientation of the communities towards new positions in height, interconnected and linked with the productive capacities of their environments. The site of Cobatillas la Vieja is an appropriate case study for the review of this new model from its location in a landscape of wide territorial relations and biodiversity rooted in previous chronologies that facilitated its reoccupation in the new socio-political and economic scenario of the area. The purpose of this work is analyze these factors from the view of landscape archeology, in conjunction with the study of the territoriality and the identity of its materiality. The results introduce the importance of this settlement and its contextualization with the nearby centers in order to approach the particular problems that occurred in the early stages of the Late Bronze Age in the lower Segura river.