THE 1ST COLONIZATION OF IBIZA AND FORMENTERA (BALEARIC-ISLANDS, SPAIN) - SOME MORE ISLANDS OUT OF THE STREAM

The Balearic Islands, off the east coast of Spain, have provided a foc us of interest in investigations of the earliest colonization of the M editerranean islands, because of the relatively late date of their old est sites. Mallorca was visited in the fifth millennium BC and inhabit ed by the third, and Menorca was colonized during the closing centurie s of the third millennium; this therefore makes Ibiza and Formentera s pecial cases of isolation, since they were evidently not occupied unti l about 2000 BC and moreover were essentially deserted between roughly the thirteenth and seventh centuries BC. The paper presents all the c urrently available data relevant to this question, particularly the re sults of excavations and surveys conducted in recent years, with the a im of placing this apparently special case in a wider context and pres enting some explanatory hypotheses about the isolation of both islands .