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Localização do Terraço da Foz do Medal na sua margem direita, no contexto da Peninsula Ibérica, da bacia do Douro e do vale do Sabor. Carta de João Monteiro.
Source publication
In the scope of the construction of a major dam in the Northeast of Portugal in the Sabor valley, a terrace river where Upper Palaeolithic stratigraphic units were detected was excavated. In some of these layers hundreds of fragments from Palaeolithic engraved plaques were found, transforming this collection into the largest in the Iberian territor...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... Medal localiza-se no vale do Sabor, concelho do Mogadouro e distrito de Bragança. A configuração radiada que o rio Sabor e as ribeiras que para ele correm adquirem neste ponto geográfi-co onde o vale se abre, transformou esta zona num importante local de passagem, bem como de ocupação humana, desde tempos paleolíticos até ao período contemporâneo (Fig. 1). Embora seja um terraço fluvial baixo, apenas 9 metros acima do nível do rio, contém uma sequência sedimentar complexa com níveis de ocupação desde o Paleolítico Médio até à Idade do Bronze ( Figueiredo et al. 2014;Gaspar et al. ...
Citations
The Tardiglacial of Portugal has been associated with the Magdalenian culture and lithic industries characterized by tool miniaturization, a diversity of microlith types, and the absence of a intentional blade production. The technological characterization, the chronology and the phasing of the Portuguese Magdalenian have been defined based on data recovered from open-air sites of the Estremadura region (Central Portugal). This paper presents an overview of the research undertaken over the last twenty-five years, including results from research and preventive archaeology fieldwork outside this region, namely in the Côa, Sabor and Vouga Valleys (northern Portugal), as well as in the Guadiana Valley and Algarve regions (southern Portugal). Our chronological boundaries are the Greenland Stadial 2-1b and the 8.2 ka event, from Early Magdalenian to Early Mesolithic. Regarding vegetation, deciduous Quercus underwent expansion during the warm phases of the Tardiglacial and retracted during cold ones, when pines increased. After the Solutrean, the faunal assemblages show a decrease in the variability of the represented species and an increase in fish, birds, small mammals and rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus).
Concerning the cultural sequence, the Middle Magdalenian remains uncharacterised. After the Upper Magdalenian, and thenceforward, the use of local raw materials and of cores-on-flakes (burin or carinated endscraper type) for bladelet production gradually increased. In terms of lithic armatures typology, a four-stage sequence can be discerned: 1) Upper Magdalenian with axial points rather than backed bladelets, quite common in previous phases; 2) Final Magdalenian with an increase in the diversity of armature types; 3) Azilian with geometric microliths, curved backed points (Azilian points) and Malaurie points, and 4) Early Mesolithic without retouched bladelet tools or at best a persistence of Azilian armature types.
There were some changes in the Palaeolithic rock art of the Douro basin between phase 3 (Final Magdalenian) and phase 4 (Late Azilian): figurative animal representations give place to animal depictions characterized by their geometrical bodies, often filled-in, and red deer becomes the best-represented animal.
The use of quartz is well documented during prehistory, being the predominant raw material in the Upper Paleolithic sites located in NW Iberia. The prehistoric occupations from Sabor valley also present a preference for this lithology through the long occupation sequence, although a large range of regional and exogenous lithic raw materials are also knapped.
Within the quartz varieties rock crystal seems to have an important role in some chronologies, especially since the Solutrean phase, regarding elongated products and small flake production. Several reduction strategies were applied to rock crystal although the unifacial exploitation from a 45° degree striking platform using the crystal natural edges as guidelines is the most common. Though there are some similarities within the use of this type of cores throughout the chronological sequence we can observe some differences, especially during the Early Mesolithic phase.
In a regional perspective, it is possible to compare the quartz economy from occupations in Sabor valley to the ones from Côa valley, to the south, and discuss the role of rock crystal in Late Pleistocene inland human groups. It is clear that there was a technical ability to maximize a local lithic resource such as rock crystal which was exploited in order to achieve blanks similar to those obtained from flint cores.
