Female sex bias and kinship in Iberian megalithic societies: an interdisciplinary analysis of bioarchaeology, aDNA and proteomics

Traditional osteological methods in biological sex estimation can now be overcome with genomic and proteomic analyses. The combination of the three methodologies has been used for a better understanding of gender-related funerary rituals of the Iberian megalithic cemetery of Panoría. As a result, 44 individuals have been sexed including for the first time non-adults. Contrary to the male bias found in many Iberian and European megalithic monuments, the Panoría population shows a clear sex ratio imbalance in favour of females, with twice as many females as males. Furthermore, this imbalance is found regardless of the criterion considered: sex ratio by tomb, chronological period, method of sex estimation or age group. Biological relatedness and kinship have been explored as cultural explanations for this female-related bias. The results obtained for Panoría are indicative of a female-centred social structure in which sex and/or gender would have influenced funerary rites and cultural traditions.