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New objects in old structures: The Iron Age hoard of the Palacio III megalithic funerary complex (Almadén de la Plata, Seville, Spain)

Murillo-Barroso, M; Martinón-Torres, M; García Sanjuán, L; Hunt Ortiz, MA; Wheatley, D; Forteza González, M; Hernández Arnedo, MJ; (2015) New objects in old structures: The Iron Age hoard of the Palacio III megalithic funerary complex (Almadén de la Plata, Seville, Spain). Journal of Archaeological Science , 57 322 - 334. 10.1016/j.jas.2015.03.013. Green open access

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Abstract

Cultural contact, exchange and interaction feature high in the list of challenging topics of current research on European Prehistory. Not far off is the issue of the changing role of monuments in the making and maintaining of key cultural devices such as memory and identity. Addressing both these highly-debated issues from a science-based perspective, in this paper we look at an unusual case study set in southern Iberia and illustrate how these archaeological questions can benefit from robust materials-science approaches.We present the contextual, morphological and analytical study of an exceptional Early Iron Age hoard composed of a number of different (and mostly exotic) materials such as amber, quartz, silver and ceramic. This hoard, found under the fallen orthostat of a megalithic structure built at least 2000 years earlier, throws new light on long-distance exchange networks and the effect they could have had on the cultural identities and social relations of local Iberian Early Iron Age communities. Moreover, the archaeometric study reveals how diverse and distant the sources of these item are (Northern Europe to Eastern and Western Mediterranean raw materials, as well as local and eastern technologies), therefore raising questions concerning the social mechanisms used to establish change and resistance in contexts of colonial encounter.

Type: Article
Title: New objects in old structures: The Iron Age hoard of the Palacio III megalithic funerary complex (Almadén de la Plata, Seville, Spain)
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2015.03.013
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2015.03.013
Additional information: Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: Amber; Silver; Early Iron Age; Megalithic phenomenon; FTIR; ICP-MS; SEM–EDS; Provenance; Technology; Colonisation.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Institute of Archaeology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1463452
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