Feeding a third millennium BC mega-site: Bioarchaeological analyses of palaeodiet and dental disease at Marroquíes (Jaén, Spain)

Beck, Jess; Bonilla, Marta Díaz-Zorita; Bocherens, Hervé; Díaz-del-Río, Pedro

doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2018.07.001

Cited by 17 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 45 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Its isotopic imprint is characteristic of breastfeeding, either by prolonging this practice to an age in which the child can feed itself from animal or vegetable solids or as a sustained imprint on the bone lasting for some time after its interruption. A similar finding pointing to consumption of maternal milk is gleaned from the burials of the Marroquíes Bajos Megasite, located about 80 km east from the sites studied, which reveal that all outliers greater than 10.2 of δ 15 N (two, with values of 10.4 and 11.5) correspond to children between 1 and 3 years (Beck et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

“…The adult humans of the study, in turn, display approximate δ 15 N values of 4.46‰ with respect to bovine individual, showing a higher position in the trophic chain. The lowest δ 13 C values of the bovine compared with the data from slightly more recent samples of the same species from the Upper Guadalquivir Basin (Beck et al, ) appear to point to a more humid environment although we would need more data to confirm this.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 67%

“…This is the case of the nitrogen values that reflect a diet based primarily on animal proteins. These in fact represent the highest values among the recent studies carried out on samples from the later phases of the Copper Age in the Upper Guadalquivir Basin (Beck et al, ; Fontanals‐Coll et al, ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 67%

“…Except for the Cave of Nerja (Málaga; Salazar‐García, ), there are few stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses from Neolithic samples in southern Iberia. The amount of data from the Copper Age from this region is increasing, although largely linked to its later phases in the third millennium cal BC (Beck et al, ; Díaz‐Zorita et al, ; Díaz‐Zorita, Beck, Bocherens, & Díaz‐del‐Río, ; Fontanals‐Coll et al, ; Waterman et al, ). In these cases, the scarceness of proteins of marine origin is relevant, even from settlements near the coastline, as well as a type of nutrition on the basis of cereals and the meat of herbivores.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As in the northern Peninsula (Fernández‐Crespo & Schulting, ), research on stable isotopes from the Copper Age of southern Iberia has made significant progress in recent years. Noteworthy is the large sampling of individuals ( N = 113) from various burial grounds of the megasite (113 ha) of Marroquíes Bajos (Jaen, Upper Guadalquivir; Beck, Díaz‐Zorita, Bocherens, & Díaz‐del‐Río, ) dated between the middle of the third and outset of second millennium cal BC. A second example is the sampling of 17 individuals from the megalithic tomb of Montelirio and other contexts from Valencina‐Castilleja Megasite (Lower Guadalquivir) from ca.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Archaeology, chronology, and age‐diet insights of two late fourth millennium cal BC pit graves from central southern Iberia (Córdoba, Spain)

Sánchez

García

Flores

et al. 2020

Intl J of Osteoarchaeology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study presents the isotopic ratios, radiocarbon datings, and anthropological analyses of five (N = 5) Early Copper Age individuals from two archaeological sites (Arruzafa and Iglesia Antigua de Alcolea) of the Middle Guadalquivir Valley near the city of Córdoba (Spain). Four had been buried in the same grave, possibly in a single event or in a very short time lapse. The collagen residue analyses of the individuals offer δ13C values ranging between −20.08 and −18.4 and δ15N values between 8.57 and 11.15. The findings indicate that the infant and the elderly had, respectively, the richest and poorest animal protein diets, the first likely as a result of nursing. The combined study of these five individuals offers an interesting approach to a small segment of population of the farming communities occupying this territory at the beginning of the Copper Age (3200–3000 cal BC).

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 67%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 67%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Archaeology, chronology, and age‐diet insights of two late fourth millennium cal BC pit graves from central southern Iberia (Córdoba, Spain)

Sánchez

García

Flores

et al. 2020

Intl J of Osteoarchaeology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Eating through time: Understanding dietary practices across late prehistory in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula

Hernando,

Moreno‐Ibáñez,

Carbonell

et al. 2024

American Journal of Biological Anthropology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ObjectiveThis study seeks to contribute to the current understanding of dietary variation in the late Prehistory of the northeastern Iberian Peninsula by examining buccal dental microwear patterns alongside archeological data from the same populations.Materials and MethodsTeeth from 84 adult individuals from eight distinct samples spanning the Middle‐Late Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age (Cova de l'Avi, Cova de Can Sadurní, Cova de la Guineu, Cova Foradada, Cova del Trader, Roc de les Orenetes, Cova del Gegant, Cova dels Galls Carboners) were analyzed using optical microscopy to examine buccal dental microwear patterns.ResultsThe analysis did not reveal clear chronological contrasts in the dietary habits of these samples. Nevertheless, significant differences emerged among the samples, leading to their classification into two distinct sets based on the abrasiveness of the diet informed by the microwear patterns. These findings offer similarities and differences among samples in the Iberian Peninsula, shedding light on the diverse lifestyles of these individuals.DiscussionIntegrating our new results with other available proxies points to a multifaceted specialization in dietary patterns among these samples, influenced by factors such as habitat, resource selection, and available technology. By contextualizing the results within the broader context of the Iberian Peninsula, this research discerns shared characteristics and distinctive adaptations in the dietary practices and subsistence strategies of these groups. Ultimately, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the intricate interplay between culture and environment in shaping human diets throughout late Prehistory.

show abstract

Don't throw the baby teeth out with the bathwater: Estimating subadult age using tooth wear in commingled archaeological assemblages

Beck

Smith

2019

Intl J of Osteoarchaeology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Commingled assemblages of fragmentary human skeletal remains are a common feature of many archaeological sites and pose significant analytical problems for bioarchaeologists. Such deposits often contain a high volume of the teeth of subadults for which it is challenging to estimate age, including developing permanent teeth with damaged roots, articulated teeth with roots obscured by alveolar bone, and deciduous teeth with completed root apices. Here, we present a new method for more precisely estimating age for the developmentally ambiguous teeth of subadults from archaeological contexts. We used a sample of articulated subadult dentition from the Copper Age site of Marroquíes in Jaén, Spain, to build linear models of the relationship between dental age and tooth wear for deciduous and permanent molars. We tested three different strategies for identifying and removing outliers to build a linear model with the strongest relationship between age and wear. The Adjusted Residual strategy, which used diagnostic plots of linear regression residuals in the statistical package R to identify and remove outliers, was found to produce the strongest linear model. The linear model developed using the Adjusted Residual strategy was then used to provide estimated midpoint ages and upper and lower age bounds based on the wear scores from the sample of developmentally ambiguous teeth. This study demonstrates that it is possible to estimate the age of developmentally ambiguous deciduous and permanent molars with reference to an adequate sample of subadult dentition with estimated ages from the same population. This new method is valuable as it extracts information from developmentally ambiguous teeth that would otherwise be inaccessible, allows for rapid data collection, employs standard macroscopic dental scoring methods, and can be used for sites from other regions and periods. We conclude by discussing the applications of this new method within bioarchaeology and identify directions for future research on subadult dental wear.

show abstract

Feeding a third millennium BC mega-site: Bioarchaeological analyses of palaeodiet and dental disease at Marroquíes (Jaén, Spain)

Cited by 17 publications

References 45 publications

Archaeology, chronology, and age‐diet insights of two late fourth millennium cal BC pit graves from central southern Iberia (Córdoba, Spain)

Archaeology, chronology, and age‐diet insights of two late fourth millennium cal BC pit graves from central southern Iberia (Córdoba, Spain)

Eating through time: Understanding dietary practices across late prehistory in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula

Don't throw the baby teeth out with the bathwater: Estimating subadult age using tooth wear in commingled archaeological assemblages

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About