The Balearic islands, Mallorca and Menorca, were characterized by a
specific funerary ritual during the Iron Age which used fragmented
limestone at the cremation process. These cremated remains and
lime fragments were afterwards deposited with funerary goods in
caves and rock shelters. The aim of this study is multifold and wants
to unravel the different questions on this unique practice. When was
cremation introduced on the Balearic islands and how developed this
practice into a ritual with the use of limestone? We want to study the
technological skills necessary to perform this cremation and how the
lime and bone packets in the caves came to be. By using strontium and oxygen isotopic analyses, the
origins of the communities practising this funerary ritual on the
islands will be determined. However, other funerary practices of
primary and secondary inhumation were also existing at the same
time on both islands. By studying the strontium signals from both the
limeburials and the inhumation graves we want to verify if different
communities where using different funerary practices as a potential
way of expressing identity or that other social reasons played a role
in the use of different funerary habitats during the Iron Age.