Collective secondary cremation in a pit grave: A unique funerary context in Portuguese Chalcolithic burial practices

Abstract

Perdigões is a large site with a set of ditched enclosures located at Reguengos de Monsaraz, Alentejo, South Portugal. Recently at the central area of this site burnt human remains were found in a pit (#16). This structure had inside human remains, animal bones (namely pig, sheep or goat, cattle, dog, deer and rabbit), shards, ivory idols and arrowheads. All have been subjected to fire and later deposited in that pit, resulting in a secondary disposal of human bones. The recovered fragmented human bones (4845.18 g) correspond to a minimal number of 9 individuals: 6 adults and 3 sub-adults. The aim of this work is to document and interpret this funerary context based on the study of the recovered human remains. For that purpose, observations of all alterations due to fire, such as colour change and type of bone distortion, as well as anthropological data were collected. The data obtained suggest that these human remains were probably intentionally cremated, carefully collected and finally deposited in this pit. The cremation was conducted on probably complete corpses, some of them still fairly fresh and fleshed, as some bones presented thumbnail fractures. The collective cremation of the pit 16 represents an unprecedented funerary context for Portuguese, and Iberian Peninsula, Chalcolithic burial practices. Moreover, it is an example of the increasing diversity of mortuary practices of Chalcolithic human populations described in present Portuguese territory, as well as, in the Iberian Peninsula.

The preburning condition of Chalcolithic cremated human remains from the Perdigões enclosures (Portugal)

“…Funerary practices in the Chalcolithic vary markedly in Southern Portugal and include both primary and secondary deposition of human remains in dolmens, tholoi, pits, ditches, and hypogea (Valera et al, ). Although cremation has also been reported (Cataroche & Gowland, ; de Becdelievre, Thiol, Saligny, Granjon, & Rottier, ; de Becdelievre, Thiol, Santos, & Rottier, ; Gatto, ; Geber, Hensey, Meehan, Moore, & Kador, ; Silva, Leandro, Pereira, Costa, & Valera, ; Silva, Cunha, & Gonçalves, ), it appears to have been restricted to a relatively low number of individuals per structure/site and thus be a marginal funerary practice in recent prehistory (for a review, see Weiss‐Krejci, ). Such diversity in funerary practices has been related to interpopulation differences (Fernández‐Crespo & de‐la‐Rúa, ; Fernández‐Crespo & Schulting, ; López‐Onaindia, Coca, Gibaja, & Subirà, ), intrapopulation social‐cultural differences (Fernández‐Crespo & de‐la‐Rúa, ; Fernández‐Crespo & Schulting, ; Fontanals‐Coll, Subirà, Bonilla, Duboscq, & Gibaja, ; Valera, ), or complex multistage sequences of funerary rites (Hutchinson & Aragon, ).…”

“…Altogether, these represent approximately 75% of the full sample from Pit 40 and associated outer contexts. We further compared the results from Pit 40 with other similar funerary contexts, Pit 16 also from Perdigões (Silva, Leandro, Pereira, et al, ) and the burned human remains from OP2b (Silva et al, ). The latter is a Chalcolithic tholos connected to the corridor of the Dolmen of Olival da Pega 2, 15 km distant from Perdigões, from which skeletal remains were recovered.…”

“…This topic is of acute relevance in Perdigões, a complex set of ditched enclosures in south‐east Portugal that was occupied from the late Middle Neolithic to the early Bronze Age (3500–2000 bc ) and which is interpreted as an aggregation centre of social‐culturally differentiated groups (Valera, ). In Perdigões, different funerary practices coexisted, including cremation and deposition of unburned human remains in collective tombs, pits, and ditches (Silva, Leandro, Valera, Pereira, & Afonso, ; Silva et al, ; Silva, Leandro, Pereira, et al, ). Of particular interest in Perdigões is a circular pit (Pit 40) containing mostly cremated remains (cremains).…”

“…Just next to Pit 40, associated contexts (Ambiente 1 and Cista) contain the cremated remains of many individuals (a minimum of 77 individuals; Pereira, ). Additionally, another nearby pit (Pit 16) in Perdigões exclusively contains the cremains of nine individuals (Silva, Leandro, Pereira, et al, ; Valera & Godinho, ). All these cremation contexts contrast with the remaining noncremation funerary contexts not only in body processing but also because the funerary structures and the associated grave goods differ completely.…”

Cultural changes in the second millennium BC: a Bayesian examination of radiocarbon evidence from Switzerland and Catalonia

“…Moreover, there is evidence of exclusively cremation cemeteries, such as the site of Modlniczka near Krakow in Poland (Czekaj-Zastawny, Mitura and Valde-Nowak 2009;Gil-Drozd 2010), and also single cremation graves, like the one excavated in Gródek on the Bug in Poland (Kempisty 1962). However the phenomenon is not only central European oriented, in fact it should be recalled that recent excavations conducted at the Chalcolithic site of Perdigões in the Alentejo region in Portugal have brought to light burnt human remains recovered from a pit, thus proving the practice of cremating corpses in western Europe during the third millennium BC (Valera et al 2014;Silva et al 2015).…”