Dates in prehistory can be only approximate, but it is thought that the Talayot period, which succeeded the Cave Culture, began about 1400 BC, and coincided roughly with the Bronze Age. The word 'talayot' is derived from the Arabic word atalaya (a tower), being the most typical and commonest megalithic building on the island of this period.

Professor Garcia, Director of the Institute of Prehistory at Barcelona University, has subdivided the Talayot period into three phases: Talayot 1-1400 BC to 800 BC; Talayot II (coinciding with Phoenician and Greek influence ) - 800 BC to 500 BC; and Talayot III  500 BC to 200 BC. Taken together these extend to a period of 1,200 years, during which a comparatively small population raised some 1,600 buildings of gigantic proportions.

The other principal types of megalithic building found associated with the talayots in the ancient settlements are the 'Taula' (T-shaped monument) which is unique to Minorca, the 'naveta' (or boat grave), and the hypostyle court (a chamber of unknown use).

The technique of megalithic building was brought by a new kind of migration of people from the east, towards the middle of the second millennium BC, when it spread all over western  Europe, including France, Ireland and Britain as far north as the Orkney Islands. They propagated the cult of chamber-tomb group burial, and inspired more than 50,000 megalithic buildings. It is believed to have been a migration of small groups, whom circumstances led at different times to seek a new life.
Today we might call them intellectuals or professional classes - engineers, architects, priests, craftsmen.  Professor C. D. Darlington of Oxford University believes that they were possibly 'refugees of civil wars, exiled noblemen, and generals'.
Owing to the aura of mystery which surrounds these people, they are often simply referred to as 'the peoples of the seas'. It is thought they may have sailed as passengers in Phoenician ships - the Phoenicians were expert mariners - and that they may have come from Egypt, Crete or the Aegean, leaving behind some of their number in Malta, Sardinia, Corsica and Minorca.