Highest-ranking person in Copper Age Spain was a woman, not a man, genetic analysis shows
Since its discovery in 2008, the skeleton of a high-ranking individual buried inside a tomb in the Iberian Peninsula between 3,200 and 2,200 years ago was thought to be the remains of a man. However, a new analysis reveals that this person was actually a woman.
Archaeologists in Spain dubbed the woman the “Ivory Lady” based on the bounty of grave goods found alongside her skeleton, including an ivory tusk surrounding her skull, flint, an ostrich eggshell, amber and a rock crystal dagger, according to a study published Thursday (July 6) in the journal Scientific Reports.
For more than a decade, archaeologists believed that this individual was a man, even nicknaming him the “Ivory Merchant.”
“The first anthropological report determined that the individual was most likely male based on an analysis of the pelvis,” study co-author Leonardo García Sanjuán, a professor of prehistory at the University of Seville in Spain, told Live Science. [Continue reading…]