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Tracing the chronology of neolithic pit and stone box burials in North-eastern Iberia
This paper sets out how to approach the chronology of an archaeological funerary practice, through a specific case study: the Neolithic âPit Burialsâ funerary horizon of the northeastern Iberian Peninsula. Towards the end of the fifth millennium cal BC, the communities settled in this region began to systematically bury a large part of their population in individual, occasionally double, pits or stone boxes burials. Clear similarities have been documented with other neolithic European funerary horizons, such as the âChassĂ©enâ in France or the âCortaillodâ in Switzerland, that suggest that it could be a larger-scale phenomenon. However, up to now the chronology of âPit Burialsâ has not been fully defined, so describing and explaining this phenomenon both regionally and globally has been difficult. This paper fills this gap by presenting, on the one hand, new unpublished radiocarbon dates, addressing the methodological possibilities of statistical analysis and Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon dates in order to specify the chronology of funerary contexts. The results presented here not only show the chronology of the âPit Burialsâ, and its relationship with the other similar European burials, from this methodological point of view for the first time, but also the methodological advantages of these statistical tools in order to specify the chronology of any other archaeological funerary practice.Peer Reviewe