Identities of the Iron Age Population in Western Europe, origins and relation to the funerary practices – METALPOP

The Iron Age was a vibrant period including societal evolution, exchanges, the expansion of central European Celts to the West, and the establishment of colonies by the Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian empires along the Mediterranean. It emerged in Europe as a consequence of a crisis on the Bronze Age societies that occupied the region previously. In Western Europe, this crisis and transition occurs around the 8th century BCE, and consequently the Bronze-alloy-dependent societies started to show dependence on the iron mineral. It is during these two periods, of Metal Ages, that social stratification became common and marked throughout Europe. As such, we can consider that during the Iron Age, the roots of historic Europe started to be planted.
Since the mid Bronze Age, cremations were the most common funerary practice in South-western Europe, and continued in the Iron Age. This culture cohabits with a few exceptions on the record, the Hallstatt culture (Eastern France) and the “exposed heads” and burials of perinates inside the houses in Southern France and Northern Iberia.
Population dynamics and the relationship of biological diversity of human groups and funerary practices or cultural diffusion have now largely been studied in Western Europe, especially for the Mesolithic, Neolithic and beginning of the Bronze Age. Nevertheless, the number of studied Late Bronze Age and Iron Age individuals remains anecdotic in relation to the archaeological register and compared to previous periods. This scarcity is related to various factors, but mainly because cremation limits DNA analyses and the integrity of the recovered osteological remains.
Using the petrous pyramid, one of the best-preserved bony part in both cremations and burials as a vector, METALPOP will study large skeletal collections from key periods and regions applying a multidisciplinary approach that combines osteological studies, radiocarbon dating, stable isotope analyses, morphological analyses, palaeogenomics and experimental archaeology.
With this approach, METALPOP will contribute to the knowledge about the identities of the Iron Age populations, their origins, their relation to Bronze Age groups, and to the diverse funerary cultural expressions. With this purpose, METALPOP will provide a robust chronological framework for funerary practices in the Bronze Age-Iron Age transition, use and develop methodologies that are applicable both in cremated and not cremated remains. In summary, it will provide new chronological, morphological diversity, genomic, isotopic, and osteological data of a period and region that is currently underrepresented in the study of the human past.