Updating knowledge: architecture, use and chronology of the Late Bronze Age stepped monuments in Mallorca

The ongoing excavation of a stepped monument at the Mestre Ramon settlement in the island of Mallorca provided new chronological and architectural information motivating an analytical review of known Mallorcan stepped monuments. The combination of the already existing chronological information and the new radiocarbon dates for Mestre Ramon place the construction of stepped monuments within the Prototalaiotic period (ca. 1100/1000-850 cal BCE). This chronology constitutes the basis for an analysis of the architectural characteristics of the monuments and of their relationships with other structures. This study offers a preliminary, but detailed, characterisation of the material features of stepped monuments and their social dimension within the process of social transformation that occurred during the Late Bronze Age in Mallorca.