The chert abundance ratio (CAR): a new parameter for interpreting Palaeolithic raw material procurement (original) (raw)
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The Picamoixons site is a rockshelter located in the province of Tarragona (NE Iberian Peninsula). It was object of two rescue campaigns during 1988 and 1993, which led to the recovery of a complete archaeological assemblage, including stone tools as well as faunal and portable art remains that date the occupation to the 14 th to 11 th millennium BP (calibrated). This study involves a petrographic characterisation of the stone-tool assemblage in order to establish: 1) the procurement areas, 2) the raw materials management strategies and 3) the mobility radius and territorial sizes of the hunter-gatherers groups that occupied the site. The method applied comprises in a multiscale analysis that includes systematic prospection, the petrographic characterisation of geological and archaeological samples, an analysis of the chert types represented in the knapping sequence, and the definition of the mobility axes and areas frequented according to lithic procurement. A petrographic analysis of the chert in the prospected area led to the definition of nine macroscopic varieties related to five types (Vilaplana, Morera, Maset, Vilella and Tossa cherts), related to Lower and Upper Muschelkalk (Triassic), Lutetian, Bartonian (Palaeocene) and Sannonian (Oligocene) deposits.The study of the knapping sequences indicates the main exploitation of Bartonian cherts (Tossa type), and the use of Lutetian cherts (Maset and Morera types) for configuring retouched tools. The exploitation of the remaining raw material types identified is considered sporadic and opportunistic.Defining the procurement areas enabled the mobility radius to be assessed as between 3 and 30 km, highlighting the importance of the fluvial basins as natural movement pathways. The results indicate that the main procurement territory was 16 km2 in area, associable with a forager radius. The most remote procurement distances suggest a maximum exploitation area of 260 km2, defining an intra-regional range. This range presents parallelisms with various contemporaneous hunter-gatherers groups in Western Europe, suggesting a progressive mobility reduction dynamic during the Late Pleistocene-Initial Holocene.
Understanding the changes in the technological organization of prehistorichunter–gatherers is important to research into hominin foraging activities. Duringthe Middle Paleolithic, the coexistence or the replacement between Levallois and discoidtechnologies has frequently been recorded, but there is still no clear understanding of thereasons for their alternating and fragmented use in the archaeological record. This paperaims to contribute with new data to the current debate, by exploring the chert assemblagesfrom levels O and M of the Abric Romaní rock-shelter. The results reveal that the changefrom Levallois in level O to discoid in level M is accompanied by the use of different axesof mobility, a reduction in the foraging radius and a more careful management of rawmaterials. A cross comparison with other archaeological evidences indicates the generalpattern in the Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula during the late Middle Paleolithic, inwhich the use of Levallois technology is associated with chert and high mobility patternswhereas discoid technology is more closely linked to the use of local raw materials and alower degree of mobility. The modifications to the mountainous environments and to thedistribution of preferred prey animals may have influenced the Neanderthals’ mobilitypatterns and contributed to modifying their technical behaviours in order to obtain betterforaging incomes.
Quaternary Science Reviews, 2020
This study represents the first integrated approach to the lithic raw materials exploited by the Neanderthals that occupied the Abric Romaní site (NE Iberia). Focusing on chert as the most abundant raw material (>80% of the assemblages), we determine the potential procurement areas and the mobility patterns. Geo-archaeological surveys within a radius of 30 km from the site documented 32 primary locations with silicifications. The chert abundance ratio, a quantitative approach to the raw material availability, together with macroscopic and petrographic analyses, confirm the underexploitation of the local raw materials (<10 km). The main procurement areas are located between 16 km (Sant Martí de Tous chert) and 24 km (Panadella chert), indicating different procurement strategies and mobility patterns. Stone tool assemblages from levels M and Oa fall within a foraging radius, whereas level P, in part, suggests a logistical radius, demonstrating a complex scenario of extensive knowledge and intensive exploitation of the landscape among Neanderthals.
Journal of Lithic Studies, 2020
This paper is divided into three sections. The first section describes the historiographic evolution of the study of prehistoric lithic raw materials in the Basque Crossroads (in the north of the Iberian Peninsula) during the last three decades. The second section explains the currently available information about geological outcrops of flint in the eastern end of the Cantabrian Mountain range (the Basque-Cantabrian Basin), the upper Ebro valley and both sides of the western Pyrenees, in the central part of the northern Iberian Peninsula, as that was the main raw material used by hunter-gatherer groups in the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. Finally, the last section describes the way in which progress in both aspects of research have enabled the introduction of new concepts and perspectives in the reconstruction of the social and economic dynamics of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. This has given rise to an innovative methodology that is able to address and solve important issues, particularly regarding mobility and territoriality patterns of those human groups, allowing the proposal of mobility and territoriality models that, while they will not match exactly the systems used by Upper Palaeolithic communities, represent significant progress in understanding the social and economic dynamics of hunter-gatherer groups.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2020
This paper presents an update of the known data on the lithic industries of the "Mesolithic with geometrics". From the information available in two caves, La Uña and El Espertín (León, Spain), located south of the Picos de Europa (in the central sector of the Cantabrian Mountains), the results of the different methodological approaches are presented: the raw materials used and the sources of supply of chert and flint, the main chaînes operatoires and their relationship with the raw materials and the relationship of the latter with the retouched industry. Finally, using local and regional outcrops, we propose the possible routes travelled by the human groups that occupied these caves between the north and the south of the Cantabrian Mountains. Proximate local raw materials (less than 15 km) were exploited most, but some distant local types (15-30 km) were also directly acquired. Non local raw materials are significantly more frequent in La Uña than in El Espertín. Nevertheless, in both caves there are regional (30-120 km) and tracer (> 120 km) chert and flint varieties that prove the connection between the south of the Cantabrian Mountains and the north (northwest and northeast), involving the coastal area in these relationships. The technological management of theses raw materials suggests some sort of planning in their territory wide procurement. Apart from more flexible modalities for the production of blade and bladelets, good quality laminar blanks were obtained by pyramidal and prismatic unipolar modalities in chert and flint raw materials from local and regional lithologies. More diverse chains were applied to produce flakes, especially in local raw materials (and with a greater variability in El Espertín).
This paper will present the results of ongoing dissertation research into the geographic mobility patterns and lithic procurement strategies of Magdalenian period hunter-gatherers in the Asón Valley of eastern Cantabria, Spain. This research is designed to investigate if there is a causal relationship between the overall geographic mobility patterns of Magdalenian hunter-gatherers and the distribution of lithic resources across north-central Spain. Following a pilot study involving the macroscopic and petrographic sourcing of Magdalenian chert artifacts from the El Mirón cave site located in the montane interior of the Asón Valley, this research will present the additional results of the macroscopic sourcing of flint artifacts from the Late Upper Magdalenian levels of the coastal sites of El Perro and La Fragua. Both sites, which are located at the mouth of the Asón River, represent the coastal occupation of the valley and offer the unique opportunity to compare lithic procurement and mobility strategies with the montane occupation of El Mirón. The goal of this research is to use lithic procurement strategies to help define patterns of human movement across both the naturally and anthropogenicly defined landscapes of the Asón Valley and greater northern Spain.
BAR INTERNATIONAL SERIES, 2002
The Portuguese Estremadura is also the geographical focus of the following paper where use of local and non-local raw materials are examined at two levels of analysis: the regional level, with emphasis on mobility patterns in Estremadura; and the local level, with emphasis on diachronic change in the Rio Maior area between 16,000 and 8,500 BP. The paper provides a summary of regional evidence for subsistence and mobility in the late glacial and early postglacial, focusing on the increased importance of maritime resources as indicated by shell midden sites beginning in the Preboreal (ca. 10,000 BP) and an apparent shift towards more logistical mobility at about 10,500 BP. Both are linked to what the author refers to as a "demographic explosion" occurring between 11,000 and 10,000 BP. The bulk of the paper is devoted to an analysis of raw material use at two multi-component sites that have been the subject of detailed studies (Cabeço do Porto Marinho and Carneira, both in the Rio Maior), with comparative material from several additional sites. The author discusses differences in core technology and tool production based on several different types of raw material, and argues that the better-quality cherts were used for careful, standardized production of blanks used in formal tools, while quartz and quartzite were reduced by a more expedient core technology and rarely retouched into formal tools. Results also document a trend toward increased use of the higher-quality cherts over time, associated with higher frequencies of projectile points and microliths. It is further argued that the increase in chert use was a response to higher demand for chert in the context of periodic mass production of projectile points in preparation for logistical forays. -Editors.
Geoarchaeology, 2024
Archaeological studies carried out in recent decades have demonstrated that the Pre-Pyrenees, a mountain range in north-east Iberia, were regularly frequented by several human groups during the Late Pleistocene. The Cova del Parco archaeological site is an example of this large-scale and regular human presence. The site was discovered and first excavated in the 1970s, and since the 1980s, a team from the University of Barcelona has been conducting archaeological work. So far, we have found that the site was at least frequented from the Middle Magdalenian upon historical times. In this paper, we present the results of the archaeopetrological, geochemical and geographic information system (GIS) analyses of chert tools ascribed to the Middle Magdalenian sequence. The textural, micropalaeontological and geochemical analysis of the lithic artefacts has allowed us to identify several chert types from local, regional and long-distance sources. Some of these cherts had their origin in the northern slopes of the Pyrenean chain, suggesting that this mountain chain was regularly crossed by Magdalenian groups. Next, we performed GIS analyses to determine the paths and connections that may have linked the archaeological site with the different chert outcrops, and to identify the best routes for crossing the Pyrenean Mountain range. Moreover, this study provides a larger vision of the mobility and the complex economic interactions between the different Magdalenian groups that settled Cova del Parco at the end of the Late Pleistocene.