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RADIOCARBON DATING OF A LATE ANTIQUE NECROPOLIS FROM FELANITX (MALLORCA, BALEARIC ISLANDS)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2020

C Mas Florit Open the ORCID record for C Mas Florit [Opens in a new window] ,
M Á Cau Ontiveros ,
M Van Strydonck ,
M Boudin ,
F Cardona  and
S Munar
C Mas Florit*
Affiliation:
ERAAUB, Institut d’Arqueologia de la Universitat de Barcelona (IAUB), Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Geografia i Història, Departament d’Història i Arqueologia, c/Montalegre 6-8, 08001 Barcelona, Spain
M Á Cau Ontiveros
Affiliation:
ERAAUB, Institut d’Arqueologia de la Universitat de Barcelona (IAUB), Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Geografia i Història, Departament d’Història i Arqueologia, c/Montalegre 6-8, 08001 Barcelona, Spain ICREA, Pg. Lluís Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain Chercheur Associé, Centre Camille Jullian, MMSH, CNRS/Université Aix-Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, France
M Van Strydonck
Affiliation:
Independent researcher, Deurne, Belgium
M Boudin
Affiliation:
Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Jubelpark 1, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
F Cardona
Affiliation:
Independent archaeologist and physical anthropologist, Mallorca, Spain
S Munar
Affiliation:
University of Barcelona Faculty of Geography and History (IBEAM), Barcelona, Spain
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

The excavation of a building in the village of Felanitx in the eastern part of the island of Mallorca (Balearic Islands) has revealed the existence of a small necropolis. The inhumations did not provide grave goods except for a bronze belt buckle for which the typological study suggests a Late Antique chronology. The stratigraphical sequence however seems to suggest a possible evolution of the space across time since some graves are cut by others. In order to obtain an absolute date for the necropolis and to verify if there are chronological differences between the graves, a total of 6 human bones samples have been 14C dated by AMS. The results of the radiocarbon dating confirm a Late Antique chronology (4th to 7th century AD) for the graves but do not suggest a chronological evolution. Despite the fact that the knowledge of the necropolis is still fragmentary, the results are extremely important because they provide an absolute date for a Late Antique necropolis in the Mallorcan rural area.

Keywords

cemeterydatinghuman remainsisland
Type
Date List
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 727 - 739
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press for the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona

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