La cronología de la necrópolis de La Orden-Seminario (Huelva). Temporalidades de la actividad funeraria en las sepulturas del III milenio cal BC

This study establishes the chronology of the necropolis of La Orden-Seminario. The research has combined stratigraphic analysis with Bayesian statistical modelling of 17 radiocarbon dates carried out on anthropological remains from three tombs. The results reveal: a) the funerary biography of each tomb; b) the stages of use of the graves; c) two phases of activity in the necropolis. The first phase, ca. 3000-2400/2300 cal BC, is one of collective burials. Its greatest intensity of use is recorded between the 27th and 25th centuries BC, with a concentration of single-generation burials or four or five-generation burials in each funerary level. The second phase, ca. 2300-1900 cal BC, is of individual tombs placed in the old collective graves. It corresponds to a peculiar monumentalism based on the reappropriation of ancestral spaces and the articulation of unequal rituals. This chronological sequence reflects processes related to the diverse temporal dynamics of megalithic tombs in the south of the Iberian Peninsula in the third millennium BC.