Warmed to the bone. A zooarchaeological and metallurgical approach to calcined bones in Iberian Iron Age metalworking. The case of A Cividá (Cerdedo-Cotobade, Galicia)

Abstract This paper investigates an unusual assemblage of calcined animal bones recovered from an Iron Age metalworking context at the hillfort of A Cividá (Cerdedo-Cotobade, Galicia, Spain). The presence of a large quantity of thermally altered bone in an area associated with bronze production raises the question of whether these remains were deliberately incorporated into the metallurgical process. A Cividá therefore provides an unusual opportunity to investigate the presence of animal bones in Iron Age bronze-working contexts and their functional and symbolic significance. This work adopts a multidisciplinary approach that combines archaeological contextual analysis with zooarchaeological and archaeometallurgical analyses. Particular attention is paid to the thermal alteration of the bones, their taxonomic and anatomical composition, as well as their elemental composition, as assessed by portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF). These lines of evidence are used to evaluate possible explanations for the presence of the bones and to assess their potential technical role within the metallurgical sequence.