A recent study conducted by researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the University of Murcia (UM) challenges the prevailing idea that warrior groups with “steppe” ancestry from Eastern Europe violently replaced the male population in the Iberian Peninsula around 4,200 years ago.

Instead, it proposes a more nuanced scenario in which these groups integrated with local communities that had already experienced a significant population decline.

This work, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, focuses on the analysis of social and demographic transformation in the southeastern Iberian Peninsula during the transition from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age. In particular, the research team focused on the notable change from communal burials, characteristic of the end of the Copper Age, to individual or double graves that predominated in the society of El Argar, which emerged at the beginning of the Bronze Age around 2200 BCE.

The researchers analyzed an extensive set of radiocarbon (C14) dates obtained from human remains found in about fifteen sites in southeastern Iberia. The results showed two notable patterns: first, the change from communal to individual burials seems to have been quite rapid; second, there was a peak in the number of people buried between 2550 and 2400 BCE, followed by a marked decline between 2300 and 2250 BCE.

Left: Tomb 80 from the site of La Almoloya (Pliego, Murcia). Example of a characteristic Argaric Bronze Age burial. Right: Gatas site (Turre, Almería), where one of the oldest Argaric graves was found.
Left: Tomb 80 from the site of La Almoloya (Pliego, Murcia). Example of a characteristic Argaric Bronze Age burial. Right: Gatas site (Turre, Almería), where one of the oldest Argaric graves was found. Credit: ASOME-UAB

For the researchers, the second finding is particularly relevant from a demographic perspective. According to Rafael Micó, a professor at the UAB and co-director of the Research Group in Social and Mediterranean Archaeoecology (ASOME-UAB), the data suggest that the local population in southeastern Iberia was already very small about 4,300 years ago, just before the arrival of groups with new “steppe” genetic components. When these groups arrived around 2200-2000 BCE, they mixed with local communities that were already small or lived in less populated areas.

This scenario diverges from the idea of a massive and violent invasion. Previous archaeogenetic research also points to the lack of a “male bias” among the groups with steppe ancestry in the peninsula, suggesting that the narrative of warrior invasions that annihilated local males to establish a male elite may be a simplistic and sensationalist interpretation, according to Cristina Rihuete Herrada, a professor at the UAB and co-author of the study.

The study argues that social transformations in Western and Central Europe during that period could have had multiple causes, such as climate change or the spread of diseases, rather than a violent invasion. Thus, instead of a rapid and brutal population replacement, there could have been a gradual integration within a context of already demographically weakened communities.

The authors conclude that more studies, with more precise radiocarbon dating and additional genetic analysis, are needed to better understand the complex processes of change that shaped the formation of Bronze Age societies in southern Iberia. These data will be crucial to deepen the understanding of this important historical transition.

SOURCES

Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona

Rafael Micó, Eva Celdrán Beltrán, et al., Tracing social disruptions over time using radiocarbon datasets: Copper and Early Bronze Ages in Southeast Iberia. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (2024). doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2024.104692

  • Share on:

Discover more from LBV Magazine English Edition

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.

Follow LBV Magazine on Google News