Marine bioerosion in rocks of the prehistoric tholos of La Pastora (Valencina de la Concepción, Seville, Spain): archaeological and palaeoenvironmental implications

Assembling the Dead, Gathering the Living: Radiocarbon Dating and Bayesian Modelling for Copper Age Valencina de la Concepción (Seville, Spain)

“…Three radiocarbon results on shells from within bioerosion perforations in two of the calcareous sandstone passage capstones have been previously reported (Cáceres Puro et al 2014 , Table 1; Table 2 ). As these are the remains of organisms which live in the intertidal zone, they must have burrowed into the rock before it was removed from the shore and used in the construction of the tomb.…”

“…Geophysical survey of its immediate vicinity has shown many features, including some large ditches (Vargas Jiménez, Meyer and Ortega Gordillo 2012 ). Its building materials have been geologically characterised, and attempts have been made to date its construction through radiocarbon analysis of the marine shells present in some of the corridor’s capstones (Cáceres Puro et al 2014 ). A remarkable characteristic of La Pastora’s design is its anomalous astronomical orientation, which at 243° faces southwest, unlike the majority of southern Iberian megalithic monuments, which face sunrise (Hoskin 2001 ).…”

“…Since all the dated shells appear to date from a time when upwelling occurred along this stretch of coast, the Marine13 calibration curve (Reimer et al 2013 ) and a mean ΔR correction of 180 ± 66 BP (Matos Martins and Monge Soares 2013 , p. 1130) have been used. The two dates on shells from capstone 16 have been combined after calibration on the basis that both are likely to have lived very shortly before the rock was quarried, or the shells would not have survived (Cáceres Puro et al 2014 , p. 443). Both this combined date and that from the shell within capstone 6 are interpreted as termini post quos for both the construction of the monument, and for the phase of activity related to the use of the tomb represented by the other dated samples.…”

“…This paper presents formal chronological models for a selection of mortuary and other contexts from Valencina de la Concepción, blending 30 of the 40 radiocarbon measurements relating to the Copper Age use of the site that have already been published (García Sanjuán 2013 , pp. 26–27; Cáceres Puro et al 2014 , Table 1) with a total of 138 new ones, obtained as part of a multi-partner collaborative effort. A total of 29 new measurements were obtained by the University of Seville between 2011 and 2012; eight results were obtained by the University of Huelva in 2014–2015; and 96 new determinations were obtained in the course of a major European Research Council-funded project, The Times of Their Lives (ToTL), between 2013 and 2015.…”

Veinte años de arqueología de la Prehistoria tardía en la Península Ibérica. Mirando hacia atrás y hacia adelante

“…These include flint (Lozano et al 2010;Afonso et al 2011), amphibolite (Lillios 1997), obsidian (from Sardinia) (Terradas et al 2014), variscite (Odriozola et al 2010;Villalobos andOdriozola 2016), cinnabar (Hunt-Ortiz et al 2011;Domingo et al 2012), ochre (Capel et al 2006), ivory (Schuhmacher and Banerjee 2012;Schuhmacher et al 2009;, and amber (from Sicily) (Murillo-Barroso and García Sanjuán 2013; Murillo-Barroso and Martinón-Torres 2012). The characterization and sourcing of megalithic stones was undertaken at Vale de Rodrigo (Évora) (Kalb 1996), the antas of Rabuje (Portalegre) (Boaventura 2000), La Pastora (Sevilla) (Cáceres et al 2014), Montelirio (Sevilla) (Borja and Borja 2016), and Menga (Málaga) (Carrión et al 2010;Lozano et al 2014). These studies have demonstrated that megalithic stones were often transported some distance (such as 8 km, in the case of the capstone at Rabuje 1), although more local stones were also used.…”