Prehistoric DNA Award. The archaeological investigations in La Almoloya, in Murcia, carried out by a team from the department of prehistory of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, have been recognized this Thursday with the third national prize for archeology and paleontology, awarded biennially by the Palarq Foundation and endowed with with €80,000. It is the most economically important award in Spain. The award ceremony took place this Thursday at the National Archaeological Museum, with the Minister of Culture, Miquel Iceta, and the director of said institution, Isabel Izquierdo, as the main authorities.
The award recognizes the value of research, which is above all and increasingly multidisciplinary, in which the work of archaeologists and historians is combined with specialists in genetics, statistics, mathematics or geology. Because the La Almoloya site has four or five features that make it exceptional. Possibly the one of greatest interest today is the one provided by the analysis of the genetic remains found there since it began to be excavated (professionally) in 2008.
"It is surely the site in Europe where the most positive DNA results appear, we have 68 identified individuals between 4,000 and 3,600 years old," Rafael Micó, one of the six directors of the project, explained to La Vanguardia. The others are Vicente Lull, Cristina Rihuete, Eva Celdrán, Camila Oliart and Miguel F. G. Valério.
The genetic trace allows us to reconstruct or at least intuit -and now we are going to another of the singularities of this site- the political role of certain individuals and even of a gender, the feminine. The most recent studies conclude that the women of La Almoloya were not from La Almoloya, they lack a genetic line with their neighbors, at least according to what has been discovered up to now, which allows us to deduce that the girls changed towns during adolescence.
The most surprising thing -we are talking about 4000 years ago- is that those women sometimes changed their residence to get married, yes, but on other occasions, it seems, it was for economic or political reasons. "CSI has really hurt us a lot," Micó jokes, "because it seems that looking for DNA is quick and easy and always positive, but it is not like that, the value of what we are finding is exceptional."
In this site, located on a plateau at an altitude of about 600 m, near the town of Totana, there is what appears to be a large audience room (third singularity), under which a couple appears buried, with an incredible wealth of trousseau, unprecedented at that historical moment. The burial is full of silver and jewels.
It should be noted that this tomb (fourth unprecedented feature) is under what has been considered the first political meeting place in Europe. A large room, whose three levels denote three levels of power, or at least two notches above the largest. Perhaps we are talking about a kind of proto-parliament.
And the great personality that presides over it, although she is already dead at that time, is a woman. And a woman who is not from that place, she is a foreigner. That tomb is close to another, which is occupied by two girls, aged two and seven, according to the latest studies. One of them is the daughter of both, the other only his. What does this familiar detail tell us about power relations in Argaric society? Or is the man widowed?
"Anthropology has described female exogamy, the migration or change of residence of women to become related or to marry, and here we certify that in some cases it is so, but not always, they are movements outside of marriage relations, they are economic or political movements ”. Perhaps the princess or queen must be a foreigner.
The Argar is one of the earliest known political societies. It certainly lacks great pyramids or ziggurats, as in its contemporary societies, "but not all states or civilizations are defined by their monuments," Micó remarks. He gives the example of American cities like New York and Memphis, which architecturally have nothing to do with each other but belong to the same civilization. Because the Argaric culture does present an architectural, differential, unprecedented element, and here is another of the particularities of this culture: they built a monumental wall, up to 5 meters high, an impressive artifact that gives the idea of the defensive need that El Argar had at some point.
Perhaps for this reason (more exceptional features) in some tombs some halberds were discovered, some weapons that required training, they were not knives or axes that more or less everyone knows how to use, those weapons denote that there must have been a learning structure , a minimal military structure. We are perhaps before the civilization that creates the monopoly of violence, that is, a police force or army trained by an elite.
The team of archaeologists from the Autonomous University excavated this year at the site until July 29. It is the 16th year in a row that work has been done at the site. Before it was excavated for exactly four days in 1944. From this date it was also drilled, but by plunderers. They left 90 holes and desecrated 22 graves. No one knows what was taken from there. Neither in jewelry nor in science.
