La distribución espacial de los restos faunísticos de Los Millares (Santa Fe de Mondújar, Almería). Spatial distribution of animal bones at Los Millares (Santa Fé de Mondújar, Almería)

Abstract

The archaeological settlement of Los Millares has an record of animal bones very important. In this paper we have applied different statistical methods to analyze the spatial distribution of remains of animal bones and establish the patterns of behavior of the inhabitants because the activities carried out into a specific functional space have reported about your trace in the animal bones. These activities can be associated with consumption (sites to cut in pieces the animals body, the sites where the meat is eaten, the garbage sites, etc.) with the production of handmade objects (bone tools, stone tools, etc.). The results obtained show a different spatial distribution of fauna remains into the areas of settlement with reference to species and some parts of animal skeleton, in addition to the age and the sex of animals. Therefore, the results obtained show that there are social behaviors restricting the consumption of some species to a specific sector of population, and these behaviours can be seen in the animal remains. Moreover, there are evidences about economic matters like the meat production and exchange of animals.