RT Journal Article
T1 Shedding new light on the context and temporality of Iberian warrior stelae: The Cañaveral de León 2 Stela and Las Capellanías burial complex (Huelva, SW Spain)
A1 García Sanjuan, Leonardo
A1 Bermejo Meléndez, Javier
A1 Bailiff, Ian
AB Iberian late prehistoric stelae stand out as a significant expression of European prehistoricart. For well over a hundred years, the context of use of the c. 300 Iberian stelae knownto this date has been intensely discussed. This debate, however, was inherently flawedand limited in its scope, as almost all the available examples were found by chance, andno good-quality empirical evidence was available to understand their primary context. Inthis paper, we present the first conclusive scientific evidence demonstrating that Iberianlate prehistoric stelae were used both as grave markers and landscape landmarksassociated with pathways. This incontrovertible evidence stems from fieldwork undertakenin June 2022 and September 2023 at the site of Las Capellanías (Cañaveral de León,Huelva) in south-west Spain, including field walking, geophysics and excavation. Theground-breaking discoveries made at this remarkable site within barely a year reveal thecontextual association of three different stelae to as many graves within the context of alarge long-standing burial complex. Specifically, in this paper we study Stela #2 through abroad combination of methods ranging from geoarchaeology to luminescence dating andarchaeoastronomy, as well as multiple digital visualization and remote sensing techniques.This multidisciplinary approach provides data that reveal multiple lines of evidence concerningthe context and temporality of the stela, its manufacture and its graphic design.Altogether, this lays out a much needed and long-awaited reliable empirical base to understandwhere, when and how Iberian prehistoric stelae were used
PB Public Library of Science
SN 1932-6203 (electrónico)
YR 2025
FD 2025-04
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10272/25487
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10272/25487
LA eng
NO García Sanjuán L, Rivera-Jiménez T, Díaz-Guardamino M, Wheatley D, Lozano Rodríguez JA, Donaire Romero T, et al. (2025) Shedding new light on the context and temporality of Iberian warrior stelae: The Cañaveral de León 2 Stela and Las Capellanías burial complex (Huelva, SW Spain). PLoS ONE 20(4): e0321080. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321080
NO This project has received fundingfrom the following institutions: MaritimeEncounters Project, University of Gothenburg(Sweden), by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ),University of Durham (UK), Research GroupATLAS (HUM-694) of the University of Sevilla(Spain), University of Southampton (UK), CityCouncil of Cañaveral de León (Huelva, Spain).The funders had no role in study design, datacollection and analysis, decision to publish, orpreparation of the manuscript
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 15 jun 2026