The Argaric culture “consisting of more than a hundred settlements, including some real fortified cities”, spread between 2200 and 1550 BC. from. C. for about 35,000 square kilometers in the southeastern peninsula. The largest cities, such as La Bastida de Totana (Murcia), occupied an average of five hectares and included public works for the management and use of water (cisterns, dams, canals), buildings for policy making (public spaces), housing, workshops and warehouses, as well as specialized ones Pottery areas and others for metallurgical production. They administered a parceled territory in areas designated for rainfed agriculture and irrigated agriculture. But about 3,500 years ago, after violent uprisings and subsequent fires, this culture simply disappeared. Experts debate the causes, which doesn’t prevent them from further investigating their enigmatic social customs. Now the journal Nature has published the study Kinship Practices in the Early State Society of El Argar in Bronze Age Iberia, which reveals another surprising aspect: women were exchanged between cities, and when they had female offspring, they repeated the process with daughters. This shows the analysis of 68 cadavers in which no adult female genetically related to another was found, except for mothers with their girls who died young.
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“The Argarian sites offer a unique opportunity to address issues of biological relatedness and kinship, as a significant portion of the population was buried in single or double graves placed beneath inhabited areas. [casas o edificios públicos]’ says the study. For example, in 2013, under the Argarian Parliament of La Almoloya (Pliego, Murcia), the tomb of a princess was found with a spectacular trousseau composed of a silver diadem, four gold and silver ear spreaders, rings, a dagger, bracelets and semi-precious stones. These burial practices, which vary according to the social group to which those buried belonged, allow experts to link them together, study their social origins, find out their causes of death and even discover their places of origin.
Tomb of an Argarian halberd buried with his partner in La Almoloya, Autonomous University of Barcelona
To learn more about this city, researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig and the Autonomous University of Barcelona selected 86 people from the La Almoloya site, of whom only 68 kept profiles suitable for the study. Ancient DNA analyzes confirmed that there were 13 first-degree relationships (father, children, and siblings) and 10 second-degree relationships (grandchildren, nephews, grandparents, half-siblings, or cousins) between them. What is striking about the data obtained is that there were more individuals in the first degree than in the second, which is not logical in a generation pyramid. In general, there will always be more grandchildren than grandparents in a family. The only possible answer to this situation is that the members of the second group were not buried in this place.
The biological relationship between bodies is also very strange. Descendants of the same male line of up to five generations have been found, but none corresponding to a daughter, sister, brother or half-brother, although they corresponded to nephews and grandchildren. And the most striking thing: None of the 30 analyzed women had a genetic relationship with the other adults. Therefore, they were neither sisters, nor daughters, nor nieces, nor aunts, nor grandmothers.
Parliament of the Argars in La Almoloya Autonomous University of Barcelona
However, experts discovered that a man buried at La Almoloya was genetically related to a woman from the Madres Mercedarias site in Lorca, some 50 kilometers away. “This, together with the fact that there is no consanguinity between adult females, may indicate the practice of female exogamy and patrilocality,” the authors state. That is, the young women left their homes (exogamy) in other cities to live with their husbands in La Almoloya (patrilocality). “Adult females buried in double graves [principalmente con sus maridos] support these practices as they have neither fathers nor mothers in the same settlement nor have any other adult relatives apart from their descendants, suggesting that they came from outside the community and were integrated into it through their association with local men” , explain it.
“It should be noted that we did not find first- or second-degree relationships between adult females at La Almoloya,” points out Vicente Lull, professor of prehistory at the UAB and co-director of the excavations at La Almoloya, along with Rafael Micó and Cristina Rihuete “suggests that this practice may be mutual between settlements and that young women born in La Almoloya also moved to other places. But patrilocality does not necessarily imply the absence of male mobility. In fact, our results also confirm the mobility of the latter, evidenced by the presence of fewer second-degree relatives. [nietos] what first class [hijos] at the place”. However, the complete absence of the bodies of daughters and granddaughters shows that patrilocality was, with exceptions, an obvious fact. Furthermore, if more women than men came, it would ultimately lead to the acceptance of monogamy and polygamy.
The researchers also focused on the case of two girls buried together (one between 14 and 17 months and the other 8 or 9 years old) who were paternal half-sisters. His father was buried next to a woman who was only the mother of one of them. “The archaeological context gives no indication as to whether or not the two mothers coexisted, and whether this case represents an example of serial monogamy or polygamy.” However, the fact that the half-sisters were buried together reflects an awareness (on the part of the morticians) of the kinship between the two girls, notwithstanding their different biological mothers, “and very likely also signifies a recognition of paternity and that marital ties are temporary and dissolvable are”. In other words, this society accepts separation or divorce.
Tomb of an elite Argarian warrior before uncovering Barcelona Autonomous University
Social inequality is another prominent feature of the Argarian period, which the analyzed burials confirm. Experts have identified three social classes: one powerful (10% of the population), another with political and social rights (50%) and a third slave or servitude (40%). In the case of La Almoloya, four elite tombs have been documented. The first is an impressive stone tablet containing the remains of a man with a copper halberd and dagger buried over a woman. Another of the burials found also corresponds to the “lavishly endowed” princely tomb for two people who share wealth and symbolic space but have no genetic ancestor in the settlement, “raising the possibility that they are members of an external ruling elite”. who led or settled in the city during a time of crisis. The woman wore a silver diadem encircling her head.
Therefore, the researchers conclude: “The substantial number of genetically unrelated individuals in the Argarian tombs would be explained by political and economic factors most likely embedded in a general framework of alliances and conflicts” in which consanguinity and marriage played a leading role this mysterious culture.
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