Tombs for the Dead, Monuments to Eternity: The Deliberate Destruction of Megalithic Graves by Fire in the Interior Highlands of Iberia (Soria Province, Spain)

Abstract

Summary An interpretation of the features surrounding the complex and deliberate closure ritual in several collective Middle Neolithic tombs of the Ambrona Valley (Soria) is offered, where fire and quicklime played a major role in the rituals. The problems involved in the excavation and the understanding of this complex burial evidence are examined. The roles they might have played in the context of the important social and economic transformations of the local Neolithic groups around the end of the fourth millennium cal BC are also analysed. It is argued that the burial rituals tried to reinforce group solidarity at a time when the community was beginning to fragment, as the economic systems began to yield a surplus production whose management would have altered political structures.

At the beginnings of the funerary Megalithism in Iberia at Campo de Hockey necropolis

“…Similar in chronology or slightly later than Campo de Hockey, monumental graves are attested in the Tagus and Douro valleys: e.g. the stone cist at La Peña de La Abuela; the mound at Sima I, in the Ambrona valley 76 , 77 ; and, the dolmen of Azután in Toledo 78 , one of the earliest megaliths in the Iberian Peninsula, along with the foci found in Portugal 68 , 79 , Galicia and the Grupo de Tavernet 66 . Outside the Iberian Peninsula, closed stone chamber structures 66 are found in southern France and Northern Italy; parallels exist in Monte Revincu, Corsica 80 , which are similar to the protomegalithic constructions in Campo de Hockey.…”

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

“…Their locations correspond closely with that of Early Neolithic settlements, demonstrating the link between the earliest farming peoples of central Iberia and megalith-building (Bueno et al 2002;2005a;2015). Also notable are the discovery and investigations of the deliberately burnt charnel houses or 'lime-kiln' tombs (tumbas calero) in the Ambrona valley (Soria), such as La Peña de la Abuela and La Sima Barrow, both dated to 3800-3700 BC (Rojo 1999; Rojo and Kunst 1999Kunst , 2002Görsdorf 2000;Rojo-Guerra et al 2010). Similar kinds of burial structures, comparable in dating, have also been identified in Valladolid and La Rioja.…”

Iconographie funéraire et espace architectural dans les hypogées néolithiques de Sardaigne

“…The thick quicklime crusts covering the sepulchral level in El Miradero (Delibes de Castro et al 1987), La Peña de la Abuela and La Sima gave rise to an interesting hypothesis that argues that a great fire caused the pyrolysis of the chamber limestone blocks (Rojo Guerra et al 2010). An experimental construction of one of these tombs and its subsequent fire indicates that this is possible after 20 tonnes of combustible plants and 35 hours of continuous fire (Rojo Guerra et al 2010). It clears any doubt about the intent of such closure ceremony and opens the door to accept the idea of the common use of fire in the megalithic rituals.…”