New discovery reshapes how social roles are read in Iron and Bronze Age Southern Europe
Researchers from Durham University in the United Kingdom have revealed findings that shift the way scholars interpret social roles within Iron and Bronze Age communities. The study, shared through the university’s official channels and widely discussed in scientific circles, points to a more nuanced picture of identity and power in early European societies.
The breakthrough emerged during excavations at a tomb complex in Las Capellanias, a site dated to roughly three thousand years ago, located in the southwest of Spain near Cañaveral de León. The team uncovered a carved stele featuring a human figure with a highly detailed face and pronounced physical traits, including male genitalia. The figure appears armed with two swords and adorned with a headdress and a necklace, signaling a complex personal presentation that blends attributes traditionally linked to distinct social roles. This combination invites a reevaluation of how armor, adornment, and ceremonial display intersect in ancient identities.
Previously, archaeologists often read Iron and Bronze Age imagery as clearly divided by gender roles: weapons as indicators of male warriors, and jewelry or headdresses as feminine symbols. The new evidence challenges that binary interpretation, suggesting a spectrum of identity expressions within the Southern European communities that occupied the landscape three millennia ago.
According to the researchers, the presence of such a stele indicates that social roles may have been more fluid than once thought. The carvings at Las Capellanias show that everyday symbolism could cross traditional gendered boundaries and that authority, combat capacity, and personal adornment could be interwoven in ways not previously recognized for this region and era. This finding adds depth to the portrait of social life in a culture where visibility and symbolic placement helped signal belonging and status.
The stele is not the first of its kind found at Las Capellanias. It marks the third monument of this type recovered from the same site, implying that the tombs there may have played a significant role in territorial marking and in expressing social identity. The researchers propose that the placement of tombs within the landscape was deliberate, with carved stones acting as markers of belonging and control over space in a cultural milieu that valued symbolic visibility as a form of social signaling.
Beyond the main discovery, earlier anthropological work indicates that women in related prehistoric settings participated in hunting and other demanding activities alongside men. The Las Capellanias findings contribute to a growing body of evidence that gender roles in ancient societies were flexible and context dependent rather than fixed by biology. The researchers emphasize that the new interpretation aligns with broader patterns observed in neighboring regions, where material culture and ritual practice reveal a spectrum of identities rather than a rigid framework.
While the discovery is striking, experts caution that one stele does not rewrite history. They stress the need for additional excavations and comparative analyses with nearby sites to determine how widespread such flexible depictions were. Ongoing work at Las Capellanias and related locations will help clarify the relationship between artistic representation, ritual function, and social organization in this part of Southern Europe during the Iron and Bronze Ages, offering a more layered portrait of ancient life for scholars and curious readers alike. [Durham University, 2024]