One of the most prominant of the excavations that are being held on Mallorca right now is that of the Son Mas Sanctuary. Initiated in 1987 by William H. Waldren (Oxford University), the excavation of Son Mas has been incredibly extensive and has broken major ground in the task of uncovering Mallorca's preclassical history. What follows is a brief look into the sanctuary excavation itself and a discussion of what sets it apart from other digs of similar sites.

The Son Mas sanctuary is one of only eight known sanctuaries on Mallorca (although there are thirty known to exist in Menorca). These Mallorcan sanctuaries differ from their Menorcan counterparts mainly becaus they lack a taula (see the Menorcan section of this website), and they have generally been considered to be much newer. Instead of having said taulas, they feature a series of short, thick columns made of huge limestone boulders. These columns are thought to have been used not as a pillars as much as sacraficial platforms. While most of the Menorcan sanctuaries are believed to originate from about 1000 BC (as supported by radiocarbon dates from the sanctuary at Torralba d'en Salort). Previous estimates as to the age of the eight Mallorcan sites place them at being from around 400 BC to 200 AD. Waldren has always challenged these dates because they were estimated using pot sherds taken from the site and dating them appropriately. In his words, this brings up "a general tendecy to assess their [the sanctuaries'] construction age on the basis of their late or final use, rather than attempting to date construction and preconstruction contexts, and hence their full duration of use as sanctuaries or ritual sites." (Waldren, 1991) A long time advocate of the use of carbon 14 dating, Waldren took a series of samples from different levels and areas of the Son Mas site and determined that it was first used during the year 2050 BC (this is a calibrated date).