Vida cotidiana, Sociedad y Control Territorial en el Entorno Circumpirenaico Occidental: el Castillo Medieval de Irulegi (Valle de Aranguren, Navarra)

The Irulegi castle, located at the top of Mountain Irulegi or Peña de Lakidain (Aranguren, Valley), is one of the most outstanding examples of medieval castles within the Kingdom of Navarre. The castle was built for defensive purposes and to control the surrounding territory between the 11th and early 12th centuries, adn it was occupied unineterruptedly until the end of the 15th century. The materials presented in this article constitute a varied repertoire that includes typical elements of daily life related to food, farmig, crafts, warfare, and the use of leisure time, as well as material evidence of other activities such as religious activities and ostentation. This paper presents an overview of all of them to define the main features of the remains of the movable elements of this fortified settlement and their significance for the study of everyday life and medieval society from the reality of the materiality of a fortress.El castillo de Irulegi, localizado en la cima del monte Irulegi o Peña de Lakidain (Valle de Aranguren), es uno de los ejemplos más destacados del Reino de Navarra. El castillo se erigió con finalidades defensivas y de control del territorio circundante. Su inicio se encuentra entre el siglo XI y principios del XII, y muestra una ocupación ininterrumpida hasta finales del siglo XV. Los materiales que se presentan en este trabajo constituyen elementos propios de la vida cotidiana referentes a la alimentación, actividades agropecuarias, actividades artesanales y bélicas, o el empleo del tiempo de ocio, y que atestiguan, además, las evidencias materiales de otras actividades como las religiosas y de ostentación. Este trabajo presenta una visión de conjunto a fin de definir los principales rasgos de los restos de elementos muebles de este asentamiento fortificado y su trascendencia para el estudio de la vida cotidiana y la sociedad medieval desde la realidad de la materialidad de una fortaleza

To the Field of Stars : Stable isotope analysis of Medieval pilgrims and populations along the Camino de Santiago in Navarre and Aragon, Spain

The Camino de Santiago emerged in the first half of the 9th century CE following the reported discovery of the remains of the Apostle St James by the bishop of Iria-Flavia, Teodomiro. Since then, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims have walked from different parts of the Iberian Peninsula, Europe, and further afield to Santiago de Compostela's Cathedral. This route was particularly important to the populations of Navarre and Aragon, two kingdoms in northern Spain that rose to prominence with the resurgence of Christianity from the 11th century onwards. Here, we present multidisciplinary analysis of medieval individuals buried in Navarre and Aragon at a time when the Camino de Santiago was reaching its peak of popularity (11th-15th centuries CE). We use stable isotope analysis (δ15N, δ13C, δ18O, and δ13Cap) and radiocarbon dating to investigate a total of 82 human individuals together with 42 fauna samples from 8 different archaeological sites located in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula. Twenty of these individuals were buried with a scallop shell, a symbol of a pilgrim who had completed the Camino de Santiago. Our data corroborate the use of the pilgrim's shell since at least the 11th century CE. Moreover, our results suggest that the pilgrimage was mainly an urban phenomenon for populations from the northern Iberian Peninsula, conducted equally by women and men, although with indications that female pilgrims may have had greater access to animal protein than their male counterparts. Our results represent the largest isotopic dataset of medieval individuals linked to the Camino de Santiago, allowing us to further investigate the origins and diets of potential pilgrims and, more generally, other sampled portions of northeastern Iberian society

The genetic history of Scandinavia from the Roman Iron Age to the present

The authors acknowledge support from the National Genomics Infrastructure in Stockholm funded by Science for Life Laboratory, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and the Swedish Research Council, and SNIC/Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science for assistance with massively parallel sequencing and access to the UPPMAX computational infrastructure. We used resources from projects SNIC 2022/23-132, SNIC 2022/22-117, SNIC 2022/23-163, SNIC 2022/22-299, and SNIC 2021-2-17. This research was supported by the Swedish Research Council project ID 2019-00849_VR and ATLAS (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond). Part of the modern dataset was supported by a research grant from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), grant number 16/RC/3948, and co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund and by FutureNeuro industry partners.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela: Osteological and Biomolecular analysis of medieval individuals

335 p.En el trabajo de investigación desarrollado dentro de la tesis doctoral titulada Pilgrimage to Santiago deCompostela: Osteological and Biomolecular Analisis of Medieval Individuals, se busca dilucidar cómo sedesarrolló la sociedad en el centro y a lo largo de la principal ruta de peregrinación europea durante laEdad Media, el Camino de Santiago. Por medio de una combinación de análisis osteológicos, isótoposestables y de dataciones de C14, se estudian las migraciones humanaspasadas y sus implicaciones sociales y económicas tras examinar a 359 individuos (196 humanos, 163fauna) procedente de 28 yacimientos arqueológicos localizados a lo largo del norte de la PenínsulaIbérica y con una cronología de entre los siglos IX-XV d.C

Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela: Osteological and Biomolecular analysis of medieval individuals

335 p.En el trabajo de investigación desarrollado dentro de la tesis doctoral titulada Pilgrimage to Santiago deCompostela: Osteological and Biomolecular Analisis of Medieval Individuals, se busca dilucidar cómo sedesarrolló la sociedad en el centro y a lo largo de la principal ruta de peregrinación europea durante laEdad Media, el Camino de Santiago. Por medio de una combinación de análisis osteológicos, isótoposestables y de dataciones de C14, se estudian las migraciones humanaspasadas y sus implicaciones sociales y económicas tras examinar a 359 individuos (196 humanos, 163fauna) procedente de 28 yacimientos arqueológicos localizados a lo largo del norte de la PenínsulaIbérica y con una cronología de entre los siglos IX-XV d.C

Social elite from the power centre of Late Antique Gallaecia? Revisiting San Bartolomé de Rebordáns (Tui, Spain)

AbstractIn this paper, we discuss novel and existing archaeological data from the San Bartolomé de Rebordáns site (Tui, Spain) that suggest the importance of Tude as a place of power in the Late Antique Sueve Gallaecia (411–585 CE) and later, in the Iberian Visigoth kingdom (585–711 CE). Here, we apply a combination of complementary techniques: archaeological survey, absolute radiocarbon dating, osteological and stable isotope analyses of the human remains, and the revision of the available contextual information. We recovered the remains of seven individuals with poor preservation and accelerated degradation from the Late Antique necropolis. These individuals were identified here as possible members of the social elite due to their archaeological context, becoming the first-time human remains relative to this social status within this chronology have been detected in NW Iberian Peninsula. The isotopic data obtained is broadly compared with contemporaneous sites along the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands for a complete interpretation. Additionally, we generate a simple routed and concentration-dependent Bayesian model to predict the source of dietary carbon in consumers, from which we calculate the marine radiocarbon reservoir effect. Despite the low number of individuals analysed, we argue that our results are of great archaeological significance as this represents the first biomolecular approach to the Late Antique (5th–8th centuries CE) social elite individuals from the northwestern and probably the whole Iberian Peninsula

Unravelling social status in the first medieval military order of the Iberian Peninsula using isotope analysis

Abstract Medieval Iberia witnessed the complex negotiation of religious, social, and economic identities, including the formation of religious orders that played a major role in border disputes and conflicts. While archival records provide insights into the compositions of these orders, there have been few direct dietary or osteoarchaeological studies to date. Here, we analysed 25 individuals discovered at the Zorita de los Canes Castle church cemetery, Guadalajara, Spain, where members of one of the first religious orders, the Order of Calatrava knights, were buried between the 12th to 15th centuries CE. Stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope analyses of bone collagen reveal dietary patterns typical of the Medieval social elite, with the Bayesian R model, ‘Simmr’ suggesting a diet rich in poultry and marine fish in this inland population. Social comparisons and statistical analyses further support the idea that the order predominantly comprised the lower nobility and urban elite in agreement with historical sources. Our study suggests that while the cemetery primarily served the order's elite, the presence of individuals with diverse dietary patterns may indicate complexities of temporal use or wider social interaction of the medieval military order

Origin and Health Status of First-Generation Africans from Early Colonial Mexico

The forced relocation of several thousand Africans during Mexico’s historic period has so far been documented mostly through archival sources, which provide only sparse detail on their origins and lived experience. Here, we employ a bioarchaeological approach to explore the life history of three 16th century Africans from a mass burial at the San José de los Naturales Royal Hospital in Mexico City. Our approach draws together ancient genomic data, osteological analysis, strontium isotope data from tooth enamel, δ13C and δ15N isotope data from dentine, and ethnohistorical information to reveal unprecedented detail on their origins and health. Analyses of skeletal features, radiogenic isotopes, and genetic data from uniparental, genome-wide, and human leukocyte antigen (HLA) markers are consistent with a Sub-Saharan African origin for all three individuals. Complete genomes of Treponema pallidum sub. pertenue (causative agent of yaws) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) recovered from these individuals provide insight into their health as related to infectious disease. Phylogenetic analysis of both pathogens reveals their close relationship to strains circulating in current West African populations, lending support to their origins in this region. The further relationship between the treponemal genome retrieved and a treponemal genome previously typed in an individual from Colonial Mexico highlights the role of the transatlantic slave trade in the introduction and dissemination of pathogens into the New World. Putting together all lines of evidence, we were able to create a biological portrait of three individuals whose life stories have long been silenced by disreputable historical events