Human diet and the chronology of neolithic societies in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula: the necropolises of Puig d’en Roca and Can Gelats (Girona, Spain)

Radiocarbon and palaeodiet information has been obtained for two Neolithic necropolises in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula: Puig d’en Roca and Can Gelats (Girona, Spain). Although Puig d’en Roca is one of the most important necropolises in this period, it is also one of the least known as, following its excavation in the 1950s and 1960s, it has scarcely been restudied archaeologically. Can Gelats is one of the latest funerary sites of this period to be excavated and therefore is little known to the scientific community. Two key issues in the study of Neolithic communities in the western Mediterranean are addressed here. Few radiocarbon determinations have been obtained at funerary sites and they have usually been applied to a very small number of individuals in each cemetery (one or two dates). In a similar way, palaeodiet analysis of Neolithic cemeteries has rarely been attempted, and therefore the information presented here is of great importance to understand the diet in those societies. This paper presents a new series of dates for two of the most important Neolithic necropolises in north-east Iberia and approaches the subsistence patterns of the populations buried there.