The Composition of the São Brás Copper Hoard in Relation to the Bell Beaker Metallurgy in the South-western Iberian Peninsula

A large ceramic vessel was discovered at São Brás (southern Portugal) containing a metallic hoard from the Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age period. These weapons and tools were characterized by microanalytical techniques as being composed of copper with varying arsenic contents (2.2± 1.6 wt%) and minor amounts of lead, bismuth and iron. The collection shows a clear association between daggers and copper with a higher arsenic content, which can be explained by the high status of these silvery alloys. Finally, the compositional distribution of the hoard was compared with the metallurgy of the Bell Beaker and non–Bell Beaker communities inhabiting the south-western Iberian Peninsula.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Información (1948)

49 páginas.- Contiene: La Estación de Estudios Pirenaicos pasa a ser Instituto del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. - Necrología, por L. PERICOT. - OTTO LUTSCHG (1871-1947), por J. M. CASAS-TORRES.- Primera reunión para el estudio de la toponimia pirenaica. - Curso de Historia Medieval en Puigcerdá, por M. DUALDE- SERRANO. - Curso del profesor BRAUN-BLANQUET en Barcelona, por O. de BOLOS. - XI Convenio Internacional de Estudios Ligures, por M. ALMAGRO. - Cartografía americana reciente sobre los Pirineos, por J. VILA-VALENTI.Peer reviewe

Assembling the Dead, Gathering the Living: Radiocarbon Dating and Bayesian Modelling for Copper Age Valencina de la Concepción (Seville, Spain)

The great site of Valencina de la Concepción, near Seville in the lower Guadalquivir valley of southwest Spain, is presented in the context of debate about the nature of Copper Age society in southern Iberia as a whole. Many aspects of the layout, use, character and development of Valencina remain unclear, just as there are major unresolved questions about the kind of society represented there and in southern Iberia, from the late fourth to the late third millennium cal BC. This paper discusses 178 radiocarbon dates, from 17 excavated sectors within the c. 450 ha site, making it the best dated in later Iberian prehistory as a whole. Dates are modelled in a Bayesian statistical framework. The resulting formal date estimates provide the basis for both a new epistemological approach to the site and a much more detailed narrative of its development than previously available. Beginning in the 32nd century cal BC, a long-lasting tradition of simple, mainly collective and often successive burial was established at the site. Mud-vaulted tholoi appear to belong to the 29th or 28th centuries cal BC; large stone-vaulted tholoi such as La Pastora appear to date later in the sequence. There is plenty of evidence for a wide range of other activity, but no clear sign of permanent, large-scale residence or public buildings or spaces. Results in general support a model of increasingly competitive but ultimately unstable social relations, through various phases of emergence, social competition, display and hierarchisation, and eventual decline, over a period of c. 900 years