Distribution and consumption of fluorite and translucent beads in the Iberian peninsula from 6th to 2nd millennia BC

Copyright: © 2020 CSIC. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the “Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International” (CC BY 4.0) License Supplementary file Archivo suplementario SF2 Contexts of the sites studied and reported in the text Distribution and consumption of fluorite and translucent beads in the Iberian peninsula from 6th to 2nd millennia BC Distribución y consumo de cuentas de fluorita y translúcidas en la península ibérica del VI al II milenios ANE José Ángel Garrido-Corderoa, Carlos P. Odriozola, Ana C. Sousa, Victor S. Gonçalves and João Luís Cardoso

lithic to the Iron Age, including important sequences of funerary use during the 4 th -3 rd millennia BC (Cardoso et al. 1992). Unfortunately, scarce contextual information is available for the recovered materials, which include the two green fluorite beads presented by Cardoso et al. (2012: 38).
São Paulo 2 (Almada, Setúbal) artificial cave consists of a 7.5 m diameter chamber and a short corridor 2.5 m in length (Barros and Espírito Santo 1997: 218). The funerary sequence ranges from the Late Neolithic to Late Copper Age, accounting for a MNI of 254 (Gonçalves et al. 2004: 77). A 1 st millennium BC habitational phase altered the 4 th -3 rd millennia BC sequence.
The findings are typical of Iberian Late Prehistory. They include geometric lithics and polished axes and adzes, engraved schist plaques, plates, spherical and carinated bowls, a zoomorphic vase, and abundant beads in earlier phases, and arrowheads, calcite cylindric idols, "Palmela-type cup" and other Chalcolithic pottery typologies, perforated V buttons, beads in different raw materials (including 2 beads in amber and greenstones), some copper objects and a gold-leaf bead for the second phase (Barros and Espírito-Santo 1997: 218-219;Barros 1998;Gonçalves et al. 2004). The authors state that in the second phase they recovered a 'hyaline quartz' bead and a 'translucent greenish' bead decorated with zigzags (Barros and Espírito-Santo 1997: 219) Anta 2 do Vidigal (Montemor-o-Novo, Évora) consisted of a circular chamber c. 3 m in diameter formed by 6 orthostats, and an oval corridor 1.80 m in length. Excavated by M. Heleno in 1936, presents a rich grave goods assemblage chronologically ascribed to the late 4 th millennium-early 3 rd millennium BC: spherical and hemispherical bowls, polished axes, flint arrowheads, engraved schist plaques, etc. 1 We have recorded a total of 18 schist discoidal beads and one trapezoidal translucent bead for this site.
Olival da Pega 1 (Reguengos de Monsaraz, Évora) is a megalithic monument with polygonal chamber formed by 7 orthostasts, one of them reaching 4.4 m high (Leisner and Leisner 1985). Half of the numerous human remains documented were reported as partially burnt or affected by fire at different levels and temperatures, as well as some of the material assemblage of the funerary deposit (Leisner and Leisner 1985: 165-166). The referred items evidence a diverse and rich funerary deposit from the 4 th to 3 rd millennia BC transition, including decorated and symbolic pottery, globular and hemispheric bowls, plates, carinated bowls, a diverse flint assemblage of arrowheads and blades, polished axes, large quantity of plaque idols, bone hairpins, two lagomorphic pendants and c. 1000 beads. Additionally, a spherical bead and a small pendant, described as quartz, were recorded (Leisner and Leisner 1985: 148, est. XXIII: 91 and 92).
Anta Grande da Comenda da Igreja (Montemor-o-Novo, Évora) is a monumental megalithic passage grave, with collective burials, in use from the late 4 th millennium BC to the first half of the 3 rd millennium BC (Whittle and Arnaud 1975: 7). Its architecture consists of a polygonal chamber (4.5 m in diameter and 6 m in height) formed by eight orthostats and a long passage c. 10 m in length in two sections. The mound is preserved up to c. 3.5 m in height.
First excavated in the late 19 th century, it has been the object of several excavations in the course of the twentieth century (Leisner and Leisner 1959). The recovered pottery assemblage is typical of the Iberian 3 rd millennium BC, with small carinated bowls, cups and plates. The excavations also recovered polished axes and adzes, some bladelet cores in flint and hyaline quartz, several flint blades, microliths, a set of c. 200 arrowheads shaped from different raw materials and in very diversified typologies, flint halberds and daggers, several dozen engraved schist plaques, sandstone plaques, engraved schist crosses, bone "hair-pins". and a set of beads of different shapes made from various raw materials, including a zoomorphic schist pendant, two glass beads (possibly Iron Age), green beads (talc, muscovite and variscite), lignite beads, several amber beads of different typologies (Odriozola et al. 2019) and the translucent and fluorite beads reported here.
Casal do Pardo/Quinta do Anjo necropolis (Palmela, Setúbal) is formed by four hypogea with circular chamber and corridor, excavated firstly by António Mendes and Carlos Ribeiro in 1876 and 1878, although other materials were recovered before those interventions (Soares 2003: 22;Gonçalves et al. 2018). Its main funerary occupation seems to have taken place in the 4 th to 3 rd millennia BC transition and the second half of the 3 rd millennium BC (Soares 2003). A complete revision of the necropolis and inventory of the materials were made by the Leisners (Leisner et al. 1961;Leisner and Leisner 1965). A "yellowish-white" quartz bead in necklace QAP-199 was published among other materials with no contextual association (Leisner and Leisner 1965: 134, tafel 120: 16). Although uncertain, the context for these beads was according to Soares most likely hypogeum 4 (Soares 2003: 63-66).
Gruta 2 de Alapraia (Cascais, Lisbon) forms part of a necropolis of four artificial caves. It was excavated in 1934 by Jalhay and Paço (1941), and consists of an hypogeum with circular chamber and corridor. Despite later uses, the cave was in use during the Late Neolithic-Chalcolithic. Calcareous symbolic items and idols were recovered in the funerary level, as well as an important set of bell-beaker pottery (Jalhay and Paço 1941;Leisner and Leisner 1965). A 'rock crystal' bead was reported within its grave goods (Jalhay and Paço 1941: 127;Leisner and Leisner 1965: 94;tafel 70: k).
Tituaria (Mafra, Lisbon) tholos was excavated in 1978. Under a poorly preserved mound, its architecture consisted of a circular chamber with a maximum diameter of 4.6 m, a corridor c. 4 m long and a simple atrium. The only radiocarbon date available (OxA-5446: 3995 ± 65 BP) was taken from individual H27 in the 'foundational' deposit of the chamber (Cardoso et al. 1996: 172). In this level, several beads were found among other human remains packaged close to the chamber´s eastern wall. In association with individual H20 in the same layer of H27, were described a pottery fragment and a "calcite" bead (Cardoso et al. 1996: 148).
Trigache 3 (Odivelas, Lisbon) was excavated by Carlos Ribeiro in the late 19 th century together with another three dolmens (Leisner and Leisner 1965: 20-26;Boaventura 2009: 92). Trigache 3 finds include typical materials from the first half of the 3 rd millennium BC, such as polished axes, flint arrowheads and blades, a calcareous fragment of lunula, bell-beaker pottery, bone hairpins and some beads. The Leisners referred to a translucent calcite bead within this assemblage (Leisner and Leisner 1965: 24;tafel 18: 51).
Anta dos Penedos de São Miguel (Crato, Portalegre) was excavated from 1981 to 1983 (Claustre et al. 2005). Its architecture consists of a polygonal chamber c. 6 m in diameter and a corridor c. 10 m long, under a circular mound c. 16 m in diameter, which were relatively well preserved. Despite later Roman use and medieval violation of the chamber, the materials evidence a funerary use during the late 4 th millennium and early 3 rd millennium BC (Claustre et al. 2005). 'Quartz' beads were described among the raw materials used for the ornamental items recovered.
Gruta da Marmota (Alcanena, Santarém) cave was explored in the 1970s, yielding an assemblage of materials chronologically ranging from the Middle Neolithic to the Iron Age. It also contained a Bronze Age funerary use (Gonçalves 1972). An unpublished spherical green translucent bead (MR/S-25) was recovered in the Cut 1 from Sala 2 in the 1974 fieldwork, and another unpublished green translucent bead (MMT-26) was recovered during superficial surveys in the 1990s.
Buraca da Moura de Reixaldia (Torres Novas, Santarém) was excavated by Farinha dos Santos in the 1980s. Abundant archaeological materials recovered indicate prolonged human occupation from the Neolithic to the Roman era (Andrade et al. 2010: 242). Funerary use during Late Prehistory is well documented with abundance of human remains, Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic pottery, beads, arrowheads, engraved schist plaques, etc. (Andrade et al. 2010: 242-243). Among other beads, we analyzed a translucent-pink cylindrical bead and a natural cylinder of translucent calcite in Museu Municipal Leonel Trindade de Torres Novas.
Cabeço da Ministra Alta and Calatras IV (Alcobaça, Leiria) natural caves were excavated during the late 19 th century by Manuel Vieira Natividade (1903). Ministra Alta was in use from the Early Neolithic to Roman times. Despite later evidences of reuse during the Bronze and Iron Ages (Gonçalves 1978: 12-13;Silva 1998: 52), the assemblage recovered includes engraved schist plaques, decorated bone hairpins, flint and quartz geometrics and arrowheads, flint halberds, etc. (Natividade 1903;Gonçalves 1978;Silva 1998: 51-53) that points to a Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic funerary occupation of the cave. 23 beads worked out of greenstone and lignite were recorded together with the two translucent green beads studied here originally published as ribeirite 2 (Natividade 1903: 443;est. XVI) and the two perforated natural cylinders of calcite. From Calatras IV cave, apart from the abundant Late Prehistory items, Natividade (1903: 448; est. XVI) reported a placa de espato calcáreo that we have identified as a perforated translucent discoidal bead made of calcite.
El Pozuelo megalithic necropolis (Zalamea la Real, Huelva) is formed by 16 monuments of different typologies, distributed in two main groups, Los Llanetes and El Riscal-La Veguilla. Between 1945 and 1947, Pozuelo 1 to 9 were excavated by Carlos Cerdán (Cerdán et al. 1952), to whose excavations the beads studied here belong. Pozuelo 1 in Los Llanetes and Pozuelo 5 and 7 in El Riscal-La Veguilla visually dominate their relative groups. The monuments underwent complex transformations in their architecture and ritual spaces from the Late Neolithic to Late Chalcolithic (Linares 2011(Linares , 2016. A total of three quartz beads were recorded, one in the right chamber of Pozuelo 1, one in Pozuelo 5 and one in the left chamber of Pozuelo 7 (Cerdán et al. 1952). After the Leisners' work, Cabrero 3 reclassifies these beads as made of 'rock crystal'.
Los Gabrieles 6 (Valverde del Camino, Huelva) was the first of the 7 megalithic tombs that constitute Los Gabrieles necropolis (Linares 2011(Linares , 2016 to be excavated in 1974 (Blanco and Rothenberg 1981). It is a dolmen with a polygonal chamber and a corridor. Although violated, a large assemblage of grave goods were recovered from this monument (a decorated-plaque idol, polished axes, flint and quartz arrowheads, and globular and hemispheric pottery). A total of 41 pendants and beads were recovered during the excavation, including a big barrel-type bead identified as fluorite by visual inspection (Blanco and Rothenberg 1981: 287; fig. 296: 4).
Cueva del Vaquero (Alcalá de Guadaíra, Sevilla) is double-chambered tholos, located in the megalithic necropolis of 'El Gandul' that was excavated by George Bonsor in 1902 (Leisner and Leisner 1943: 197-203). Despite the limited number of finds, the materials recovered were representative of the 3 rd millennium BC: flint arrowheads with concave base, almond rim plates, hemispheric bowls and bell beakers together with a Patella were recovered. Additionally, a green quartz fragment was published as belonging to this tholos (Leisner and Leisner 1943: 203, tafel 60 and 66).
'La Emisora' sector (Valencina de la Concepción, Sevilla) is located in the farm "La Candelera" at the Chalcolithic site of Valencina de la Concepción/ Castilleja de Guzmán (see García 2013 for a review). Numerous structures were documented in this sector in 1988 and 1989 (Murillo 1991: 559). According to the "abundant material and also burials" described by the excavators (Murillo 1991: 558), the a priori "hut floor" in the Emisora Norte sector (Murillo 1991: 557, fig. 1) was probably a funerary hypogeum. Among the unpublished remains from the Emisora Norte sector, we have identified a prismatic fluorite fragment; to date the only object in this raw material found at the site.
Los Millares necropolis (Santa Fé de Mondújar, Almería). The excavations carried out by Luis Siret and Pedro Flores in this megalithic necropolis went practically unreported until the Leisners' publications. The site was later re-studied and re-excavated by Almagro and Arribas. Among the grave goods in Tholos 12, 37-V (Almagro and Arribas 1963: 124) and 63-III Trab. Prehist., 77, N.º 2, julio-diciembre 2020, pp. S1-S7, ISSN: 0082-5638 https://doi.org/10.3989/tp.2020.12256 (Leisner and Leisner 1943: 52, tafel 24;Almagro and Arribas 1963: 116) four translucent "quartz" and "rock crystal" beads were documented. Among the 3,294 beads in Tomb 12, both Siret and the Leisners documented five purple beads in "amethyst quartz" (Leisner and Leisner 1943: 25, tafel 11). For different reasons we were only able to analyze the translucent beads in Tomb 12. Fuente Álamo tomb 111 (Cuevas de Almanzora, Almería) was excavated on the southern side of the site in 1999 (see Schubart et al. 2000;2006 for a review of the site). This unusual burial was formed by a quite large pit (2.20 x 1.50 m) that contained a large funerary urn (pithos) under a small mound of large stones. This contained the remains of a female 16-18 years of age, buried in a flexed supine decubitus position, with red pigment made from hematite and cinnabar around her skull (Schubart et al. 2006: 107). Both the tomb and the rich grave goods indicated her high social position. The grave goods were formed by three pottery recipients, particularly a small carinated vessel with remains of Papaver somniferum and fatty acids (Schubart et al. 2006: 107); a copper dagger, a large group of copper and silver bracelets and rings, as well as a series of silver and copper earrings and beads and nearly fifty beads in other raw materials, mostly minerals (Schubart et al. 2006: 106). Some of these beads were analyzed by XRD, and one in fluorite and another in quartz were identified, among other mineralogies (Pozo et al. 2002: 136, 140); this fluorite bead, together with the other samples analyzed in this study would have been pulverized as described by Pozo et al. (2002: 133). Another transparent bead among the adornments in Almería Museum (Schubart et al. 2006: 105, fig. 2-e) has been studied here.
Anta Grande do Zambujeiro (Nossa Senhora da Tourega, Évora) is a monumental megalith with a long corridor (8.8 m x 2.8 m), and a seven-orthostat polygonal chamber (5.7 m x 5.5 m) with slab roofing. At the end of the corridor, just before the chamber, a pillar supports the roofing (Soares and Silva 2010: 97-99). The entrance to the monument was preceded by an atrium and an enormous granite stele / standing stone. The mound possesses a perimeter ring c. 50 m in diameter and 9 m high. The first excavation was performed in Anta Grande do Zambujeiro by Henrique Leonor Pina in 1964-1968 but unfortunately it remains unpublished and no contextual information is available for the finds. Further excavations have recently been made in the tumulus (Santos 2009: 74;Soares and Silva 2010).Inside the chamber, the presence of microliths, variscite beads (Odriozola et al. 2012) and polished stone tools seems to date the first burials in the late 4 th millennium BC (Santos 2009: 62). These older levels were sealed by a fallen chamber slab over-lain by a long 3 rd millennium BC occupational sequence. The most significant burial goods on top of this fallen slab are small decorated pottery vessels (Santos and Rocha 2015), arrowheads, engraved schist plaques, a gold foil, amber beads, and the fluorite bead. Chronologically, a radiocarbon date obtained from charcoal recovered in the tumulus excavations has given a calibrated date for the megalith that roughly spans the second half of the 3 rd millennium BC (Soares and Silva 2010: 101). However, no further information about the beads' archaeological context or stratigraphic associations are known other than the data given above.
Cau de I'Olivar d'en Margall (Torroella del Montgrí, Girona) cave discovered and excavated in 1925 by Luis Pericot who relates that the place was known by local farmers, prior to its discovery, as the place where several prehistoric "rosaries" (beads assemblages) had appeared. All the recovered materials lack stratigraphic and contextual information, because the cave's deposit was stirred to remove the land for the neighboring olive grove. Archaeological excavations by Pericot (1939) recovered the following materials: a small assemblage of very fragmented human bones, a small axe, a flint retouched knife, three arrowheads, a copper rod of quadrangular section, and 444 beads, 8 of the beads were inventoried as callaite, 3 as calcite (globular beads), 23 (including a small piriformis pendant) as bone, 400 as steatite (standardized small black disc). Aditionally, 5 dentalium beads and 3 fragments of beads were inventoried. Chronologically, the cave is ascribed by the author to the Eneolithic (Late Neolithic -Copper Age). Lately, another bead and some objects were recovered and reviewed (Pericot 1947). Pericot's findings are deposited in the Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya (Barcelona).

Other translucent materials described in the literature
A relatively large number of sites have yielded translucent beads that we have been unable to analyze. Translucent pendants, considering also the cited ones at Cueva de los Mármoles and Cueva de la Pulsera, are referred in different natural caves in Andalusia, with occupations from the Ancient to Late Neolithic (6 th -4 th millennia BC). At La Araña´s rockshelter 6 (Málaga), calcite and gypsum pendants are referred from Layer 7 (Ancient Neolithic) (Ramos 2004). Calcite pendants are also described in Cueva del Toro´s (Antequera, Málaga) Layer IIIb (Goñi et al. 2004: 206), in Cueva del Agua de Pradonegro (Iznalloz, Granada) and in Las Majólicas (Alfacar, Granada) (Navarrete 1976).