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

Earliest evidence of pollution by heavy metals in archaeological sites

Homo species were exposed to a new biogeochemical environment when they began to occupy caves. Here we report the first evidence of palaeopollution through geochemical analyses of heavy metals in four renowned archaeological caves of the Iberian Peninsula spanning the last million years of human evolution. Heavy metal contents reached high values due to natural (guano deposition) and anthropogenic factors (e.g. combustion) in restricted cave environments. The earliest anthropogenic pollution evidence is related to Neanderthal hearths from Gorham's Cave (Gibraltar), being one of the first milestones in the so-called “Anthropocene”. According to its heavy metal concentration, these sediments meet the present-day standards of “contaminated soil”. Together with the former, the Gibraltar Vanguard Cave, shows Zn and Cu pollution ubiquitous across highly anthropic levels pointing to these elements as potential proxies for human activities. Pb concentrations in Magdalenian and Bronze age levels at El Pirulejo site can be similarly interpreted. Despite these high pollution levels, the contaminated soils might not have posed a major threat to Homo populations. Altogether, the data presented here indicate a long-term exposure of Homo to these elements, via fires, fumes and their ashes, which could have played certain role in environmental-pollution tolerance, a hitherto neglected influence.Francisco J. Jiménez Palacios and to the Analytical Chemistry Department (Sevilla University) are gratefully acknowledged for their help in the use of Carbolite electric oven. A.G.-A. was supported by a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship of the 7th Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration (European Commission). R.B. is a Beatriu de Pinós-A post-doctoral fellowship recipient (Generalitat de Catalunya and COFUND Marie Curie Actions, EU-FP7). This work also was partially financed by projects 19434/PI/14 Fundación Séneca, HARP2013-44269P, CGL-BOS-2012-34717, CGL2012-38434-C03-03 and CGL2012-38358 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, 2014 SGR 900 and 2014/100573 Generalitat de Catalunya-AGAUR, RNM 432 Research Group 179 (Junta de Andalucia) and MEXT-Japan

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Genetic Variation in the Iberian Lynx along Its Path to Extinction Reconstructed with Ancient DNA

There is the tendency to assume that endangered species have been both genetically and demographically healthier in the past, so that any genetic erosion observed today was caused by their recent decline. The Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) suffered a dramatic and continuous decline during the 20th century, and now shows extremely low genome- and specieswide genetic diversity among other signs of genomic erosion. We analyze ancient (N¼10), historical (N¼245), and contemporary (N¼172) samples with microsatellite and mitogenome data to reconstruct the species’ demography and investigate patterns of genetic variation across space and time. Iberian lynx populations transitioned from low but significantly higher genetic diversity than today and shallow geographical differentiation millennia ago, through a structured metapopulation with varying levels of diversity during the last centuries, to two extremely genetically depauperate and differentiated remnant populations by 2002. The historical subpopulations show varying extents of genetic drift in relation to their recent size and time in isolation, but these do not predict whether the populations persisted or went finally extinct. In conclusion, current genetic patterns were mainly shaped by genetic drift, supporting the current admixture of the two genetic pools and calling for a comprehensive genetic management of the ongoing conservation program. This study illustrates how a retrospective analysis of demographic and genetic patterns of endangered species can shed light onto their evolutionary history and this, in turn, can inform conservation actions

Análisis polínico del yacimiento arqueológico de La Junta (Puebla de Guzmán, Huelva)

12 páginas[ES] El yacimiento arqueológico de La Junta, en la comarca onubense del Andévalo (suroeste de la Península Ibérica), comprende un intervalo temporal de unos 400 años adscritos a la primera mitad del Tercer Milenio antes de nuestra era. La interpretación del registro polínico, así como de las evidencias arqueológicas, sugieren el impacto que la minería y producción temprana del cobre ejercería sobre la vegetación en la zona de estudio. Se describen también algunas secuencias contemporáneas que reflejan procesos de degradación del medio, como la del Cabezo Juré en Alosno, Huelva, que desarrolla y establece una economía claramente vinculada a la explotación del cobre.[EN] The archaeological excavation in La Junta (Huelva), in southwestern Iberia, shows evidence of anthropogenic disturbance over the landscape as a result of a well-based metallurgical activity in the region during the fi rst half of the Third Millenium BC. Detail concerning other contemporary sequences is given as well in order to reveal the main factors shaping the landscape.Peer reviewe

Bio-markers detected by pyrolysis (PY-GC/MS) in earliest copper metallurgy (c. 5000 Cal BP) in the south-western iberian pyrite belt (Húelva, Spain)

2 pages, 1 figure, 2 references.-- Póster presentado al citado congreso en la Sesión 1: Archeology (A) Nº 571.-- Book of Abstracts of the Communications presented to the 26th International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry (IMOG), held in Costa Adeje, Tenerife – Spain, September 15 – 20, 2013.Located at the centre of the foremost mining district on the Iberian Peninsula (the South-Western Iberian Pyrite Belt), the settlement of Cabezo Juré (Alosno, Huelva, Spain), some 2 ha in area, represents the occupational model that structures the organisation of this mining territory (Nocete, 2006). The excavation of over 50% of it's surface, fourteen radiocarbon dating taken through its building sequence and a systematic and integral study of its site, show that there were two stages in its occupation (Nocete et al., 2011).Peer reviewe

Una base de datos de isótopos de plomo para mineralizaciones de cobre en el Valle del Guadalquivir y áreas adyacentes

The Guadalquivir River Valley constitutes the main geographic environment for the earliest development of political structures in the South of the Iberian Peninsula. The inception of Cu-metallurgy over the millennia 4th to 2nd BC in this region coincides with the rise of social complexity as well as the strategic control of the territory based on the command of the supply of mineral resources. One of the main tools in the study of metallurgical processes and goods movement is the analysis of metal provenance by means of Pb isotope composition. This study includes 98 new Pb isotope analyses performed on Cu mineralizations, many of them with archaeological evidence of exploitation by the first metallurgical societies. The results provided here represent a substantial complement to those presented in published databases and allow for a better discrimination of potential sources for raw material supply of minerals used in the metallurgical processes. The existence of uncertainties introduced by the overlapping of Pb-isotope signatures of Cu-ores obtained from different geological contexts and presence of radiogenic Pb in a number of samples is pointed out.El Valle del Río Guadalquivir representa el principal entorno geográfico del primer desarrollo de estructuras políticas en el Sur de la Península Ibérica. El establecimiento de la metalurgia del cobre a lo largo del cuarto al segundo milenio a. C. en esta región coincide con el inicio de la complejidad social y el control estratégico del territorio basados en el control del suministro de recursos minerales. Una de las herramientas principales para el estudio de los procesos metalúrgicos y el transporte de objetos se basa en el análisis de la procedencia de los metales a partir de la composición isotópica del Pb. El presente estudio incluye 98 nuevos análisis de isótopos de Pb de mineralizaciones de Cu, en muchos casos con evidencias arqueológicas de explotación por las primeras sociedades metalúrgicas. Los resultados que se presentan constituyen un complemento significativo a los existentes en las bases de datos publicadas y permiten una mejor identificación de las fuentes potenciales de materias primas para el suminstro de minerales utilizados en los procesos metalúrgicos. El estudio también evidencia incertidumbres debidas al solapamiento de la signatura isotópica de Pb en menas de Cu procedentes de diferentes contextos geológicos así como la presencia de Pb radiogénico en algunas muestras.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Definition of redox and pH influence in the AMD mine system using a fuzzy qualitative tool (Iberian Pyrite Belt, SW Spain)

Poderosa Mine is an abandoned pyrite mine, located in the Iberian Pyrite Belt which pours its acid mine drainage (AMD) waters into the Odiel river (South-West Spain). This work focuses on establishing possible reasons for interdependence between the potential redox and pH, with the load of metals and sulfates, as well as a set of variables that define the physical chemistry of the water-conductivity, temperature, TDS, and dissolved oxygen-transported by a channel from Poderosa mine affected by acid mine drainage, through the use of techniques of artificial intelligence: fuzzy logic and data mining. The sampling campaign was carried out in May of 2012. There were a total of 16 sites, the first inside the tunnel and the last at the mouth of the river Odiel, with a distance of approximately 10 m between each pair of measuring stations. While the tools of classical statistics, which are widely used in this context, prove useful for defining proximity ratios between variables based on Pearson's correlations, in addition to making it easier to handle large volumes of data and producing easier-to-understand graphs, the use of fuzzy logic tools and data mining results in better definition of the variations produced by external stimuli on the set of variables. This tool is adaptable and can be extrapolated to any system polluted by acid mine drainage using simple, intuitive reasoning.The study is a contribution to the DGCICYT-CGL2010-21268-C02-01 project, which is financed by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, and the Andalusian Autonomous Government Excellence Project, code P06-RNM-02167.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio