This is the first major study on bell beaker pottery in the Middle and Lower Guadiana basin (south-western Iberian Peninsula). Recent archaeological excavations in the area, because of the construction of the Alqueva dam, have provided new and substantial information relating to the 3rd millennium BC, with 54 sites with bell-beaker pottery now identified (43 settlements and 11 funerary sites). Identifying the pots as high-status items, and mapping their distibution through the region and chronologically, Garcia Rivero is able to draw conlclusions about changing social structure in the third millennium BC. Spanish text.