Eating habits and social organization in the Balearic Islands during the Bronze Age

A recent study provides new and revealing data on eating habits and social organization in the Balearic Islands during the Bronze Age.

Researchers from various Spanish institutions have reconstructed the diet of fifty individuals who were buried more than 3,000 years ago in the Cova des Pas necropolis (Menorca). The study, coordinated by the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), indicates a mixed consumption of plants and meat and the same access to food by all individuals, which implies that they were socially egalitarian groups. The work contributes to the study of the dietary patterns of the Bronze Age and Iron Age groups in the Balearic Islands and to the debate on the emergence and development of the first complex societies in the archipelago. This is the most complete study on the paleo diet of ancient populations in the Balearic Islands carried out to date.

The individuals that were buried in the Cova des Pas site (Menorca) between 3,600 and 2,800 years ago fed on terrestrial resources, mainly plants, with a significant contribution of animal protein. This has been verified by a Spanish research team that has reconstructed the eating patterns of 49 individuals who were buried in this collective sepulcher of the Talayotic culture, considered one of the largest and most exceptional sets of prehistoric human remains in the Balearic Islands. The results also indicate that the children were breastfed until about 4 years of age and that all population groups had the same access to food, regardless of gender or age.

The study has been coordinated by UAB researchers Assumpció Malgosa and Carlos Tornero, who is also linked to the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES), linked to the CERCA institution of the Generalitat of Catalonia. Pau Sureda, a researcher at the Institute of Heritage Sciences (INCIPIT), attached to the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) in Spain, and Xavier Jordana, a UAB professor and TRRL (Tissue Repair and Regeneration Laboratory) researcher, also participated. from the University of Vic (UVic) and the Central University of Catalonia (UCC), as well as Filiana Sotiriadou, student of the master’s degree in Biological Anthropology at the UAB.

The individuals from the Cova des Pas were buried in the fetal position. Image of individual number 47. (Photo: UAB)

The study broadens the knowledge about the diet of the first Balearic population groups, a controversial study object. It confirms a mixed diet based on plants, with cereals such as wheat, and meat from goat and sheep herds, with little consumption of marine resources, and reinforces previous studies carried out in other Menorcan sites. “Contrary to what has been seen in other settlements from the same period on Formentera or Mallorca, the consumption of food resources of marine origin would have been occasional in these individuals,” says Carlos Tornero, a Ramón y Cajal researcher from the Department of Prehistory of the UAB.

On the other hand, the research contributes to the debate on the emergence and development of the first complex societies in the archipelago. «These societies emerged and developed in the Balearic Islands during the last stage of the Bronze Age and the first Iron Age, between 3,600 and 2,600 years ago, including the Naviform (present on all the islands) and Talayotic (only on the islands) cultures. Mallorca and Menorca)”, explains Pau Sureda, a researcher at INCIPIT.

But the fact that all population groups had had the same access to food would indicate that these Minorcan groups were socially egalitarian, without the hierarchical organizations or population units differentiated by their social function or economic resources typical of more complex societies. . “Our results agree with previous studies of different Menorcan settlements and with paleodemographic and taphonomic studies carried out on individuals from Cova des Pas, which found no differences between life expectancy or the treatment given to the burials,” affirms Assumpció Malgosa, professor of Physical Anthropology at the UAB and director of the Biological Anthropology Research Group (GREAB) at the UAB.

The research has been carried out with the combined analysis of the stable isotopes of nitrogen and carbon in collagen samples from the skeletal remains of individuals, which makes it possible to identify the consumption of plant foods and terrestrial and aquatic animals, as well as in samples of faunal remains from the Son Mercer de Baix site, the closest physically and temporarily to the necropolis, to reconstruct the food chain and interpret human data.

The study is titled “Dietary reconstruction of the Bronze Age necropolis of Cova des Pas (Minorca Island): evidence from δ13C and δ15N analyses”. And it has been published in the academic journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. (Source: UAB. CC BY NC 4.0)