The Argaric culture, named from the type site El Argar near the town of Antas, in what is now the province of Almería in southeastern Spain, is an Early Bronze Age culture which flourished between c. 2200 BC and 1550 BC.
The Argaric culture was characterised by its early adoption of bronze, which briefly allowed this tribe local dominance over other, Copper Age peoples. El Argar also developed sophisticated pottery and ceramic techniques, which they traded with other Mediterranean tribes.
The European Bronze Age is characterized by bronze artifacts and the use of bronze implements. The regional Bronze Age succeeds the Neolithic and Copper Age and is followed by the Iron Age. It starts with the Aegean Bronze Age in 3200 BC and spans the entire 2nd millennium BC (including the Únětice culture, Ottomány culture, British Bronze Age, Argaric culture, Nordic Bronze Age, Tumulus culture, Nuragic culture, Terramare culture, Urnfield culture and Lusatian culture), lasting until c. 800 BC in central Europe.
Arsenical bronze was produced in some areas from the 4th millennium BC onwards, prior to the introduction of tin bronze. Tin bronze foil had already been produced in southeastern Europe on a small scale in the Chalcolithic era, with examples from Pločnik in Serbia dated to c. 4650 BC, as well as 14 other artefacts from Bulgaria and Serbia dated to before 4000 BC, showing that early tin bronze developed independently in Europe 1500 years before the first tin bronze alloys in the Near East. This bronze production lasted for c. 500 years in the Balkans but disappeared at the end of the 5th millennium, coinciding with the "collapse of large cultural complexes in north-eastern Bulgaria and Thrace in the late fifth millennium BC". Tin bronzes using cassiterite tin were subsequently reintroduced to the area some 1500 years later.
El Argar is an archeological site for the Early Bronze Age Argaric culture developed in the municipality of Antas, in Almeria (south-eastern end of the Iberian Peninsula) which was believed to have been active from about 2200 BC to 1500 BC. It is part of the archaeological zone of El Argar and La Gerundia, and it gives name to the Argaric culture.