Assembling the Dead, Gathering the Living: Radiocarbon Dating and Bayesian Modelling for Copper Age Valencina de la...

Area of Science:

• Archaeology
• Prehistory
• Iberian Peninsula

Background:

• The Valencina de la Concepción site in southern Iberia is central to understanding Copper Age societal structures.
• Significant questions remain regarding the site's layout, use, development, and the nature of society during the late fourth to late third millennium BC.
• This site is crucial for debates on Copper Age social organization in southern Iberia.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish a detailed chronological framework for the Valencina de la Concepción site using extensive radiocarbon dating.
• To provide a new epistemological approach to understanding the site's development and societal dynamics.
• To reconstruct the narrative of social relations, competition, and change over approximately 900 years.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 178 radiocarbon dates from 17 excavated sectors of the 450-hectare site.
• Modeling of dates within a Bayesian statistical framework to generate formal date estimates.
• Integration of dating results to create a detailed developmental timeline.

Main Results:

• A long tradition of collective and successive burial practices began around the 32nd century BC.
• Mud-vaulted tholoi date to the 29th or 28th centuries BC, with larger stone-vaulted structures appearing later.
• Evidence suggests a wide range of activities but no clear signs of permanent large-scale residences or public spaces.

Conclusions:

• The findings support a model of increasing social competition, display, and hierarchisation, followed by eventual decline.
• The site's development over 900 years reflects complex and ultimately unstable social relations.
• The detailed chronology enhances our understanding of Copper Age societies in southern Iberia.