A large Bell Beaker exhibit is now on display this summer at the Museo Arqueológico Regional de la Comunidad de Madrid. The exhibition is curated by two researchers from the
University of Valladoilid, Elisa Guerra and German Delibes. [
Local interview with Delibes]
Although the exhibit will include early discoveries throughout Iberia, it appears to have a natural emphasis on the interior of Spain, which is timely since it may be the time in which the
foundations of Spanish and Portuguese ethnicity rapidly take shape.
Alcala de Henares is an interesting town to house this exhibit because it was home to Beakers of the La Magdalena cemetery, which is located in an industrial park behind a few buildings that were demolished.
The man below is likely from the Magdalena group, but I haven't been able to find him in a paper yet, so I'm not entirely sure. Here he is anyway.
Whoooaa! Correction. 4467 is a girl! Via the
Beaker 2018 supplement:
"The artificial cave 4463 is the best preserved one. It is a single inhumation (I6475) [marked in the photo feature 4467] of a young woman between 16 and 20 years old. She was buried with a V-perforated button made from African ivory and a suid canine next to her neck. Near her head, a non- decorated vessel and an arsenical copper awl in her left hand, were found. She was sprinkled with red ochre containing cinnabar.
I6475/RISE704, sample #14, STTL 4467: 2500–2000 BCE"
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Toastmaster
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These two girls are definitely from that group and were both beheaded. Another girl (not pictured) appeared to have work a bright red garment.
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| Headless in Henares (Two Beheaded Girls from La Magdalena, 11 graves total (foto César Heras)) |
The exhibit will also give special attention to salt production in the region as it is suggested to be one indicator of the control of an economic elite. There's a lot of
photos online if you search Museo Arqueológico Regional de la Comunidad de Madrid and Beaker.
+ Signs and symbols in the funerary record: Grave goods of the BB Chalcolithic necropolis "La Magdalena" I- (Alcalá de Henares) César M. Heras Martínez, Miriam Cubas and Ana B. Bastida Ramírez. Necropolis located in the central zone of sector E of the archaeological area with a NE-SW orientation, and constituted by structures of different entity such as a small tumulus, a false hypogeum, three little caves, four simple pits and three votive deposits. Grave goods-In view of its macroscopic characteristics, the ceramic set is divided into two large groups: the first consists of smooth undecorated pottery (n = 6 containers) - Four pots and two bowls that are located in the false hypogeum and in both caves (UT 4463, UT 5005), and ceramics decorated in Ciempozuelos style (n = 9 containers) that present the typical morphologies of a bowl, glass and casserole. Its percentage representation is very similar, being the most abundant vessels (n = 4) and bowls (n = 3). Attending to their associations, a recurrent pattern in the appearance of these BB materials is not recognized, although in two cases the binomial bowl-glass appears. In general, it is considered that the vessel is the morphology that acts as the main symbolic reference and, when it is accompanied by a single container, it is always the bowl (Garrido et alii 2005: 421). The BB vessels have been mostly reconstructed, except for the 5237 vessel, which allows us to observe a characteristic, sinuous and little marked profile, with exvaded edges, rounded and pointed morphology. Their mouth diameters, in those cases in which they have been calculated, are between 10 and 19 cm and constitute the maximum diameter of the container.
ReplyDeleteThe documented metallic materials are restricted to two elements, although both are highly significant: a punch or awl and a Palmela tip of arsenic copper. The first one comes from one of the caves and appeared associated with a smooth container and a "V" perforation button, while the tip was registered at the base of the tumular structure related to BB pottery (a glass and two pots) and a sheet of flint. In the 5005 cave, several fragments of scattered copper foil have been identified that do not allow recognizing any concrete tool.
In the site a false hypogeum structure (US4600) was located with three women buried, two of them (without skull), were buried in a second phase of use of the tomb next to a smooth pot and bowl and a large glass style Ciempozuelos. Three votive deposits with Ciempozuelos bowls and glasses, four tombs without grave goods and three artificial caves.
ReplyDeleteI6472 / RISE701 / RISE702- (2.250 BC) - Artificial cave (US5005), burial of a man and two adult women in different phases, of which the most recent one presents remains of ocher sprinkled on human remains. Fragments of a smooth glass and pot, sheets of copper, a flake and a flint core. Haplogroup Y-R1b-U152-L2-Haplogroup Mitochondrial-HV0b
That's awesome, thanks for sharing. I haven't had time to see if any of these were in the recent papers, but I'll have to look up I6472. I used google to try and zoom in from a side street (only one side has any visibility from the road, but the other street doesn't have street view).
DeleteI suppose earth moving equipment uncovered these graves, but the area is very industrial and I never would have guessed a Beaker cemetery lay underneath.
I6472 (Magdalena) is PF6658+ but 22438224- so it may be a false positive (ergo Not R1b-U152). We have seen PF6658 have mixed (ancestral and derived) reads in other ancient DNA samples (e.g. I0805-Quedlinburg).
ReplyDeleteBut... is it 4465 or 4463? You mention both and it's difficult to understand if you mean 4465 or 4463 for the tomb where lays the girl.
ReplyDeleteIt's confusing, but in the picture of the girl above, 4463 is the label of the artificial cave (or pit), and 4467 is the label of the girl. She's relabeled I6475 from the Harvard paper using their sequence and previously as RISE704 from one of the previous papers, probably Allentoft or Haack.
ReplyDeleteSorry, just realized a typo. the girl is 4467 not 4465. Thanks for pointing out.
The man Gaska menions is I6472 which is the Harvard number.
The upper picture reminded me - is there any evidence of houses at Beaker sites? Post holes, hearths, etc?
ReplyDeleteThroughout Europe or only in this region? Within this region I know of a longhouse where construction appears to have begun in the Beaker period. Most regions and islands have something, but they vary quite a bit. There's a few papers that I haven't got to yet dealing with Beaker huts and longhouses
ReplyDeletehttps://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2019/02/think-globalbeakers-in-europe-2018-kiel.html
Cool post.
ReplyDeleteWhilst tongue- in-cheek; the idea of these backward hill-Billy’s probably doesn’t ring true - as their copper technology, incl weapons; were more developed than the south
The mixing in central Iberia was selective- you don’t see native males with Central European males together; much like elsewhere in the BB areas (apart from Hungary perhaps)
Lastly; there is no elite dominance in Millares etc; which are purely “native” phenomena; which then simply end as BB encroaches . The result isn’t a creole culture; but a wholly new one- El Argar . It doesn’t seem to me that gradual - preferential outbreeding explains the biology nor cultural result of what occurred
Rob