The researchers of University of Granada They have found it the remains of a Roman woman buried in the megalithic necropolis of Panoría, in Darro (Granada, Spain), abandoned 2,600 years ago.

The necropolis is located at the easternmost tip of the Sierra Harana and consists of at least 19 gravesof which nine of them were excavated in the years 2015 and 2019 by a research team on material culture and social identity in Recent Prehistory in the south of the Iberian Peninsula.

These are megalithic monuments formed by trapezoidal burial chambers accessible by short corridors. Inside, many anthropological remains and grave goods were registered and, specifically, more than 55,000 remains belonging to men, women and children were studied.

A young woman between 18 and 25 years old

Radiocarbon dating of these remains shows that the necropolis was used during the short but intense burial period. Its construction and first use took place between 3600 and 3500 BCduring the Neolithic period when this monument was common.

Later, and after a long period of inactivity at the funerary, the tombs were used again in the 25th and 21st centuries BC. C. for a short period of not more than 100 years. Approximately about 2100 a. C. the necropolis was abandoned, though not forgotten, the University of Granada reported on Tuesday.

“During the excavation process, a surprising discovery was made: outside the funerary chamber of what we call grave 15, a pit was recorded in which they were carefully placed. the lips of a skull and on top of it two long bones, a humerus and a tibia“, explains Gonzalo Aranda, from the Department of Prehistory and Archeology and lead author of the research.

The finding has scientific significance because an anthropological study has shown that the skull belonged to a woman who died between the ages of 18 and 25. Radiocarbon dating shows that the date of his death was in the 5th century AD. C. in the so -called Late Antiquity. This means that, more than two thousand years after it was abandoned, the necropolis was re -used during Roman times.

“Actually, it was not a proper funerary practice, but a ritual that involved the deposition of skeletonized bone remains and not of a recently deceased individual. We don’t know the reasons why the remains of this woman were buried in Panoría, a megalithic necropolis since ancient times, ”said Gonzalo Aranda, from the Department of Prehistory and Archeology.

What seems obvious is the importance that Panoría should have as a sacred place, perhaps connected to the history and memories of the local communities living in the Guadix basin.

The survival of certain areas in collective memory invites us to consider the diversity of human culture and its multiple and complex manifestations, pointed out Margarita Sánchez Romero, another of the authors of author.

With information from EFE