Monumentalidad funeraria del Bronce en el sur de la península ibérica: la necrópolis de La Orden Seminario (Huelva).

Abstract

The permanence of megalithic architecture during the Bronze Age in the Iberian Peninsula is one of the elements highlighted in recent research, interpreting the continuity of architectures and funerary practices in various ways. The microspatial excavation, the architectural analysis of the tombs, the anthropological study and the establishment of the chronology of the funerary activity of the necropolis of La Orden-Seminario have made it possible to characterise the existence of a funerary monumentalism developed during the Early Bronze Age, c 2300-1900 cal BC. This funerary monumentality was based on the reappropriation of the Chalcolithic necropolis for the implantation of individual tombs inside the collective burial chambers. These tombs (caves, pits, chambers with level floors and "cists" with tumular coverings) are characterized by the perpetuation of conceptual schemes of the megalithic tradition, presenting architectural elements, constructive techniques and materials that contributed the visual perceptibility, the perdurability and the recreation of a memory around the ancestral mortuary spaces. Inside, individuals of different sexes and ages were buried, accompanied by various grave goods that represent the social differences introduced into the sphere of death by the new conception of unequal societies.