The archaeological heritage besieged by cement

PalmaThe keyboard chords of a version of Whitney Houston coming from the Hotel Mariant Park are mixed with the notes, at full volume, of Barbie Girl, a hit from the 90s coming from the surroundings of the Hotel Playamar. The August night is heavy and the hotel terraces are full of tourists looking for the promised entertainment. Right in the middle, immutable and eternal, oblivious to anachronism, remain the millenary stones of the Talayotic settlement of l’Illot.

Between 2,900 and 3,200 years ago, when this corner of the Levant was still a paradise, its inhabitants raised a turret-like construction there, considered a precursor to the talayots of the Iron Age. Subsequently, various domestic rooms were added, among which a room stands out that has become a reference for understanding talayotic housing. The settlement of Illot is one of the most important sites of the talayotic and post-talayotic culture. The wall that protected it has not shielded it from coexisting flanked by bikinis, pareos, sun creams on offer, tattoos to remember a summer in Mallorca, and jars of ketchup and mustard.

A few kilometers away, golfers can take a drive while contemplating the talayot of Pula. In the middle of the Pula Golf Resort, between the greens and the artificial lakes, stand –preserving all possible dignity– a large stepped talayot and another with a circular base. It was excavated in the late 1960s, but this did not prevent the complex from opening in 1995, which in addition to the golf course also has a hotel and restaurant. The property is responsible for its conservation and warns that it can be visited, but “it is dangerous because there are golfers”.

They are just a few examples from a long list of archaeological heritage that has been swallowed, boxed in, or directly mutilated by an expansive and permanently growing urban planning model. When this happens, “we lose the opportunity to learn and understand how the communities that preceded us established relationships with an environment that was essential for sustaining social life,” explains Beatriz Palomar Puebla, archaeologist at the Son Fornés Archaeological Museum and the Sencelles-Costitx Archaeological Route.

“Suddenly, a Talayotic settlement becomes a mushroom in the gardens of a housing development,” he asserts. Even if the structures are preserved, “the site ends up becoming another garden ornament,” with its capacity to explain a profoundly impoverished past. But its presence also acts as a mirror: “It will harshly explain who we are today and the challenges of living within a model that preys on the territory and people.”

For Palomar, “when a housing development only respects the visible structures of archaeological remains, it only guarantees their ‘partial survival’.”

Sites between parking lots and chalets

At the Eroski in Santa Ponça, you can park your car next to a Roman villa, the first one excavated in Mallorca. The remains are located right next to the asphalt of the car park, from where they are accessed. Also in Calvià, the Son Ferrer tumulus has been surrounded by chalets. Despite having been made into a museum, it has lost the landscape that surrounded it. The case shows a contradiction: urbanization has decontextualized it, but like at L'Illot, its visibility has also favored public investment, conservation, and educational use.

Archaeologist Helena Inglada is not sure that we can speak of dialogue between the sites and the constructions after the tourist boom. “Normally, these developments are very aggressive,” she points out. Traditional buildings maintained certain materials, colors, and volumes. The relationship is very different “when there is a villa with a pool, a parking lot, or a multi-story building attached to a site,” she adds.

Protection areas

Law 12/1998 on the heritage of the Balearic Islands established that BIC (Areas of Cultural Interest) and cataloged assets are inseparable from their environment. In the case of sites declared BIC, protection must extend to a specifically delimited area. Nevertheless, the regulation does not set a uniform buffer zone, but rather defines it on a case-by-case basis.

“We have most of the sites identified, but only a relatively small part has its protection environments declared according to the law,” points out Inglada, who works as an Archaeology technician at the Consell de Mallorca. Any intervention within an archaeological zone declared BIC or its surroundings requires prior authorization from the Insular Commission of Historical Heritage. With the current legal framework, it would be difficult for cases like those of Illot or Pula to be repeated. “It is not enough to leave the talaiot there and do everything else around it,” she defends. Furthermore, new techniques allow for the analysis of the subsoil without excavating it, and if signs of continuity are detected, the Administration could condition or deny certain actions. Even so, recent examples such as the navetes of Rafal Rubí, in Menorca, where the construction of the road by the Consell has put UNESCO's declaration at risk and even led to the resignation of the director of Menorca Talaiòtica, and the construction of the Parador de Dalt Vila, on top of a site, demonstrate how heritage is often seen as an obstacle, even by the Administration.

Authorizations and pressure on rural land

The difficulty is compounded when works are carried out outside of legal channels. “If they work correctly, we can prevent damage. The big problem is when works are done illegally and we don't find out. When we become aware of it, much of the damage has already been done,” warns the archaeologist.

Extraordinary legalization procedures on rural land reveal this reality: when the file reaches the Administration, the house or the swimming pool are already built. If there were remains, they may have been destroyed before any technician could document them. “The only way to do things properly is to do them beforehand,” insists Inglada. “If you destroy a site, you cannot rebuild it. You don't just lose the material remains: you lose a source of information that you will never be able to recover”.

For the specialist in prehistoric archaeology Nicolau Escanilla, the problem is “everything we don't see”: remains that disappear because they are in unprotected areas or because works are carried out without authorization. With the current construction pace, he believes that “the damage to heritage must be immense, and the loss, irrecoverable”. He compares it to the destruction of villages to obtain stone to build roads and railways at the beginning of the 20th century: “The current, invisible damage must be similar”.

Lack of public resources

The Consell de Mallorca exercises the bulk of the executive functions regarding archaeological heritage, although it shares responsibilities with town councils, the Government, and the State. The question is whether it has the necessary resources to supervise all works that may affect archaeological sites or remains.

The technical staff of Archaeology consists of two and a half technicians, even though the files have multiplied by four in fifteen years, and the perception within the sector is that it is "clearly insufficient". It manages subsidies, processes files and authorizations, intervenes in works affecting cataloged elements, and processes the delimitation and declaration procedures for sites. All this, in a territory with a very high volume of construction activity, which causes an "inevitable bottleneck".

In addition to authorizing interventions and informing about works, technicians should verify that the imposed prescriptions are met. The service has two inspectors shared with other departments, who must respond to the constant flow of complaints about possible heritage infringements. “In the most urgent and extreme cases, we are there, but it is very difficult to follow up,” acknowledges Inglada. Technicians can establish that remains must be kept intact, but there is not always enough staff to return and verify it.

To the lack of hands is added, according to the technical voices consulted, a certain loneliness when defending decisions that can limit urbanistic projects. “Sometimes we feel little accompanied. And here, we don't play: we are talking about a heritage that, if destroyed, is lost forever”.

The Renaissance wall of Palma, behind display cases under the underground car park of Via de Roma; the Olivera site, in Ibiza, attached to a Mercadona; the Roman aqueduct of l’Argamassa, in Ibiza, relocated within a green area of a real estate development, and the talayot of Serral de les Abelles, in Puigpunyent, extend a list of treasures besieged by cement that also has a new front in rural land.