Digital Object 392
Description:
UE134. Deposit of bones and bone structures (multiple burial), located at the lower level of the grave of tomb T2. Its morphology is square, delimited by the remains of a battery of posts. The matrix that surrounds it is a deposit of fairly organic dark grey earth, documented by the entire plant at the bottom of the grave. It has a medium-fine granulometry, with clays and limes. In certain areas accumulations of sand and small gravel appear. The compaction is medium. The fact that it is at a higher level compared to T1 means that the humidity of the water table affects it less. In the centre, associated with the main individual, iron oxides appear (remains of a pyrite mirror). Its average dimensions are 2.80 m x 2.50 m (SW-NE / SE-NW) and its average power is 15 cm. This deposit was excavated twice, in the dry season of 2011 and in the dry season of 2013. It contains 19 primary buried bones (minus the main occupant, which was previously dried and then shrouded), and two packages, one composed of human bones and the other of human and animal bones, in both cases disarticulated which have been recorded as separate units (EU182 and EU183 units), because they are different burials (secondary burial, probably offerings made to the primary burial). The funerary attires consist of axes, adzees, lances. Some also have gold or tumbaga, stone and bone earrings and other ornaments such as necklaces and bracelets of teeth and bones of different animal species. The package of the burial, which as we say above is gray and quite organic, can be a product of the mixture of the decomposition of human organic matter and the contributions of soil from successive floods and phreatic filtrations. The bone remains appeared in strict anatomical connection, which means that the bodies were decomposed in a crowded space, but not immediately and intentionally or in a planned manner (no soil was thrown on them after burial) because we found deposits of materials that pronounced dips into the tomb and because there are structural remains of the existence of a funerary chamber (post traces, holes and parquet). We therefore consider that the bodies were deposited inside a chamber, and were covered with sediments unintentionally or planned shortly after, when the rainy season began. The sediments of clogging coming from the walls of the tombs or from the outside, product of the dragging of the earth of the environment. The filling of this vacuum had to take place in a sufficiently short period of time so that the bone remains would not be affected by their anatomical connections when decomposing; and sufficiently wide so that the disintegration of the perishable structure on which the ceramic offerings were placed would take place. The UE134 unit is the main burial (the burial in which the highest status individual was placed) of the T2 tomb.
Excavation campaign:
2011
Record type:
Stratigraphic unit register
Context-based browsing of El Caño repository
Archaeological site:
El Caño
Operation:
Operation 1
Stratigraphic group:
Tomb 2
Stratigraphic unit type:
Interment
Stratigraphic unit (characteristics):
134
Calibrated Age Range:
Cal AD 900 to 1020 (Cal BP 1050 to 930)
Digital Object 392