Assembling the Dead, Gathering the Living: Radiocarbon Dating and Bayesian Modelling for Copper Age Valencina de la Concepción (Seville, Spain)

Abstract

The great site of Valencina de la Concepción, near Seville in the lower Guadalquivir valley of southwest Spain, is presented in the context of debate about the nature of Copper Age society in southern Iberia as a whole. Many aspects of the layout, use, character and development of Valencina remain unclear, just as there are major unresolved questions about the kind of society represented there and in southern Iberia, from the late fourth to the late third millennium cal BC. This paper discusses 178 radiocarbon dates, from 17 excavated sectors within the c. 450 ha site, making it the best dated in later Iberian prehistory as a whole. Dates are modelled in a Bayesian statistical framework. The resulting formal date estimates provide the basis for both a new epistemological approach to the site and a much more detailed narrative of its development than previously available. Beginning in the 32nd century cal BC, a long-lasting tradition of simple, mainly collective and often successive burial was established at the site. Mud-vaulted tholoi appear to belong to the 29th or 28th centuries cal BC; large stone-vaulted tholoi such as La Pastora appear to date later in the sequence. There is plenty of evidence for a wide range of other activity, but no clear sign of permanent, large-scale residence or public buildings or spaces. Results in general support a model of increasingly competitive but ultimately unstable social relations, through various phases of emergence, social competition, display and hierarchisation, and eventual decline, over a period of c. 900 years.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s10963-018-9114-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Isotopic evidence for mobility at large-scale human aggregations in Copper Age Iberia: the mega-site of Marroquíes

“…1999, 2003), after Valencina-Castilleja (García Sanjuán et al . 2018). The site is located in the foothills of the Sierra de Jaén, in an ecotone between the low hills of the campiña to the north and the steeper mountain range of the Sierra Mágina to the south (Figure 1).…”

“…2010; Díaz-del-Río 2013; Díaz-Zorita Bonilla 2017; García Sanjuán et al . 2018). Fortunately, the extensive mortuary component of many Iberian Copper Age mega-sites allows for the study of human mobility through the direct analysis of human skeletal remains.…”

Amber in prehistoric Iberia: New data and a review

“…BC) holds the greatest number of amber objects known for a single site for all the Late Prehistory of the Iberian Peninsula, and it stands out both for its size and for the uniqueness of some of its graves and materials (e.g. [ 11 , 32 , 33 ]; for detailed discussion of its chronology see [ 34 ]). In Valencina de la Concepción, 254 objects of amber have been identified, of which 251 come from the tholos of Montelirio, two from the nearby grave 10042–10049 of PP4 Montelirio, and one last piece from the Dolmen of La Pastora.…”

Island questions: the chronology of the Brochtorff Circle at Xagħra, Gozo, and its significance for the Neolithic sequence on Malta

“…There was much variation across southern Iberia, and there has been much debate about the scale and intensity of social differentiation (Cruz Berrocal et al 2013). As just one example, at Valencina de la Concepción in south-west Spain, where another ToTL dating programme has been carried (García Sanjuán et al 2018), showy burials in mud-vaulted tholos tombs, such as Montelirio (Fernández Flores et al 2016), are probably confined to a relatively short horizon within the longer span of the complex, to the 29th and earlier 28th centuries cal BC. Connections, ostentation and differentiation by individuals and small groups can all be demonstrated, but these were seemingly not maintained for long.…”