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Objectives: We provide the description and comparative analysis of all the human fossil remains found at Axlor during the excavations carried out by J.M. Barandiarán from to 1974: a cranial vault fragment and eight teeth, five of which likely belonged to the same individual, although two are currently lost. Our goal is to describe in detail all these human remains and discuss both their taxonomic attribution and their stratigraphic context. Materials and methods: We describe external and internal anatomy, and use classic and geometric morphometrics. The teeth from Axlor are compared to Neandertals, Upper Paleolithic and recent modern humans. Results: Three teeth (a left dm 2 , a left di 1 , and a right I 1) and the parietal fragment show morphological features consistent with a Neanderthal classification, and were found in an undisturbed Mousterian context. The remaining three teeth (plus the two lost ones), initially classified as Neandertals, show morphological features and a general size that are more compatible with their classification as modern humans. Discussion: The combined anatomical and stratigraphic study suggest that the remains of two different adult Neandertals have been recovered during the old excavations performed by Barandiarán: a left parietal fragment (level VIII) and a right I 1 (level V). Additionally, two different Neandertal children lost deciduous teeth during the formations of levels V (left di 1) and IV (right dm²). In addition, a modern human individual is represented by five remains (two currently lost) from a complex stratigraphic setting. Some of the morphological features of these remains suggest that they may represent one of the scarce examples of Upper Paleolithic modern human remains in the northern Iberian Peninsula, which should be confirmed by further testing.

During the third millennia bc, there is a change in the funerary patterns of the populations in Catalonia. This novelty usually has been usually related to a change in the economical source of the human groups that become less sedentary as the stockbreeding becomes more important. In the present study, we analyse this change, reflected in the mortuary practices, by the study of diet and health markers such as caries, dental calculus or enamel hypoplasias and of biological affinities based on dental non‐metric traits. It has been included a total amount of 317 permanent teeth from Cova del Pantà de Foix sites, a sepulchral cave found at the south‐west of the city of Barcelona and dates from the third millennia bc. The 74.2% of them present dental calculus deposits, which are usually related to a high protein intake. Nevertheless, the high prevalence of carious lesions (15.3% of the teeth) suggests that the main dietary contribution comes from carbohydrates. Furthermore, when this group is compared with one from the Middle Neolithic Age, which presents a lower calculus prevalence, no biological differences are observed. This lack of differences among these groups denote that the origin of the high amount of calculus deposit is environmental, which is consistent with the elevated observation of hypoplasias of the crown enamel. The absence of dietary, biological and economical differences indicates that the population substrate during the Neolithic in Catalonia is the same and that the transition in the funerary rite is related to a substantial change only regarding to mortuary practices. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) has largely been associated with high socioeconomic status rather than lower social status in paleopathological studies.  This difference has been explained as a consequence of a high intake of fats and sedentary lifestyle that could be related to metabolic syndrome and obesity, associated risk factors in DISH by some clinical authors. This association is also known as the ‘monastic way of life’. In this work, we present a DISH case corresponding to a male individual exhumed from a civil burial site  of the necropolis of the Trinitarian Monastery of Avinganya, in the North-East of Iberian Peninsula. In this case, DISH coexists with some evidences of occupational stress markers (back lesions and traumas) that indicate a non-sedentary lifestyle, despite the individuals overweight. Therefore, the present case of DISH seems to contradict the ‘monastic way of life’ association. The previous relationship can be explained as a bias in the sample analysed, where high status individuals have longer survival ratios, so more probabilities to develop DISH, because age is a proved risk factor. In this way, mechanical stress is proposed as another risk factor of DISH, which is more accurate to explain this case.