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January 2000 - January 2014
Publications
Publications (218)
The dissection of archaeological palimpsests has become a crucial process for achieving a diachronic understanding of the history of human groups. However, its widespread application to archaeological deposits has been hampered by both methodological and theoretical limitations, as well as by the inherent characteristics of the deposits. This paper...
Recycling was an activity carried out by ancient hunter-gatherer populations. It has been demonstrated by many studies on this matter. However, there are main issues in relation to it that are still under debate: what we call recycling, how we identify it, and what implications it has for the technoeconomic dynamics of these groups. In order to con...
Upper Paleolithic lithic assemblages have traditionally been considered a paramount example of the high level of complexity characterizing the technological behavior of prehistoric modern humans. The diversity and standardization of tools, as well as the systematic production of blades and bladelets, show the high investment of time, energy and kno...
Lithic artefacts are usually associated with the different knapping methods used in their production. Flakes exhibit metric and technological features representative of the flaking method used to detach them. However, lithic production is a dynamic process in which discrete methods can be blurred, and in which features can vary throughout the proce...
Although intra-site spatial approaches are considered a key factor when interpreting archaeological assemblages, these are often based on descriptive, qualitative, and subjective observations. Currently, within the framework of research into spatial taphonomy and palimpsest dissection, several studies have begun to employ more quantitative and obje...
El Mirador cave (Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos) is one of the most significant sites for understanding the evolution of agricultural and livestock farming groups on the Iberian Peninsula. Its long sequence spans from the Early Neolithic (second half of the 6th millennium cal BCE) to the Bronze Age (second half of the 2nd millennium cal BCE). During t...
Testing Neanderthal behavioural hypotheses requires a spatial–temporal resolution to the level of a human single occupation episode. Yet, most of the behavioural data on Neanderthals has been obtained from coarsely dated, time-averaged contexts affected by the archaeological palimpsest effect and a diversity of postdepositional processes. This impl...
Testing Neanderthal behavioural hypotheses requires a spatial-temporal resolution to the level of a single human occupation episode. Yet, most of the behavioural data on Neanderthals has been obtained from coarsely dated, time-averaged contexts affected by the archaeological palimpsest effect and a diversity of postdepositional processes. This impl...
Lateral Gallery 1 (GL1) in Cova del Gegant is a Middle Palaeolithic assemblage yielding diagnostic Neanderthal remains, together with Mousterian tools and faunal remains. It is a good archive for evaluating the environmental conditions of the coastal areas during MIS 4 and MIS 3 in the NE of the Iberian Peninsula, and also the Neanderthals’ behavio...
The aim of this chapter is to provide a general overview of the currently available data on the spatial patterns of Neanderthal campsites. Similarly to other behavioural domains, the spatial strategies of Neanderthals have often been defined as simple and repetitive, far from the complexity characteristic of modern humans. However, before addressin...
The ability to make and use fire can be considered as a behavioural threshold in human evolution. The aim of this chapter is to present an overview of the research on fire among Neanderthals. We compiled and reviewed the archaeological evidence and scientific studies on the topic, including different methodological approaches, theoretical considera...
Initial slide and abstract for the presentation "In between methods: a Machine Learning approach to Levallois, Discoid and intermediate systems" of session 11. KNAPPING TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR COMPARATIVE STUDIES
This paper presents the limestone reduction sequences documented in levels M and Ob at Abric Romaní from a technological point of view. At level M, a recurrent knapping system has been identified, resulting in the frequency of pseudo-Levallois blanks. At archaeolevel Ob, the presence of Levallois methods are observed in association with this knappi...
This study aims to provide anthracological data on forest transformations on the north-eastern Iberian Peninsula during the transition from the last glacial GS-2a to the last isotopic event of interstadial GI-1. We present a complete anthracological sequence from Molí del Salt (Vimbodí i Poblet, Tarragona, NE Iberian Peninsula), a site assigned to...
The Montmaneu Formation is located at the NE margin of the Ebro Basin (Catalonia, Spain), and is dated to the Rupelian (Lower Oligocene). It is formed by 120 m of light grey stratified limestones with bedded-nodular chert, the Panadella chert, associated with the La Segarra lacustrine system.
This chert is macroscopically characterized by very fine...
This paper focuses on the study of some Middle Palaeolithic assemblages from Mediterranean Iberia to examine Neanderthal occupation patterns and territory management strategies, paying special attention to raw material procurement and technological behaviours, zooarchaeological data and microspatial patterning. The site occupation types are variabl...
A cursory glance at the technical behaviors of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers suggests that disparate investment in tool production played a role in the variability of lithic assemblages. Expedient technologies, aimed at minimizing the time and energy invested in lithic production, are particularly common in the Lower and Middle Paleolithic, but thei...
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 radi...
The phenomenon of microlithism continues to be one of the most interesting topics in the prehistoric archaeology of the Middle Palaeolithic period because it is key to understanding the technology and cultural and economic organisation of Neanderthal societies. The aim of this research is to characterise small-flake industries based on two archaeol...
Studies on spatial settlement patterns have shed important light on Neanderthal intra-site behavior. Spatial analysis of the human occupations through bone and lithic refitting has contributed to the reconstruction of their settlements, offering temporal interpretations and reconstructions of their activities. Often archaeological units are a conse...
Over the last years, the knowledge of the children’s diet is a topic of growing interest in dental anthropology. Our aim seeks to establish patterns of interpopulation and intrapopulation variability in dietary microwear among children from four Iberian sites dated to the Neolithic through Bronze Age. Buccal and occlusal surfaces are compared to as...
Isolating the various occupational events in the Palaeolithic record is hard work, because the remains from different occupations commonly overlap, creating archaeological palimpsests. We can differentiate two different types of palimpsest: vertical and horizontal ones. These two types are very important for identifying and defining short-or long-t...
A use-wear analysis was carried out on a specific mobile toolkit belonging to level M of the Middle Paleolithic site of Abric Romaní (Barcelona, Spain), which is dated to MIS 3, between 51 and 55 Ka BP. In an environment rich in local and regional chert sources and in a technological context marked by expedient behavior, a set of flakes, which also...
After deconstructing the palimpsest of level O, we present a cross-disciplinary study on a short occupation of the Abric Romaní rock shelter conducted by means of an analysis of the record of archaeo-level Oa, a Middle Palaeolithic assemblage dated to ca. 54 Ka BP by U/Th series. In this study, we present the steps we took to puzzle out the palimps...
Este artículo presenta un análisis holístico de los restos dentales pertenecientes a tres individuos infantiles del yacimiento de la Edad del Bronce de la Cueva de Valdavara (Becerréa, Lugo), mediante diferentes aproximaciones metodológicas, como es el microdesgaste dental, el estudio anatómico externo e interno, y el análisis de patologías. El obj...
Level M and sub-level Oa at Abric Romaní (Capellades, Barcelona, Spain) are showing various types of technological contexts. The chaines opératoires of level M show expedient strategies. The lithic assemblage of sub-level Oa is associated to hierarchized strategies and Levallois chaines opératoires. Chert is the most used rock (level M = 80.8%; lev...
El análisis de la malacofauna recuperada en el yacimiento del Molí del Salt (Vimbodí i Poblet, Tarragona) ofrece datos relevantes para evaluar la importancia de la explotación de recursos malacofaunísticos durante el Paleolítico superior final en un yacimiento no costero. Este abrigo se encuentra a 490m de altitud, en un medio de transición entre l...
RESUMEN En este trabajo presentamos los datos más relevantes obtenidos sobre el Paleolítico superior a lo largo del primer decenio del nuevo siglo por los distintos grupos de investigación que trabajan en Catalunya. Las novedades nacen por un lado de la continuación de los trabajos de excavación ya iniciados anterior-mente, y por otro lado, del des...
The intrasite mobility of lithic artifacts is one of the most relevant issues that can be approached from the spatial study of refitting. In many sites, researchers have determined that some artifacts were abandoned at a considerable distance from the place where they were produced. Once natural causes of a post-depositional nature are ruled out, t...
https://link.springer.com/journal/12520/11/9
Archaeological & Anthropological Sciences, Volume 11, Issue 9, September 2019
The task is certainly not complete if we wish to create a single volume covering all of the most recent refitting studies, and we regret the lack of eminent colleagues who have contributed to the improvement of refitting analysis in Palaeolithic study. However, the case studies that are presented here and the discussions that these data have genera...
Being at the western fringe of Europe, Iberia had a peculiar prehistory and a complex pattern of Neolithization. A few studies, all based on modern populations, reported the presence of DNA of likely African origin in this region, generally concluding it was the result of recent gene flow, probably during the Islamic period. Here, we provide eviden...
El Esquilleu cave provides one of the most interesting Mousterian sequences in recent decades. The upper part of its stratigraphic sequence has provided significant lithic materials with preliminary dating that places human occupation during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Both the regional chronological context and the dating question preliminary...
Small game seems to have increased during the Upper Palaeolithic to the detriment of large game on the
Iberian Peninsula. The economical and socio-cultural factors associated with this ecological shift represent
a widely discussed topic. The present work attempts to elucidate the subsistence strategies occurring
through the Late Pleistocene in Iber...
The study of the occupation strategies developed during Middle Paleolithic, is a
fundamental aspect to decipher the cognitive, behavioral and socialization abilities of
the human groups inhabiting the territory in these chronologies. The organizational
guidelines of these groups have been widely discussed by different authors, from
different approa...
The intra-site spatial patterns of lithic artefacts and their density are traditionally used in Prehistory as proxies for activity areas and social organisation of past human groups. This approach allows identifying domestic units, inferring number of co-resident, understanding site function and duration of occupation. These topics are especially i...
In the last decades, we have witnessed crucial advances to describe and explain the
variability of Mousterian lithic productions across Europe. This variability has important
implications in terms of adaptive responses at the environmental and cultural changes that
Neanderthals faced between ca. 250-30 kyr BP. The production of small tools is part...
A quick glance at the evolution of lithic assemblages throughout prehistory highlights a great variability in the time and effort invested in technological activities. This variability has been related to differences in the technological organization of human groups, giving rise to the distinction proposed by Binford between curated and expedient t...
Valdavara 3 is a new early late Pleistocene paleontological and archeological cave site in northwestern Iberia. Over 1400 fossils have been collected, representing about 40 species. The fauna is of interglacial aspect and is in accordance with the OSL dates from the fossiliferous layer, which indicate an age of 103–113 ka. The great taxonomical div...
The Abric Romaní site (Capellades, Barcelona, Spain) constitutes a key site for understanding the latest Neanderthal occupations in Western Europe. Here we present a comprehensive systematic and taphonomic analysis of a small-mammal assemblage from Level O of the Abric Romaní site, with the aim of reconstructing the paleoecological context in which...
Los estudios de industria lítica en la Prehistoria gallega se han focalizado en la carac-terización crono-cultural de los conjuntos dejando a un lado el estudio de las materias primas y estrategias de abastecimiento. Por otro lado, el predominio de materias primas locales, como cuarzos y cuarcitas, ha colocado en un segundo plano el estudio de ma-t...
Ramification is the term used to classify branched productive sequences in which a functional item (the flake) was exploited as a productive item (the core). This technological behaviour was present in Europe and the Levant beginning in the Lower and Early Middle Palaeolithic, but ramified productions were intensely developed in the Late Middle Pal...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/quaternary-international/vol/474/part/PB
This collection of papers shows how innovative analytical techniques
and original scientific questions shed new light on archaeological
traditional issues and significantly contribute to understand past human
behaviours in a more all-inclusive way. The ever-continuing me...
The end of the Pleistocene is characterized by a succession of climatic oscillations from the onset of MIS 2. These oscillations were associated with important environmental transformations that culminated in the Pleistocene to the Holocene transition, with latter climate amelioration. However, the changes during this period are not only restricted...
Practically all archeological assemblages are palimpsests. In spite of the high temporal resolution of Abric Romaní site, level O, dated to around 55 ka, is not an exception. This paper focuses on a zooarcheological and taphonomic analysis of this level, paying special attention to spatial and temporal approaches. The main goal is to unravel the pa...
L’explotació de petites preses és un fenomen que sembla desenvolupar-se de manera sistemàtica a partir del Paleolític Superior. Això suposa un canvi en les estratègies de subsistència humanes, que pot deure’s a mútiples factors (econòmics, soco-culturals o ecològics, entre altres) i segueix sent encara avui dia un tema de debat. L’estudi que aquí e...
The refitting of both lithic and faunal remains is a basic field of research in Paleolithic archeology. In particular, the spatial dimension of lithic and faunal refitting is essential for resolving questions related to site formation processes and the organization strategies of hunter-gatherer bands. Unfortunately, although important insights can...
Marine isotope stage 3 (MIS 3) was characterised by marked oscillations of extreme cold episodes with very short warm events during the stadial, and several regional differences have been recorded in the ice cores and marine deposits. The aim of this study is to reconstruct this period by evaluating both terrestrial and regional responses. Cova del...
Keywords: Kombewa, Abric Romani, Middle Palaeolithic, Europe, lithic, economy, function
Keywords: Kombewa, Ifri n’Ammar, Middle Palaeolithic, Morocco, lithic, economy, function
Analysis of intra-site spatial patterns helps to characterise the social organisation of the human group that lived at the site. Variability in stone tool intensity and spatial distribution on the living floor reflects variability within each activity area in number of individuals, duration of occupation, and number of superimposed events. Specifyi...
Technological changes have been identified in several European Middle Palaeolithic sites. Specifically, the turnover in discoid and Levallois knapping methods has traditionally been explained by raw material constraints that are usually related to foraging areas and mobility strategies of Neanderthal groups. While Levallois production requires high...
This paper will be free to open access in 10/2018.
Technological changes have been identified in several European Middle Palaeolithic sites. Specifically, the turnover in discoid and Levallois knapping methods has traditionally been explained by raw material constraints that are usually related to foraging areas and mobility strategies of Neanderthal groups. While Levallois production requires high...
This paper presents a synthesis of the chronological results obtained in the "Investigación cronoestratigráfica de los soportes y recubrimientos de las pinturas rupestres de la Sierra de la Pietat o Godall (Montsià, Tarragona)", performed during the project "Estudio cronoestratigráfico de los soportes del Arte Rupestre del Levante Español” (2008-20...
Many factors have been causally linked to the diversification of hunting during the European Palaeolithic: declining supplies of high-ranked prey, considerable human demographic growth, reduced residential mobility, larger populations of ubiquitous small mammals and significant technological developments. However, small prey exploitation was not un...
Recent exploratory drilling at Abric Romaní reveals that carbonate tufas similar to the archeologically rich levels excavated to date extend at least 30 m beneath the current base of excavation. The present project focused on sampling and measuring a suite of new U-series dates on core samples to determine whether reliable dates could be obtained f...
Landscapes and features of the everyday world were scarcely represented in Paleolithic art, especially those features associated with the human landscape (huts and campsites). On the contrary, other figurative motifs (especially animals) and signs, traditionally linked to the magic or religious conceptions of these hunter-gatherer societies, are th...
The Molí del Salt site.
Site description, chronology and archeological context.
(PDF)
Ethnographic huts.
Ethnographic examples of dome-shaped dwellings in hunter-gatherer campsites. A. Apache Wickiup, Edward Curtis, 1903 by Library of Congress. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. B. Bushmen San. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. C. Hut Eastern Arrernte by Herbert Basedow—National Museum of Australia...
Technical analysis.
Individualized description of the graphic units.
(PDF)