Site-Seeing in Mallorca? Exploring the Visual Influence of Architecture and Location in Talayotic Iron Age Sites in Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Spain)

Abstract

During the Iron Age, or Talayotic period, the landscape of Mallorca was transformed by the construction of cyclopean, tower-shaped structures that served as communal gathering spaces. The scale and location of these monumental structures have led to their interpretation as places designed to see and be seen, with a range of GIS-based viewshed studies caried out in order to characterise and delineate the visual landscape of which they were an integral part. However, despite this focus on all things visible, there has been little investigation into whether this visual prominence was primarily due to the choice of location or the architectural form itself. This paper aims to explore how the combination of location and architecture contributed to the visual prominence of Talayotic structures within the landscape. By integrating Visual Neighbourhood Configurations (VNC) and viewshed analysis, the study examines the significance of site selection and whether the architecture leveraged the inherent visual properties of these locations to enhance their prominence. As the visual presence of these architecture has been central to the explanation of the Talayotic phenomenon, understanding how this was generated is key to understand the role these sites played in the Mallorcan Iron Age landscape.