Geometric microliths as chronological and cultural markers in the Sado shell middens? Reflections from Amoreiras (Alcácer do Sal, Portugal) (original) (raw)
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Amoreiras, a shell midden in the Sado valley (Southern Portugal), was during years considered one of the most recent sites of the Sado Mesolithic complex, and a place of interactions between the last hunter-gatherers and the Neolithic groups. Nevertheless, the data about the lithic industry was poorly known. The absolute chronology and the complexity of the stratigraphy were not analyzed in detail. In this paper, we present the results from a techno-typological analysis of a set of lithic materials recovered from the first excavations in Amoreiras during the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Shell midden formation is largely controlled by an-thropogenic processes, resulting from human exploitation of aquatic resources. This makes shell middens archives of both human behaviour and palaeoenvironmental records. However, their often complex stratigraphy hampers the isolation of individual anthropogenic events. In the central/ southern coast of Portugal, extensive inland estuaries were preferential settings for Mesolithic groups from c. 6200 cal BC. Here, we present a microstratigraphic approach to the shell midden of Poças de São Bento, one of the largest and best-known sites in the Sado Valley. The microfacies approach was based on sedimentary components, their abundance and arrangement, and post-depositional processes. Anthropogenic processes identified as tossing events and anthropogenically reworked deposits allowed inferences on spatial organisation, preferential refuse areas, occupational surfaces, and temporal-ity of the occupations. The presence of calcareous pebbles in the anthropogenic, shell-rich sediments, together with forami-nifera, presumably from the estuarine marshes, is compared with the regional geology, providing a hypothetical location of the shellfish gathering. The microstratigraphy described reveals a full internal dynamic in the formation of the apparently homogeneous shell midden layer. The human activities inferred at Poças de São Bento have many similarities with those reported for Cabeço da Amoreira in the nearby Tagus palaeo-estuary. This evidence points to the need for further micro-morphological approaches in similar deposits. The study of shell midden formation processes, through integrative microcontextual approaches, plays a major role in understanding Mesolithic societies in the large early Holocene estuary environments of Atlantic Iberia.
Lithics in a Mesolithic Shell Midden: New Data from Poças de São Bento (Portugal)
2015
The development, since 2010, of a research project on the Mesolithic of the Sado valley has provided new insights into the study of the lithic technology of the last hunter-gatherer societies. The new excavations carried out at Poças de São Bento shell midden, one of the largest and richest sites identified in the Sado valley, include a protocol for the systematic recovery and recording of archaeological remains, including the water sieving of all the excavated sediments. Therefore, as the new lithic materials do not suffer from any excavation or previous selection bias, it is possible to characterize raw material resources, lithic reduction strategies, tool production and functional areas in a more reliable approach. Selecting a specific excavation area and two different stratigraphic units for analyses allowed us to evaluate site integrity and to test some conventional interpretations concerning tool production and ARAÚJO, A.C.; ARIAS, P.; DINIZ, M.T. (2015) Lithics in a Mesolithi...
The Cultural Dynamics of Shell-Matrix Sites, 2014
During the past decade, new research has been conducted on several shell midden sites in western Algarve (southern Portugal), dated from the Pre-Boreal to the early Atlantic climatic periods (10,000–6400 BP or 9400–5300 cal BC). New sites (four shell middens at Barranco das Quebradas and one at Rocha das Gaivotas) provided new data on Mesolithic occupation patterns: geographic location, radiocarbon dates, size, archaeological context and materials. This study uses these characteristics to infer the function and duration of the occupations. Data on shellfish, namely on the abundance of species and processing techniques, help us define diet choices and their changes through time. The Mesolithic shell middens in western Algarve are located either atop sea cliffs or in nearby small valleys. The overwhelming majority of shell remains – and the reduced number of any other kind of fauna or lithic materials – define these as specialized, temporary locations. From this we can conclude that these human groups had high mobility indexes and traveled to the coast in order to collect local marine resources and, later on, flint raw material. The preferred animals were mussels, limpets, common topshells and, at a later period, gooseneck barnacles. There is no evidence of overexploitation of any species during the Mesolithic, and the change of relative abundances should indicate adaptation to local availability of resources. We hypothesize that other Mesolithic sites, with residential features, may be located in more interior areas. Such camps were probably situated either northward along the coast, where more permanent settlements with broad-spectrum subsistence have been identified, or in the estuaries of the Algarvean rivers, where they are presently buried under alluvial sediments. Early Neolithic sites still include important deposits of shell remains. However, most of these sites do not display the density of real shell middens, while others are reoccupations of old Mesolithic middens with thin and scattered shell deposits when compared to the previous periods. Non-faunal material, such as lithics and ceramics, are more abundant than in the Mesolithic times, and access to flint sources seem to be one of the main purposes of the occupations. The middens cease formation altogether after 6100 years BP (5000 cal BC), during a younger stage of the Early Neolithic. At this time, there is growing evidence of agriculture and domestication of some animal species, and it is noticeable a change in subsistence strategies.
Mudanças Ambientais e Interacção Humana na Fachada Atlântica Occidental/Environmental Change and Human Interaction in the Western Atlantic Façade. Coimbra: Apeq, p.159-164.
Foraging Assemblages. Vol. 2 / edited by Dušan Borić, Dragana Antonović, and Bojana Mihailović., 2021
The Mesolithic in northern Spain is usually characterized by the presence of large shell middens belonging to the so-called Asturian culture. Recent excavations at El Mazo rockshelter (2009–2015) provide new data for the discussion of technological questions. Although four test pits have been excavated, we will focus on parts of two test pits from the 2009–2010 campaigns. We present preliminary results of the study of the lithic assemblage from some of the Mesolithic levels, taking into account their raw materials, technology, and typology. The objective of this research is to increase our knowledge of the Mesolithic in northern Spain. The locally available lithic raw materials (chert and radiolarite) are the most abundant. As for the technology, there is a significant presence of small-sized lithics and the production of blade/bladelet supports. Among the retouched lithics, geometric armatures represent an important type. These results suggest a significant change from the dominant paradigm linked to the lithic assemblages of the Asturian culture.
Mesolithic and Neolithic shell middens in Western Algarve: issues in ecology, taphonomy and economy
Proceedings of the First Zooarchaeology Conference in Portugal. Held at the Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon, 8th-9th March 2012 edited by Cleia Detry and Rita Dias. iv+150 pages; illustrated throughout in black and white. BAR S2662 2014. ISBN 9781407313047. , 2014
In Western Algarve there are several archaeological sites with abundant shell deposits (Castelejo, Barranco das Quebradas, Rocha das Gaivotas, Vale Santo I, Alcalar 7 and Ribeira de Alcantarilha). Most of these sites date back to the Mesolithic and/or Early Neolithic—from the Preboreal to the Atlantic periods—and are considered very similar to each other regarding function and deposited materials. Nonetheless, these same sites and their deposits also show noticeable differences in relative abundance of mollusk species, evidences of their processing as food, and post-depositional activity. It is our intent to critically organize the available data and discuss issues such as: (1) differences on the relative abundances of species and their possible causes; (2) food processing techniques, through time and in between contemporaneous occupations; and (3) post-depositional processes and their effects. Interpretative hypotheses regarding the economy and diet of the last hunter-gatherer and first productive communities (Mesolithic to Early Neolithic) of Western Algarve will also be proposed.