The Bioarchaeology of Mortuary Practice at Marrquies Bajos, Spain.

Abstract

The tension between living in groups and the maintenance of individual autonomy is a common anthropological thread that links human societies ranging from nomadic hunter-gathers to state societies and empires. The anthropological literature has addressed the maintenance of egalitarianism and the emergence of institutionalized inequalities, but the mechanisms underlying societies that fluctuate between levels of complexity are less well understood. This dissertation focuses on the Iberian Copper Age (c. 3100-2250 cal BC). In contrast with the preceding Neolithic, the Iberian Copper Age is characterized by agricultural intensification, population aggregation, political centralization and the appearance of large-scale “macro-villages” on the landscape. This suggests that managerial divisions of labor were needed to manage new social demands like establishing property ownership and organizing labor. At 113 hectares in size, the site of Marroquíes Bajos, in Jaén, Spain, is one of the largest settlements known for this period. This project’s bioarchaeological analysis of the mortuary variability at three different necropolises investigates whether Iberian Copper Age societies were collectively organized, with relatively equal access to social and symbolic resources for all individuals or whether there were significant disparities in health, diet or mortuary treatment between individuals and social units. This study tests the null hypothesis that that there are no significant differences in health, diet, or demographic representation (e.g. age, sex) between individuals or mortuary areas. This investigation of 280 individuals from Marroquíes Bajos provides a nuanced reconstruction of the ways that Copper Age societies were organized. Radiocarbon results suggest that Necropolis 1 and 4 date to the mid-third millennium, while Necropolis 2 were reused during the Early Bronze Age. Bioarchaeological analyses show that mortuary treatment included members of both sexes and a wide range of ages, most individuals were local, skeletal evidence of paleopathology is scarce, and there were no significant inter-group inequalities in health or diet. These results suggest that marked increases in inequality were not necessary to found a macro-village of this size, and that collective burials may have been used as a means of creating and reinforcing community identities that allowed for the emergence of these kinds of centers.