New radiocarbon dating and demographic insights into San Juan ante Portam Latinam, a possible Late Neolithic war grave in North‐Central Iberia

Abstract

It is proposed that San Juan ante Portam Latinam was used as burial place for the mainly adolescent and adult male dead of a particular or multiple violent engagements (e.g., battles), while previously or subsequently seeing use for attritional burial by other members of one or more surrounding communities dead over the course of a few generations. The overall bias towards males, particularly to the extent that many may represent conflict mortality, has implications for the structure of the surviving community, the members of which may have experienced increased vulnerability in the face of neighboring aggressors.

Multi-isotope evidence for the emergence of cultural alterity in Late Neolithic Europe

“…Horizontal differentiation often leads to vertical differentiation (49), and our results suggest that this was the case in the Late Neolithic Rioja Alavesa. We further suggest that divergent beliefs and lifestyles could have been a source of tension and competition, on occasion escalating into lethal violence (20).…”

Nueva serie de dataciones radiocarbónicas sobre hueso humano para el dolmen de Los Zumacales (Simancas, Valladolid). Reflexiones sobre la temporalidad del fenómeno megalítico en la Meseta Norte

“…Este primer modelo, aunque estadísticamente sólido, encajaría dentro de la clásica interpretación de los dólmenes como "tumbas para la eternidad" (Delibes 2000: 301; Delibes y Rojo 2002: 29). Este largo uso diacrónico y apertura recurrente (Delibes 1995(Delibes , 2010 últimamente se cuestiona gracias a las nuevas series de dataciones dolménicas que proponen algunas secuencias de uso más bien cortas (Fernández-Eraso y Mújika 2013; Aranda y Lozano 2014; Aranda et al 2017;Fernández-Crespo et al 2018), cuando no clausuras inmediatas tras el uso inicial, como se defiende a propósito de las tumbas-calero del Valle de Ambrona (Rojo Guerra et al 2005).…”

The human remains from the Lumentxa cave (Lekeitio, Biscay, Northern Iberian Peninsula): Paleobiology, Taphonomy and Chronology

“…The site of San Juan Ante Portam Latinam, which yielded 338 individuals, is well known for the discovery of several individuals who died during warfare and were buried simultaneously (Etxeberria and Vegas, 1988;Etxeberria and Herrasti, 2007;Fernández-Crespo, 2007). Additionally, there is evidence for the rearrangement of some individuals, mostly cranial remains, into a corner in order to leave more space for new inhumations (Fernández-Crespo et al, 2018). Another interesting characteristic of this site is that it is geographically surrounded by several megalith structures (Vegas et al, 1999(Vegas et al, , 2012Fernández-Crespo and De la Rúa, 2015).…”

“…The study of recent prehistoric populations has been very variable in the WP. There are detailed reports for some sites (e.g., Santimamiñe, Pico Ramos or San Juan Ante Portam Latinam; De la Rúa, 1990;Zapata, 1995;Baraybar and De la Rúa, 1995;Etxeberria and Herrasti, 2007;Herrasti and Etxeberria, 2011;López Quintana et al, 2015;Fernández-Crespo et al, 2018). Others, despite having been the focus of ancient DNA analysis, have not been studied in detail until very recently (e.g., Atxuri; García-Sagastibelza, 2017; García-Sagastibelza et al, in this volume).…”

“…We also lack a general understanding of the Holocene dwellers of WP, with little basic information such as average stature, lifestyle and mortuary behaviour, both due to preservation bias but also because many studies have centred on the cranium. The application of taphonomic and forensic techniques have provided important new insights into the mortuary practices of extinct species (Sala et al, 2015a(Sala et al, , 2015bRougier et al, 2016;Gómez-Olivencia et al, 2018a), but these techniques have only been partially applied recent prehistoric sites in the WP, specifically to certain sites with evidence of violence (Etxeberria and Herrasti, 2007;Fernández-Crespo, 2007, 2015Fernández-Crespo et al, 2018). Finally, advances in imaging techniques offer new ways to study long bones which can provide important information regarding the paleobiology of past human populations, including important aspects such as sexual dimorphism, mobility or subsistence strategy Ruff, 2018a, but such methods have not been widely applied in the Iberian Peninsula (but see .…”