RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 Emphasising the community: demographic composition of an exceptional tomb—the Chalcolithic burial site of Camino del Molino, Caravaca de la Cruz, Murcia
A1 Díaz Navarro, Sonia
A1 Haber Uriarte, María
A1 Tejedor Rodríguez, Cristina
A1 Lomba Maurandi, Joaquín
K1 Bioarchaeology
K1 Paleodemography
K1 Copper age
K1 Iberian Peninsula
K1 Collective burial
K1 2416 Paleontología
AB Reconstructing the biological profile of a skeletal sample is essential for defining a particular demographic group or classifying isolated remains. These results allow us to complete the population pyramid of a settlement, analyse mortality trends and relate individuals of a particular sex or age-at-death category to possible funerary rituals, lifestyles and/or states of health and disease. In this work, we carry out a paleodemographic analysis of a singular tomb: the chalcolithic burial site of Camino del Molino, Murcia, SE Spain. The tomb hosted 1348 individuals (30.7% non-adults and 69.3% adults) over two contiguous funerary phases, spanning a large part of the third millennium BC, which makes it a reference site for knowledge of the Recent Prehistoric populations. For this purpose, we estimated different paleodemographic parameters (life tables, mortality rates and sex ratios) and compared them to model life tables of preindustrial populations and data from other contemporary peninsular series to evaluate possible demographic anomalies. The results suggest that Camino del Molino was home to individuals of all ages and sex. However, there is a clear under-representation of newborns and nursing/breastfeeding infants and an over-representation of 5–15-year-old individuals. These findings could indicate potential issues related to diet/weaning, disease and early inclusion in the economic activities of the group.
PB Springer
SN 1866-9557
YR 2023
FD 2023
LK https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/61614
UL https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/61614
LA eng
NO Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2023, vol. 15, n. 9, art. 140.
NO Producción Científica
DS UVaDOC
RD 08-ago-2024