Resumen de Características paleodemográficas de la población recuperada del cementerio de Marialba de la Ribera (Villaturiel, León, España) (S. IV-XIII)
Nieves Candelas González, Alvaro Núñez Catalapiedra, Josefina Rascón Pérez, Óscar Cambra Moo, Fernando A. Muñoz Villarejo, Emilio Campomanes Alvaredo, José Avelino Gutiérrez González, Armando González Martín
- español
La Paleodemografía es la disciplina que se ocupa del estudio de los parámetros demográficos de las poblaciones pretéritas y su evolución diacrónica, resultando el punto de partida de cualquier investigación posterior. En este trabajo se analizan las características paleodemográficas de los antiguos pobladores de Marialba de la Ribera (Villaturiel, León), a partir del estudio de 269 individuos recuperados en su cementerio. Este yacimiento, con una extensa secuencia cronológica desde época tardorromana a medieval, es considerado de los más importantes del noroeste peninsular. Los resultados del estudio paleodemográfico parecen concordantes con un modelo pretransicional de mortalidad natural, obteniéndose datos afines a los referidos para otras poblaciones de la región con similar cronología. Sin embargo, se ha evidenciado una subrepresentación en el grupo de 0-4 años y una sobrerepresentación en el grupo 5-9 años, que ahora podrían ser explicadas por el uso diferencial del espacio funerario y la excavación parcial del yacimiento
- euskara
Paleodemografia da iraganeko populazioen parametro demografikoak eta haien bilakaera diakronikoa aztertzeaz arduratzen den diziplina.
Ondoren egin beharreko edozein ikerketatarako abiapuntua izaten da. Lan honetan, Marialba de la Riberako (Villaturiel, Leon) garai bateko biztanleen ezaugarri paleodemografikoak aztertu dira bertako hilerrian berreskuratu dituzten 269 banakoren ikerketatik abiatuta. Aztarnategi hori da penintsulako ipar-mendebaldeko garrantzitsuenetako bat eta sekuentzia kronologiko zabala jasotzen du erromatar berantiarretik hasi eta Erdi Arora arte. Ikerketa paleodemografikoaren emaitzak, itxuraz, bat datoz hilkortasun naturalaren trantsizio aurreko ereduarekin eta antzeko kronologia duten eskualdeko beste populazio batzuetarako aipatutakoen antzeko datuak lortu dira. Dena den, 0-4 urte artekoen taldean ordezkaritza txikiegia eta 5-9 urtekoen taldearen gehiegizko ordezkaritza ikusi dira. Ehorzketarako eremuaren eta aztarnategiaren indusketa partzialaren arteko erabilera diferentziala izan daiteke horren guztiaren azalpena.
- English
The Archaeology and Physical Anthropology represent a multidisciplinary approach from which human past researchers could enrich their archaeological sites interpretations. The interaction of both disciplines permit overpass the analysis of isolated individuals in a specific archaeological context, and to reach a holistic understanding of the entire osteological remains recovered. Paleodemography deals with the study of demographic structure in this archaeological populations and their diachronic evolution, and is an essential starting point for any investigation that involve inferences related with the biology and behaviour of past populations.
Taking into account the particular historical context, being an important Early-Christian monument founded in the 4th century and used as a cemetery until the 13th century, and due to the exceptional stage of preservation presented by the skeletal material, Marialba de la Ribera is one of the most important archaeological location of the NW of the Iberian Peninsula. The archaeological site was firstly excavated in the 60’s by Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI) of Madrid, who described the main building as a martyrdom church (martyrium or basilica), and recovered at least 100 skeletons of the inside and the surroundings of this monument. Posterior field works, carried out in 2009, revealed an important cemetery that finally permitted us to carry out the analysis of 269 individuals that were recovered in the different areas of the site.
This paper presents the first approach of the demographic analysis of the archaeological population recovered at the cemetery of Marialba de la Ribera (Villaturiel, León). Almost all individuals were age characterized and assigned to a concrete age group. The sample was composed by 119 non-adult and 150 adult individuals. Concerning sex determination, it was possible to ascribe 123 adult individuals and using a life table to estimate 25.55 years old as the population life expectancy at birth.
Taking into account our results it seems that the archaeological population recovered at Marialba de la Ribera presents a natural or pretransitional mortality pattern in which the life expectancy at birth reaches a maximum peak in the 10-14 age group and a minimum in the senile adults group. This pattern is similar to the one described in other osteoarchaeological samples recovered in the nearby regions and with similar chronologies. Despite this, it was detected an important bias concerning the individuals from the younger group ages. Those individuals from the 0-4 age group were underrepresented and on the contrary, individuals from 5-9 age group appeared over-represented.
The contrast of all this data with the heterogeneous spatial distribution of the tombs described in the cemetery has permitted us to propose that it exist an intentional use of the funerary space in the different areas of the site. It is probably that those areas still unexcavated, host the individuals of the non-adult age groups underrepresented in the sample. We expect that this preliminary result stimulates future interventions in the archaeological site, which would permit us to corroborate this hypothesis.
