182
one that would correspond to Hoskin’s ‘sunrise custom’. This appears mostly in the
western part of the region of our study, in the Duero plateau, the mountains to the
north, the Basque Country and the Pyrenees valleys. The second family presents
orientations mostly to the south, from southeast to southwest, and appears mostly in
the Catalonian coast, but also in the interior along the Ebro basin. The two traditions
meet very close to the Hechicera group that would appear then as the last example
of this family as we move from east to west.
At this point, it might be interesting to have a look at the burial places of the
previous epoch both on the Catalonian coast and in the Ebro valley.
6 Previous Epochs
The first evidence of Neolithic activity in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula
appeared in the Mediterranean coasts in the mid-sixth millennium BC (Zapata,
Peña-Chocarro, Pérez-Jordá, & Stika, 2004). These areas were previously occupied
by Mesolithic communities. However, little evidence of funerary practices has been
recovered prior to the fifth millennium BC. The middle Neolithic (end of fifth millennium cal BC) is characterised in Catalonia by the appearance and development
of the ‘pit burial culture’. This includes individual, occasionally double, burials in
pits or stone boxes. Similar depositions have been documented in other parts of
Europe, notably in Swizerland (“Cortaillod”), and France (“Chasséen”). It has been
argued that this funerary custom may have spread through the trade networks existing at the time serving the exchange of honey flint from the Alps, variscite from the
Gavà mine (Barcelona), obsidian from Sardinia and ceramics and other goods to the
Mediterranean shores. Morell Rovira et al. (2018) suggest that the burials in France
and Switzerland appeared before those in Catalonia. According to these authors,
this cultural stage lasted in Catalonia until the start of the fourth millennium (Morell
Rovira et al., 2018) and has been traditionally considered the phase before the collective inhumations in megalithic monuments (Balaguer, García, Tenza, &
Fig. 8 Dendrogram of the
groups in Table 3 now
including a group for the
Ebro valley that includes
Hechicera group
A. C. González-García
one that would correspond to Hoskin’s ‘sunrise custom’. This appears mostly in the
western part of the region of our study, in the Duero plateau, the mountains to the
north, the Basque Country and the Pyrenees valleys. The second family presents
orientations mostly to the south, from southeast to southwest, and appears mostly in
the Catalonian coast, but also in the interior along the Ebro basin. The two traditions
meet very close to the Hechicera group that would appear then as the last example
of this family as we move from east to west.
At this point, it might be interesting to have a look at the burial places of the
previous epoch both on the Catalonian coast and in the Ebro valley.
6 Previous Epochs
The first evidence of Neolithic activity in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula
appeared in the Mediterranean coasts in the mid-sixth millennium BC (Zapata,
Peña-Chocarro, Pérez-Jordá, & Stika, 2004). These areas were previously occupied
by Mesolithic communities. However, little evidence of funerary practices has been
recovered prior to the fifth millennium BC. The middle Neolithic (end of fifth millennium cal BC) is characterised in Catalonia by the appearance and development
of the ‘pit burial culture’. This includes individual, occasionally double, burials in
pits or stone boxes. Similar depositions have been documented in other parts of
Europe, notably in Swizerland (“Cortaillod”), and France (“Chasséen”). It has been
argued that this funerary custom may have spread through the trade networks existing at the time serving the exchange of honey flint from the Alps, variscite from the
Gavà mine (Barcelona), obsidian from Sardinia and ceramics and other goods to the
Mediterranean shores. Morell Rovira et al. (2018) suggest that the burials in France
and Switzerland appeared before those in Catalonia. According to these authors,
this cultural stage lasted in Catalonia until the start of the fourth millennium (Morell
Rovira et al., 2018) and has been traditionally considered the phase before the collective inhumations in megalithic monuments (Balaguer, García, Tenza, &
Fig. 8 Dendrogram of the
groups in Table 3 now
including a group for the
Ebro valley that includes
Hechicera group
A. C. González-García