Muertes ritualizadas en la Edad del Bronce de la Península Ibérica: un enterramiento inusual en Los Rompizales (Quinganadueñas, Burgos)
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Javier Velasco-Vázquez [1] ; Angel Esparza Arroyo [2]
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[1] Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Gran Canaria, España
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[2] Universidad de Salamanca
Universidad de Salamanca
Salamanca, España
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- Localización: Munibe Antropologia - Arkeologia, ISSN 1132-2217, Nº 67, 2016, págs. 75-103
- Idioma: español
- Títulos paralelos:
- Ritualized killings in the Iberian Bronze Age: An unusual burial at Los Rompizales (Quintanadueñas, prov. Burgos, Spain)
- Enlaces
- Dialnet Métricas: 3 Citas
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Resumen
- español
Se presenta un excepcional caso de muerte de cuatro individuos (tres masculinos y uno femenino, fallecidos entre los 7 y los 17 años) hallados en un enterramiento en hoyo de la fase formativa de Cogotas I, en la Edad del Bronce de la Meseta. El modelo bayesiano de las dataciones radiocarbónicas sitúa el enterramiento entre 1501 y 1431 cal BC. Tras examinar las lesiones óseas identificadas en los cuatro y determinar que fueron el resultado de acciones violentas se discute su correspondencia con varios tipos de violencia interpersonal. Excluida la posibilidad de que fueran el resultado de una confrontación bélica se toman en consideración otras posibilidades (sacrificios, ‘muertes de acompañamiento’ y ejecuciones), difíciles de distinguir con precisión en ausencia de fuentes escritas u orales. Menos controvertida sería, en cambio, la lectura arqueológica que deriva en el reconocimiento de una fuerte ritualización del conjunto y su conexión con los mecanismos de mantenimiento del orden social.
- euskara
Mesetako Brontze Aroan Cogotas I. aztarnategiko eraketa-fasean, hobian egindako ehorzketa batean topatutako lau banakoren aparteko heriotza kasu bat aurkezten dugu (7 eta 17 urteen artean hil ziren, eta hiru gizonezkoenak dira, eta bat emakumezko batena). Datazio erradiokarbonikoen eredu bayestarrak ehorzketa hori K.a. 1501-1431 kalibrazio-urtean kokatu du. Lauretan identifikatutako hezurretako lesioak aztertu eta indarkeriako ekintzen emaitza izan zirela zehaztu ondoren, pertsona arteko indarkeria mota batzuekin duen elkarrekikotasuna eztabaidatu da. Borroka beliko baten emaitza izateko aukera baztertu ondoren, beste aukera batzuk landu dira (sakrifizioak, “laguntzeko heriotzak” eta exekuzioak), baina zaila da idatzizko edo ahozko iturririk gabe horiek zehatz-mehatz bereiztea. Aldiz, multzoaren erritualizazio-iturria izan zela eta ordena soziala mantentzeko mekanismoekin lotura zuela aitortzetik eratorritako irakurketa arkeologikoa ez litzateke horren eztabaidagarria izango.
- English
This paper presents an exceptional case concerning the death of four subadults, found in a pit burial corresponding to the Formative phase of the archaeological culture of Cogotas I, the Middle Bronze Age in the central Plateau of the Iberian Peninsula. The Bayesian model applied to the radiocarbon results dates the burial between Cal BC 1501 and Cal BC 1431. The examination of bone lesions identified in the individuals (three male and one female, died between 7 and 17 years) has allowed to conclude that in all cases they were caused by violent actions, inducing their death. Three of the individuals, those placed in a lateral decubitus position following the perimeter of the pit, suffered traumas caused by violent blows to the head, inflicted from behind with a heavy and blunt shape instrument. On the other hand, the individual who occupied the center of the pit burial, laid in a ventral decubitus position, displays a perimortem incised lesion on his eleventh thoracic vertebra. It must have been caused by the severe impact of a thin, double-edged pointed object, most probably a dagger or a similar weapon. Taking into account the type and location of the injuries, as well as the particular arrangement of the bodies in the pit, a social analysis about the circumstances of the death and the mortuary behaviours it has been carried out to explain this exceptional case for the Bronze Age of the Iberian Peninsula. After excluding that the injuries were a consequence of a confrontation, other possibilities of social violence are considered, specifically, sacrifice, ‘accompanying deaths’ and execution, which are hard to accurately distinguish in the archaeological record in the absence of written or oral sources. With all due cautions, we propose that the most likely scenario for Rompizales could be a death penalty case.
Less controversial would be instead the clear ritualization of the burial and its association with various social mechanisms, among them the violence, deployed to the maintenance of the social order. In this sense, the different and devastating formulas used to kill these individuals and their relationship with the place that each one occupy in the pit, as well as the organization of mortuary space, the deliberate fact of dispose the bodies, the way they were covered... are elements to consider an express will of carrying out a mise-en-scène with the development of a codified and ritualized dramatization around the death and burial of these subadults. In other words, all data suggest that Rompizales is an example of ‘ritual culturally sanctioned violence’, thus recognizing a new variant of ‘bad death’ within the funerary practices of Cogotas I.
- español
