A few years ago, in 1999, a group of researchers from the University of the Balearic Islands came across a surprise while examining the caves in the Manacor area: they discovered a small megalithic bridge, almost eight meters long; now this structure, a sunken structure built thousands of years ago from large blocks of limestone to cover the lake between the two chambers. The discovery was fascinating; but now, almost a quarter of a century later, scientists have been able to understand the extent to which it is meaningful to know the history of Mallorca and the Mediterranean.

Why: The discovery sheds light on the island’s chronology and early settlements, and what this means for Mediterranean history.

A bridge to historyThe protagonist of the work that attracted the attention of archaeologists dedicated to studying the Mediterranean is a small bridge, a megalithic structure 7.6 m long, discovered in 1999 by a group of researchers from the University of the Balearic Islands.

The structure is made up of stacked limestone rock blocks, some sections of which are up to 1.3 metres wide. It is thought to have been used thousands of years ago to cross a lake and move between two high chambers in the Genovesa cave in Manacor. Researchers also believe that construction may have started when the lake was 0.25 metres deep, but over time the water rose and the viaduct is now submerged.

…and with surprisesIf this little construction is news that is generating interest on both sides of the Atlantic today, it is because of what it can tell us about the colonization of Mallorca and therefore of the western Mediterranean.

As CNN recalls, a study conducted a few years after the discovery concluded that the bridge was about 3,500 years old. The estimate was largely based on ceramic remains found in a cave chamber. Now a team of researchers from Harvard, New Mexico, South Florida (USF) and UIB has recalculated this age, significantly expanding it. In an article published in the journal The world of communication and the environment They claim it was built at least 5,600 years ago.

How did they calculate this? We are examining the bridge and its surroundings. There are some flooded passages in the cave, but the researchers observed calcite encrustations formed by the sea. More specifically, they noticed a relevant detail on the bridge: an interesting, light-colored marking on its upper part, which led them to believe that the water might have revealed calcite formation at the height where the bridge reached the bridge. . . past. This information, combined with the elevation of the viaduct and the model of sea level during the upper Holocene, made the calculations more accurate.

“We saw that the sea level rise during the Holocene coincided with the location of the bridge, so we decided to take samples to relate the sea level oscillation to the depth of the bridge,” Joan, one of the authors of the study from the UIB’s Department of Earth Sciences, explains to EFE.

“Thanks to radiometric dating, we observed a stabilization of sea level between 6,000 and 5,600 years ago, coinciding with the white mark observed on the bridge. It is unlikely that the bridge was built earlier than 6,000 years ago because the area it occupies would not have been under water.

The value of a numberThe study allowed researchers to calculate that the bridge was built almost 6,000 years ago, an estimate that extends the previous calculation by more than 2,000 years. If the data is relevant, it’s not just because it allows us to better understand a small viaduct hidden in the Balearic Islands, USF reminds us.

What is truly fascinating about the discovery is that it sheds light on the history of Mallorca and parts of the Mediterranean. This is because it provides information that will answer a fundamental question: when did the first human settlements appear on the Balearic island? This is no small matter. Mallorca is the sixth largest island in the Mediterranean, but it is believed to be one of the last to be colonized.

Checking the calendarSome researchers have suggested that human presence on Mallorca could date back 9,000 years, but the USF adds that this estimate poses a problem: “inconsistencies and poor preservation of radiocarbon-dated materials such as bones and ceramics.”

Other more recent studies have relied on charcoal, ash, and bone remains found on the island to establish a chronology of human settlements dating back 4,400 years. What we now know about the Genovesa Cave Bridge, an infrastructure built by humans at least 5,600 years ago, allows us to extend that timeline by more than a millennium.

Challenging history“Reconstructing the first human colonization of the Balearic Islands is a challenge due to the paucity of archaeological evidence. Current knowledge suggests that human arrival dates back approximately 4,400 years,” the experts wrote in their study. The world of communication Before noting that his analysis allows us to place the construction of the sunken bridge between 6,000 and 5,600 years ago.

“Sea level rise flooded the archaeological structure and ruled out later construction dates. This suggests that human presence on the island dates back at least 5,600 years and probably more than 6,000.”

Beyond the Balearic Islands“It is clear that humans lived a thousand years earlier than previously thought and that a potential human presence could have existed on the island for around 9,000 years,” Fornós explains to EFE.

Officials from the USF give the discovery an even greater dimension, claiming that the study “sheds light” on human colonization of the Western Mediterranean, “revealing that humans settled there much earlier than previously believed.” “This research challenges long-held assumptions and narrows the gap between island settlement programs in the Mediterranean region,” they emphasize. The last nuance is not unimportant. The authors of the report insist that thanks to the Manacor bridge, they have managed to “reduce the temporal difference between settlements in the eastern and western Mediterranean.”

Images | University of South Florida (R. Landreth) and Car Rental (Flickr)

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