Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose?Continuities and discontinuities in the funerary record of the northern half of Iberia

Abstract

An evolutionary approach to the study of the funerary systems in Late Prehistory allows the recognition of diverse contexts of social crises in the north of Iberia. The analysis of the radio-chrono-logical data that we have compiled indicates five phases of use – with the newness of identifying two different cycles during the Late Neolithic – and of subsequent ‘abandonment’ in the megaliths; this is reduced to two phases in the case of the sepulchral caves. We interpret the radio-chronological results through an examination of the material culture present in the graves and dynamics of the megalithic architecture. In addition, we contrast our results with different approaches, carrying out a complemen-tary multidisciplinary approach. In this regard, we found that megalithism served as a vehicle for re-sponding to the different crises and changes faced by increasingly complex and unequal human group.

Evolucijski pristop k preuèevanju pogrebnih praks v pozni prazgodovini severne Iberije omogoèa prepoznavanje razliènih dru benih kriz. Analiza zbranih radio-kronoloških podatkov ka e na pet faz uporabe – z najnovejšo prepoznavo dveh razliènih ciklov v poznem neolitiku – in kasnejših 'opustitev' v megalitih; to je v primeru sepulkralnih jam omejitev na dve fazi. Radio-kronološke rezul-tate interpretiramo s pomoèjo pridatkov v grobovih in dinamiko megalitske arhitekture. Naše rezultate primerjamo z rezultati drugih pristopov, ki vkljuèujejo primerljive multidisciplinarne analize. Ugoto-vili smo, da je megalitizem slu il kot odziv na razliène krize in spremembe, s katerimi so se sooèale vse bolj kompleksne in neenakopravne skupine