Scientific congress in Santiago 2015

por | Oct 15, 2015 | English articles, Necrópolis islámica, Noticias

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“Paleo diet meets paleopathology” international scientific forum

Tauste and the El Patiaz Cultural Association will be present at this congress

Poster congreso scientific santiago

UPV-EHU University presents the research on Tauste necropolis at the international scientific forum “Paleo diet meets paleopathology” in Santiago. Chemical analyses have shown a larger intake of animal proteins in adults compared to youngsters.

The medieval Islamic necropolis in Tauste (Zaragoza) returns to the international scientific forum.

The research project promoted by the El Patiaz Cultural Association from a town near Zaragoza will take part in the workshop “Paleo diet meets palaeopathology” and reveal the results of the research on the paleo diet conducted in collaboration with the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU).

The congress

The meeting set by the Rede Consiliencia is to take place on the 15 and 16 of October in Santiago de Compostela. Its objective is to explore possible connections between the paleo diet and palaeonthology focusing on chemical stable isotopes analyses of the anthropological remains. 

At the workshop, a team of researchers at the University of the Basque Country in charge of this study, led by Doctor Luis Ortega, will present a scientific poster “Diet and social differentiation in the medieval Muslim population of Tauste (Zaragoza): chemical and isotopic evidence”.

They will do it together with the director of the Anthropologic Observatory of the Islamic necropolis in Tauste, anthropologist Miriam Pina.

The poster

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The poster will include summarised results of the chemical analyses conducted on bone and dental samples taken from 30 people whose remains were found at the Islamic necropolis in Tauste.

Such analyses were performed to specify food sources of the local population back in the day.

Analyses of trace elements, stable isotopes, enamel and dentine have helped identify the social differentiation in eating habits in terms of age and gender.

Young and adult women seem to have had the same diet as young men. The remains of older women show a lower intake of animal proteins. As for men, one can observe a higher intake of animal proteins in adults in comparison with the youngsters.

A research team of the UPV that has conducted this study keeps analysing the samples to continue our work on the paleo diet in the Medieval Islamic population of Tauste.

Besides, from the anthropological observatory in Tauste, we plan to carry out yet another study to apply the conclusions of the research on the paleo diet to the social environment so that once the eating patterns are known, to set the hypothesis about the socioeconomic framework of the population of the time, as well as the origin and organization of the resources.

The islamic necropolis in Tauste

El Patiaz Cultural Association of Tauste as part of their promotion campaign of the research of the historical and cultural heritage in 2010 started the archaeological project that changed the historic perspective applied until that moment regarding the Muslim presence in the region. As yet it was deemed purely incidental.

The discovery of the Islamic necropolis with an estimated area of around 2 hectares comes to prove that there was a steady and settled population in this region. Archaeologist Francisco Javier Gutierrez, excavation director, estimates that the minimum capacity of this necropolis is around 4,500 tombs, which, in turn, has two levels, and therefore shows the surface it covered back then was quite extensive.

As of 2010 four archaeological campaigns were conducted, financed by the El Patiaz Cultural Association. During these excavations, 44 skeletons were uncovered. They then underwent a basic anthropologic analysis.

Research project of the Islamic cemetery in Tauste implies future DNA studies and new carbon-14 tests to complete the ones that have been done so far that date this necropolis between the 8th and 11th centuries.

These estimations put it on the map as the oldest in Spain documented so far, along with the one found in Pamplona.

Information

For further information: El Patiaz Cultural Association of Tauste: elpatiaz@elpatiaz.es

MIRIAM PINA (Press and anthropology): 636827926

Workshop link: http://paleodietmeetspaleopathology.com/

scientific program

Galleries and video

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Acknowledgement

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The translation of this page is included in the Zaragoza Provincial Council Grants for the Dissemination and Revitalisation of Cultural Heritage in the year 2022.

La traducción de está página esta incluida dentro de las Ayudas de la Diputación Provincial de Zaragoza para la Difusión y Dinamización del Patrimonio Cultural en el año 2022.