Departamento de Prehistoria y Arqueología

An ivory workshop in the Bronze Age site of Fuente Álamo was located with bracelets, pearls, a comb and also raw and waste materials. Furthermore other sites with ivory studies are discussed and the use and importation of a great variety of ivories during the second millennium B.C. in "El Argar Culture".

""This paper present a first approach to the Calcolithic
settlement of “Camino de las Yeseras” in which a third
millenium BC occupation has been documented. During the
transition to the second millenium BC, Bell Beaker groups
appear in the sequence. They exploit new lithic resources,
adapt their domestic stock for increased mobility, and practice
new diversified funerary rituals in the settlement. The
temporal framework is supported by a sequence of many
C14 and TL dates.

Key words: Calcolithic settlement. Bell Beaker. Tagus
Valley. Funerary practices.""

"The aim of this paper is double. Our first aim is to evaluate the most relevant architectural characteristics and artifacts of the site at Camino de las Yeseras, in Madrid region, during pre-Bell Beaker and Bell Beaker periods. The second purpose in our minds is to find out what could be the social implications of integrating the Bell-Beaker culture into a Chalcolitic hut pit settlement, firmly rooted from the beginning of the third millennium to the beginning of the second (cal BC). Without discarding that this location works as a central place, due to its size, its strategic location -an area in which most basic resources were available — and its architectural complexity — great excavated hut pits, ditched enclosures, high
number of pits, channels, postholes, trenchs burials in pit- what really makes Bell Beaker phase different is its domestic architecture due to of its reduction in size, its spatial concentration with its remarkable development of pits in which previous phase house structures are maintained. Although Bell-Beaker ware introduces new shapes and decoration, at first of the comb decorated maritime style and latter on with incised decoration of Ciempozuelos style, the traditional pottery manufacture is maintained. It has to be taken into account that the use of Bell Beaker ware is not domestic but mainly burial in
purpose. This Bell-Beaker ware is linked to single or double burials in pit that present richer grave goods than collective
burials. This fact seems to confirm the existence of a relation between Bell-Beaker ware and metallurgic production, as well
as other resources exploitation, probably as a mark of exclusiveness on the part of some of Bell-Beaker individuals."

"The paper documents what can probably be considered the last megafaunal extinction event in the Iberian Peninsula, namely that of the half-ass locally called zebro or encebro, from a double toponymic and historiographica perspective. Since there are serious hints that this animal might correspond to the Equus hydruntinus of the european pleistocene, the work constitutes what will be a fisrt attempt to solve this long-standing paleontological riddle, a riddle in which archaeozoological findings are already starting to provide data as well.

KEYWORDS: ENCEBRO, ZEBRO, ONAGER. HALF-ASS, Equus hydruntinus, IBERIA, EXTINCTlON, TOPONYMS, HISTORICAL SOURCE"

In the present work the main findings of a duoble pit deposit of the Bronze Age settlement La Fábrica de Ladrillos are exposed. Whereas the ceramic remains on the button of a characteristic Protocogotas horizon seem to correspond with amortized materials, possibly used to seal the deposit and some líthic artefacts are also amortized, although varied in their origin, the faunal remains are very abundant and well preserved. In the recovered bones are frecuent articulated portions of the axial and appendicular skeleton of at least five young cattle that seem to indicate the use of this taxa in aspects that extend beyond their traditional use obtaining the primary and secondary products.

"This paper is a preliminary notification of an experimental program concerning works performed on miscellaneous raw materials with various types of saws. Despite the performance limitations that this type of testing convey in the control of certain variables, we have tried from an experimental perspective to tackle a series of classical clichés, frequently quoted in bibliographies, in which, among others, the functional nature of some tools made of almost pure copper or with arsenic impurities is questioned. As a result of which it has been proposed that artefacts made out of bronze are much more “functiona”l and “resistant” than those made out of other materials.
In order to test some of the previously mentioned arguments we have considered it convenient to experiment with non-compact and fragile tools such as saws. Three medium size saws were manufactured according to morphological criteria of Argaric pieces. In terms of metallurgical composition, the first one was made out of a hundred per cent pure copper plate, the second was made out of arsenical copper (As-2%), and finally the third one out of bronze (Sn-10%). The raw materials used for this experimental program were green olive tree wood, a soaked red deer antler and a fresh bovine femur. The saw process was performed in a stepped shape, and the profiles were registered respectively at intervals of one, five, and ten minutes.
The results achieved with the copper saw were surprising not only because of its capacity to saw hard raw materials, but also for its strength. It was used for a period of almost an hour and its original morphology was hardly altered. However, when the results of this saw were compared to those of the other two saws a lesser “efficiency” was detected when it was used to saw the antler or the bone. It was quite evident that under the same pressure and time requirements its effect on the raw material was very limited (Figures 4-6). When the experiment was concluded, the copper saw only showed that the cutting edge laterals were slightly more polished, and its tooth had a minor abrasion, while the arsenic copper and the bronze saws presented very few macroscopic traces. Another interesting result that came out of the trial was the slim difference between the sawing capability of the arsenical copper saw and the bronze one. The results obtained with the former presented a wider spectrum depending on the raw material employed: less depth in the wood and a more in the other two raw materials, but in both cases there were no relevant differences. With the appropriate precautions, due to the fact that not all the variables were tackled, the “efficiency” and “resistance” results obtained with the arsenical saw were more similar to the ones of the bronze saw than those of the copper saw. Thanks to the forging process of the arsenic copper saw, the degree of hardness reached goes beyond that of the cast bronze, but those results will be the subject of future trials."

"The focus of this study is the analysis of a trepanation performed on the skull of an adult male from the famous Bell Beaker necropolis of Ciempozuelos (Madrid) excavated at the end of the 19th century. The unusual characteristics of the pottery and other associated grave goods gave rise to the use of the name ‘Ciempozuelos’ to define the regional Bell Beaker style; this refers to similar finds from other sites on the Meseta of central Spain. Although trepanations from Chalcolithic contexts in the Iberian peninsula are not infrequent, they are unusual in Bell Beaker inhumations. Furthermore, this skull is exceptional not only for the type of trepanation performed, but also for the subsequent cranial deformation apparently resulting from the operation, as well as evidence of a second subsequent trepanation which indicates a very short post-surgical survival period for the individual.

Copyright 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Key words: trepanation; Bell Beaker; Ciempozuelos; Iberian peninsula"

"Five specialized studies about a young Argaric woman’s ostentatious tomb are presented. Starting from this singular burial, several aspects are discussed: the Argaric funerary ritual and the social rank of the dead individuals; the calibrated C-14 dates from Fuente Álamo, particularly from the south slope of the site; the human bones found in the graves at Fuente Álamo in 1996-1999; the offering of animals and liquids in Argaric burials; the prehistoric weaves.
All of these contributions bring us valuable information about
the young woman buried in grave 111, not only when she died
but also how the society where she lived was.

Key words: Fuente Álamo. Bronze Age. Radiocarbon dates.
Mortuary practice. Organic offerings. Animal offering. Textile.
Social rank."

From the faunal sample recovered in different Chalcolithic features, it is striking the high ratio of consumed domestic animals over the hunted species. At present, the apparent scarcity of bird, reptile, fish, mollusk and mite remains appear in punctual contexts, and their main interest as environmental indicators indeed is.
Although a comprehensive evaluation of the role played by fauna - from both spatial and chronological perspectives - remains to be assessed, during the Chalcolithic occupation cattle exploitation from porcine, sheep and goat is enhanced. The distribution from the different structures varies, but we must point out that porcine has a similar to the ovicaprine.
In livestock management, the inhabitants from Camino de las Yeseras take advantage of the young animals (tender meat) and the adults are primarily exploited for secondary products (milk derivatives and their active strength). The senile animals are rarely found, providing additional evidence for the wealth of their stock.
In some cases, faunal remains also appear in funerary contexts, as offerings deposited near the burial, or as possible evidence of feasting practices with a different spatial distribution depending on the anatomic part, uniquely observed in a Bell Beakers tomb. In other cases, we find ritual deposits of aurochs crania and of dogs, some of them located in strategic spatial distribution.

Over the last few years, thousands of bovine bone remains were recovered from Camino de las Yeseras, selected and cleaned. Almost a hundred aurochs (Bos primigenius, Boj.) bones were found in different contexts. Two crania found in peculiar deposits, prompted us to perform a more comprehensive study beyond traditional archaeozoological, osteomorpho-logical and metrical characterization. Close cooperation between the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Palaeogenome group of the Jacques Monod Institute, enabled us to successfully carry out a palaeogenetic study of these bone remains, which along with being integrated into a larger study of the genetic diversity of aurochsen, yielded new and interesting results on a more local scale as well, i.e., on the genetic population structure of recent Holocene aurochsen of the Iberian Peninsula.