Kinship and Residence in Copper Age Iberia: Insights from aDNA and Strontium Isotope Analyses

Societies that inhabited Iberia in the third millennium BCE transitioned through profound changes related to economy, settlement patterns, religion or social organization. These transformations would lead to the conformation of a completely different system in the Bronze Age. Understanding both the...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Cintas Peña, Marta, Herrero Corral, Ana Mercedes
Tipo de recurso: capítulo de libro
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
Repositorio:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
OAI Identifier:oai:idus.us.es:11441/179500
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/11441/179500
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:kinship
residence
Copper Age
aDNA
strontium isotopes
Descripción
Sumario:Societies that inhabited Iberia in the third millennium BCE transitioned through profound changes related to economy, settlement patterns, religion or social organization. These transformations would lead to the conformation of a completely different system in the Bronze Age. Understanding both the Copper Age itself, as well as its collapse, implies having a certain knowledge on how its social structure operated, for which addressing issues such as kinship and residence are crucial. This is currently possible thanks to the application of aDNA and 87Sr/86Sr analyses, techniques that at different speeds are being employed in the research of Chalcolithic contexts. In this paper we aim to summarize the current state of knowledge in relation to kinship and residence in Chalcolithic Iberia by providing a complete record of aDNA and 87Sr/86Sr information, evaluating the data critically, and contextualizing it within the European framework. Our analysis suggests, first, the existence of a quantitatively important difference between data available for 87Sr/86Sr and that for aDNA; secondly, a limitation of usefulness of the data to address residence or kinship; thirdly, a more complex Iberian than European scenario. Despite the current difficulties and limitations, prospects seem to be promising, and it is reasonable to expect a big leap forward in our comprehension of Copper Age kinship and residence in the near future.