The collection of severed heads was a unique funerary practice within the ancient Iberian world, notably in the Iron Age between 2,000 and 3,000 years ago. The study of these heads and their treatment offers an exceptional opportunity to analyze these communities, of which limited archaeological record exists, since cremation was the predominant burial ritual.
This practice consisted of the public exhibition of the skulls of certain individuals subjected to a post-mortem treatment, which involved the hammering in or insertion of a long metal nail. Some of these decapitated skulls have been recovered with signs of nailing, and in some cases with an iron nail still in place.
Isotope analysis of heads recovered from the Puig Castellar and Ullastret sites points to different mobility patterns in these individuals, who would not have been randomly selected. The "nailed heads" ritual did not correspond to the same symbolic expression among the Iberian communities of the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, but rather was a practice that differed in each settlement.
In some, the heads of individuals from outside the community were taken to represent symbols of power and intimidation. In other settlements, the priority seems to have been the veneration of members of the local community, as the same practice had very different intentions.
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This is the conclusion reached by a study led by researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), which analyzed the mobility patterns of these human communities existing in the Iron Age of the last millennium BC.
Severed Heads: More Than Just Simple War Trophies
Researchers studied seven nailed skulls of men found in two sites dating back to this period: the city of Ullastret (found in the same town of the province of Girona) and the settlement of Puig Castellar (Santa Coloma de Gramenet).
Geological map of nailed head discovery sites.(Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports).
The study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, was coordinated by researchers from the Department of Animal Biology, Plant Biology and Ecology of the UAB, and also included the collaboration of researchers from the Museum of Archaeology of Catalonia (MAC), the Museum Torre Balldovina and the universities of Lleida, Bordeaux (France), and Tübingen (Germany).
Who were these individuals and what was the purpose of the nailed heads?
Traditionally, archaeologists have debated whether the skulls were war trophies—to intimidate their enemies—or venerated relics of important community members. These hypotheses, however, based on oral and ethnographic sources, have not yet been verified, nor has there been in-depth studies on the relationship between these groups and the land they inhabited.
"Our premise in approaching the study was that if they were war trophies they would not come from the sites analyzed, while if they were venerated individuals, these would most likely be local," explains Rubén de la Fuente-Seoane, archaeologist at the UAB and first author of the study.
"Our results reveal that the individuals from Puig Castellar and Ullastret would not have been randomly selected. There would have been a homogeneous trend towards men in these rituals. However, the mobility and localization patterns suggest a greater diversity, which could also imply social and cultural differences among the individuals of the two communities," says the UAB researcher.
Isotope Analysis Reveals Differences Between the Sites
To carry out the study, the research team combined bioarchaeology and the analysis of stable strontium and oxygen isotopes in the dental enamel of seven severed skulls of men recovered from Puig Castellar and Ullastret, together with archaeozoological data and a detailed sampling of sediment and vegetation collected in the vicinity of the sites.
"At Puig Castellar the isotope values of three of the four individuals differ significantly from the local strontium reference, which suggests that they were probably not from the local community," says de la Fuente-Seoane.
"In contrast, Ullastret revealed a mixture of local and non-local origins. This result suggests that the practice of severed heads was applied in a different way at each site, which seems to rule out a homogeneous symbolic expression. But more research is needed to be sure."
In Puig Castellar, the skulls were exposed in an area near or adjacent to a wall. This causes the researchers to conclude that the skulls were being elevated and displayed as a demonstration of power and coercion, with the message useful for internal repression and toward groups from outside the community.
Aerial view of Puig Castellar archaeological site. (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona).
In the case of Ullastret, the two local individuals were found in a street in the middle of the city, which suggests that they were exhibited on a wall or doorway of the adjacent houses. This fact would provide support to the hypothesis that they belonged to or were important people in this community, venerated by its inhabitants.
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A third Ullastret skull, of possible foreign origin, was found in one of the external walls of the settlement, and it is believed this represented a war trophy.
New Tools for Understanding Iron Age Iberian Society
The results of the study reveal for the first time direct evidence of human mobility patterns during the Iron Age in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula, and provide new perspectives on the territorialization contexts of northeastern Iberia.
Previous research on Iberian territorial management suggested differences in how these societies exploited the resources surrounding them. With this study, researchers were able to show that the skulls found at Puig Castellar and Ullastret also reveal different mobility patterns, given the varied nature of the displays of the decapitated deceased.
The faunal samples also reveal a very differentiated resource management, in coherence with the typology of each of the settlements.
"This differentiation reflects a dynamic and complex society with important local and external interactions. Our study is a first approach to this archaeological problem, using a method that is revolutionizing the way we study mobility in the past. At the same time, it suggests that the selection of individuals for the severed heads ritual was more complex than initially thought," explained Rubén de la Fuente-Seoane.
The study demonstrates the value of integrating bioarchaeological and isotope data to improve understanding of social structures and human interactions in the distant past.
Top image: Iron Age Iberian skull with nail driven through its head, recovered by archaeologists at site in Ullastret, Spain.
Source: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
This is an edited version of an article first published as a press release by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, entitled ‘Iberian nailed head ritual was more complex than expected.’
