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Relatively few examples of Palaeohispanic writing have been recovered from the Vasconic territories of present-day Navarre, leading to the assumption that the Vascones were a pre-literate society. Here, the authors report on an inscription on a bronze hand recovered at the Iron Age site of Irulegi (Aranguren Valley, Navarre) in northern Spain. Its detailed linguistic analysis suggests that the script represents a graphic subsystem of Palaeohispanic that shares its roots with the modern Basque language and constitutes the first example of Vasconic epigraphy. The text inscribed on this artefact, which was found at the entrance of a domestic building, is interpreted as apotropaic, a token entreating good fortune. Keywords: Iberian Peninsula, Circum-Pyrenean region, Late Iron Age, Vasconic epigraphy, Palaeohispanic, linguistic analysis, Introduction The Vascones--mentioned in Classical sources including Ptolemy (Geographia 2.6.67; Garcia Gil & Molinero Hernando 2006) and Pliny (Naturalis Historia 3.3.24; Rackham 1942) --were a Late Iron Age cultural group [...]

Se presentan tres estructuras descubiertas y excavadas en Beaskinarte (Sierra de Aralar). Una de ellas es una tumba de incineración con estela ante la cual había un depósito de huesos, así como cuatro vasos, uno de ellos, quizás, liso y tres decorados (con motivos acanalados, con temas triangulares excisos y con un cordón con ungulaciones). Se dató en la Edad del Bronce. La segunda es un cromlech que aportó en la zona central fragmentos de dos vasos y un sílex con huellas de uso; además, al pie de varios testigos se hallaron carbones, un cristal de cuarzo, cantos de arenisca, etc. Se dató en la Edad del Hierro y, al parecer, se utilizó como hito central de sel durante la Edad Media-Moderna. Finalmente, tenemos una estructura cuadrangular con entrada orientada al sur contemporánea a las descritas. Ha aportado carbones, fragmentos cerámicos, un canto alisado y una pequeña chapa de bronce. ___________________________________________ This article is about three structures that we discovered and excavated in Beaskinarte (Aralar mountain range, Gipuzkoa). One of them is a cremation tomb with a stele, before which there was a bone deposit. The nearest places to the stele were altered, probably due to attempts during the Middle Ages to check if it was a haustarri –shieling marking stone. Cremated bones (approximately 100 gr) were deposited on a small loculus excavated in the bedrock. Next to the deposit there were found fragment of four ceramic vessels, out of context, two of which present only one fragment. One of the vessels is apparently without any decoration and the other three are decorated (with grooved motives, with triangular excised themes; and with a cordon decorated with fingernail impressions). The recovered charcoals fragments were dated to Late Bronze Age (BP 2770±30). This new cremation tomb is a sign of the possible complexity of the funerary practices of these mountain areas, up to now represented only by the baratze or stone circles, in their different varieties, or the occasionally reuse of previous funerary monuments –cists–. A few meters away we have another cremation structure, a baratze stone circles, originally circular, but nowadays distort. All its the sandstone standing stones were fractured, stretched out and almost covered by the soil. In the central area were found fragments of two pottery vessels and two flint flakes, one of which has use-wear traces. Moreover, at the foot of some of the standing stones were also found charcoal fragments, a rock crystal, sandstone pebbles… probably related to the funerary ritual, as we verified in the burial-mound stone circles of Ondarre. Dated to Iron Age (BP 2470±30). Apparently, this structure, as the baratze of Ondarre III (Mujika-Alustiza et al., 2018), was reused as shieling marking stone (haustarri) during Middle Age-Modern Age. Signs of it are the charcoals fragments –maybe remains of the fires documented during the Middle Ages?– dated to cal AD 1285-1400 and the haustarri placed over a stretched out standing stone of the stone circle. Do these elements extend in time the possible function of milestone related to livestock activities, while were also shared with its funerary function? Finally, we have a quadrangular structure, with south-facing entrance, contemporary to the described funerary structures (BP 2770±30 and 2420±30). A small excavation survey was done, that did not provide many archaeological material evidences (pottery fragments, a smoothed pebble and a circular bronze element). This small archaeological ensemble could be considered a simple and casual addition of structures, but we think that proves continued livestock activity in their surroundings and so that is, probably, the reflection of a social complexity so far undetected on the mountain areas of the Basque Country.