The skeleton of a Copper Age person found in Valencia, Spain, called the Ivory Lady
ATLAS research group, University of Seville
According to molecular analysis of their teeth, one of the most prominent figures in a Copper Age Iberian society was female, not male as originally thought.
Dating from about 4000 to 5000 years ago, the Iberian Copper Age is marked by the emergence of copper smelting in what is now Spain and Portugal.
In 2008, archaeologists in Valencina in southwestern Spain – one of the largest Copper Age sites in Europe – unearthed the remains of an individual whose tomb was adorned with lavish goods, such as an ornate rock crystal dagger and ivory objects, including an African elephant. tusk.
They were also buried alone, unlike most people at the time. “This suggests that the individual probably had the highest status of his time in the Iberian Peninsula or even Western Europe,” says Leonardo Garcia Sanjuan at the University of Seville in Spain.
Based on an analysis of the skeleton when it was first uncovered, researchers deduced that this person was likely male and was between the ages of 17 and 25.
But García Sanjuán and his colleagues have now determined that the figure was in fact female, based on a protein called amelogenin found in tooth enamel. Amelogenin is encoded by two genes called AMELX And AMELY, which are found on the X and Y chromosomes, respectively. People produce different versions of amelogenin depends on which sex chromosomes they have, so analysis of the protein can reveal a person’s sex.
García Sanjuán and his team have dubbed her the “Ivory Lady”. The burial places of children of this era do not contain treasured objects, suggesting that inheritance of wealth was not common in this society and that social status was not attributed to birth. The researchers therefore speculate that she must have earned her high rank.
The findings suggest that women may have played a much more prominent role in Iberian Copper Age societies than previously known, says García Sanjuán.
“This opens up entirely new avenues of research to understand what the political and social role of women was in these very complex societies, which we frankly know very little about,” he says.
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