Death, Relics, and the Demise of Huts: Patterns of Planned Abandonment in Middle BA Central Iberia

Abstract

[EN]This paper addresses the formation processes at an unparalleled Bronze Age settlement in the Iberian Meseta. The site of El Cerro (Burgos, Spain) presents a series of challenging features: the simultaneous inhumation of three subadults alongside a dwelling quarter and adjacent pits, some of them filled with apparent formality, including such anachronistic elements as Neolithic and Beaker items and several placed deposits, such as a leg of a cow. A critical evaluation of the contextual dataset, a re-fitting operation, and an assessment of the abrasion and size of a ceramic sample were carried out. The archaeological peculiarities of the site are explained as a contextually specific cultural response to a grievous and traumatic episode: the death of three young siblings, which entailed the abandonment of the settlement through prescribed practices. Some depositions are a product of recognizable intentionality, while others are regarded as unintended cumulative outcomes.