An interdisciplinary research team has made a startling discovery at a prehistoric grave site in Spain’s Granada: a striking imbalance in the burials, with twice as many women as men! This gender bias is even more pronounced among juveniles, where the ratio stands at a whopping 10 females for every male. Can the researchers find an explanation?
Orthophotography with the location of the 9 excavated tombs at Panoría cemetery. Inset, location of the cemetery. (Marta, DZ.B.et al. / Scientific Reports)
The Panoría megalithic necropolis, situated at the easternmost point of Sierra Harana, consists of at least 19 graves, nine of which were excavated between 2015 and 2019. The research and excavations have been led by the Archaeometry research group from the University of Tübingen and the GEA research group from the University of Granada. “The Panoría population shows a clear sex ratio imbalance in favor of females, with twice as many females as males,” scientists wrote in the study published in the journal Scientific Reports.
A Clear Sex Ratio Imbalance: the Science
These collective burial sites have yielded more than 55,000 skeletal remains. Radiocarbon dating places the first interments at around 5,600 years ago, with the site in intermittent use until about 4,100 years ago.
The researchers employed new bioarchaeological techniques to determine the chromosomal sex of the individuals buried here. Researchers analyzed DNA and a protein called amelogenin, found in tooth enamel, to create a detailed demographic profile of those interred. These cutting-edge methods are crucial for studying human remains where traditional skeletal analysis alone may not provide reliable sex identification, especially when the bones are fragmented or degraded.
Amelogenin was key to this study because it plays a critical role in identifying biological sex, as its levels differ greatly between males and females. By studying this protein in the teeth of the individuals buried at Panoría, researchers were able to obtain a precise and reliable profile of the sex distribution within the population.
Human bone remains from Phase A from Tomb 11 with an articulated individual. (Marta, DZ.B.et al. / Scientific Reports)
A Stark Imbalance: Matrilineal Descent?
The results revealed a significant gender imbalance, with female burials far outnumbering males. This discrepancy was consistent across all age groups and throughout the entire period of the necropolis’s use.
Such a stark imbalance is highly unusual, as human populations typically exhibit a near 1:1 male-to-female ratio. Only in exceptional cases—such as during times of conflict, war, or mass migration—does the ratio tend to skew heavily in one direction, reports a press announcement.
However, these explanations don’t seem to apply to Panoría, as the gender bias appears in all the graves and spans several centuries, suggesting a long-term, socially driven practice rather than the result of isolated events.
The question remains: what caused this enduring gender bias in the Panoría necropolis?
Given that the skewed ratio persists across all the graves, age groups, and time periods, it seems likely that this was a deliberate social decision rather than the outcome of random or extraordinary events.
One possibility is that the burial practices reflect a matrilineal society, where family lineage and social identity were determined through the maternal line. This could explain why female burials dominate the site and why young males may be largely absent—perhaps they joined other kin groups through male exogamy, a practice observed in many anthropological studies, reports LBV Magazine.
The over-representation of women in the necropolis could indicate a female-centered social structure, where gender played a significant role in shaping funerary customs and cultural traditions. Ultimately, the findings suggest that Panoría may have been home to a society where women held a central place, both in life and in death.
Top image: Aerial view of the necropolis at Panoría in Granada, Spain. Source: Marta, DZ.B.et al. / Scientific Reports
By Sahir Pandey
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