Xose-Pedro Rodriguez-Alvarez

Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social | IPHES

Nuevos datos sobre la ocupación paleolítica de los valles fluviales de las Vegas Bajas del Guadiana (Badajoz, España) permiten llevar a cabo una primera aproximación al contexto cultural de la terraza 3 (T3 +10-20 metros), analizar los comportamientos técnicos y el origen tafonómico en conjuntos de industria lítica en superficie. El uso sistemático...

The Acheulean of the southern Iberian Peninsula is markedly similar to the north African Acheulean. However, the characteristics of the stone tool assemblages are heterogeneous and represent complex cultural phenomena. From MIS 15, the lithic assemblages in fluvial (Guadiana, Guadalquivir and Guadalete rivers), fluvio-lacustrine (Solana del Zambori...

La cueva de Santa Ana registra un conjunto lítico Achelense único en la Península Ibérica y Europa occidental caracterizado por 1) la asociación large cutting tools-esferoides; 2) la configuración sistemática de bifaces sobre grandes lascas; y 3) el uso del cuarzo. Estas singularidades enmarcadas en el Large Flake Acheulean cuestionan la homogeneid...

Sima del Elefante (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain) is a model site of the Early Pleistocene in Europe. The site has yielded numerous faunal remains, two human fossils and a small assemblage of stone tools. The study of Unit TE9 has determined that the first humans inhabited western Europe at least 1.2 Ma ago. The lithic assemblage can be chronologicall...

The increasing approaches to non-flint lithic raw materials are widening our understanding of the economy around lithic resources by prehistoric societies. The characterization of stone using geoarchaeological disciplines, the identification of technological features on stone artefacts, and the spatio-temporal organization of lithic reduction seque...

The increasing approaches to non-flint lithic raw materials are widening our understanding of the economy around lithic resources by prehistoric societies. The characterisation of stone using geoarchaeological disciplines, the identification of technological features on stone artefacts, and the spatio-temporal organisation of lithic reduction seque...

The Acheulean of the Iberian Peninsula is considered a homogeneous technocomplex within the Large Flake Acheulean (LFA) of northern African origin. In this work, we describe the lithic industry of Santa Ana Cave, interpret the territorial functions of the site and search for its technological parallels. Our results place the lithic industry of Sant...

In this paper, we deal with the locational analysis of the Cova Eirós site (Triacastela, Lugo), occupied from the Middle Palaeolithic to the present. From GIS and statistics, we intend to approach those environmental factors that define its importance as a place of occupation over time and on a recurring basis. Once we have analysed the variables t...

En este trabajo presentamos el conjunto lítico de Base Menacho (Badajoz, España), documentado en un nivel sedimentario que cubre los depósitos aluviales de la terraza fluvial T3 +10-20 m sobre el cauce actual del río Zapatón, subafluente del río Guadiana en el sector de las Vegas Bajas (Badajoz, España). El conjunto se compone de 46 elementos lític...

Iberia, a natural cul-de-sac peninsula, plays a major role in the study of the Neanderthals demise and its eventual relationship with the spread of Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) in Europe. The site of Cova Eirós (Galicia, Spain), located in NW Iberia, contains Middle and Upper Palaeolithic levels, based on the cultural remains recovered at the s...

Northwest Iberia is a Paleozoic territory almost void of flint outcrops. The arrival of Cantabrian Upper Paleolithic groups, used to flintknapping, to a new lithological region implied a reorganization of their technological basis. The analysis of four lithic assemblages, ranging from the Aurignacian to the Final Magdalenian /Azilian, allows us to...

The Franco-Cantabrian group of cave art ranks among the best known examples of Paleolithic symbolic behaviour. For more than a century no decorated cave was reported beyond the Nalón valley in the center of Asturias, until the carvings and paintings from Cova Eirós were discovered. At more than 100 km from the Nalón, Eirós' art remains an isolated...

Our knowledge about Paleolithic art has been changing substantially and new discoveries and dates are modifying some traditionally accepted considerations. In this context, the geographic spread and the end of this graphic-artistic cycle are two of the main topics of the current scientific debate. The discovery and study of rock art in Cova Eirós,...

El yacimiento de Cova Eirós, aunque ya conocido desde finales del siglo xx, se está erigiendo como una secuencia de referencia para el estudio del Paleolítico medio y superior del noroeste peninsular. Las intervenciones iniciadas en 2008 han proporcionado novedosos datos sobre los grupos neandertales del Paleolítico medio final. El hallazgo de arte...

Key-words: Microtus agrestis, Late Pleistocene, Anteroconid complex

The Atapuerca localities present evidence of a long series of hominin occupations from the Early Pleistocene onward and are a key site for understanding the continuity and discontinuity of Western European technological and settlement dynamics. The TD10 unit from Gran Dolina is located in the upper part of the sequence and divided into four lithost...

Since the first studies on lithic assemblage refitting, colour has been one of the main features considered by specialists looking for connections between artefacts. Colour has prevailed as a determinant element over other physical features such as roughness and grading, fractures or internal flaws and rock impurities. It appears logical to assume...

The introduction of farming had far-reaching impacts on health, social structure and demography. Although the spread of domesticated plants and animals has been extensively tracked, it is unclear how these nascent economies developed within different environmental and cultural settings. Using molecular and isotopic analysis of lipids from pottery,...

Fat residue analysis in sherds has allowed in the last years to target the cooking practices of prehistoric groups. Lipids identified in several ceramic samples from diverse sites in Northern Iberia show that dairy products were already present during the early stages of the regional Neolithic, side by side with meat derived from ruminants.

Studies of archaeological assemblages recovered from palimpsests encounter difficulties related not only to their nature (the preservation of the remains), but also to the formation of the accumulation itself: the evidence of the different human occupations that the accumulation contains and its temporal resolution. Layer TD10.1 of Gran Dolina (Sie...

The discovery of a partially preserved vessel in the course of the excavations carried out in Cova Eirós brings forth new data on the material culture of the regional Neo-lithic. The pot, both in its bottle-like shape and decoration (shell impressed), recalls strongly the cardial ware, so characteristic of the archaeological record in the Early Neo...

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...

As Gándaras de Budiño es el yacimiento más emblemático del Paleolítico del noroeste pe-ninsular. la asociación de un registro lítico achelense con unas dataciones del Pleistoceno superior lo convirtió en uno de los yacimientos más controvertidos. Por ello, son numerosas las intervenciones arqueológicas y revisiones que intentaron comprender la prob...

As Gándaras de Budiño es el yacimiento más emblemático del Paleolítico del noroeste pe-ninsular. la asociación de un registro lítico achelense con unas dataciones del Pleistoceno superior lo convirtió en uno de los yacimientos más controvertidos. Por ello, son numerosas las intervenciones arqueológicas y revisiones que intentaron comprender la prob...

In recent years many issues arose regarding the technological and functional analysis of lithic assemblages dominated by “second rate raw materials” like vein quartz, metamorphic or volcanic rocks. Nevertheless, the technological study of this kind of assemblages and their consequent interpretation seems to be still based on the techno-typological...

The archaeological digs carried out in Cova Eirós (Triacastela, Lugo) since 2008 have brought to light material culture from multiple chronologies. This paper deals with the analysis and interpretation of the significant pottery finds from historical periods. Among these, Early and Middle Medieval sherds are particularly numerous, together with a f...

Cova Eirós is located in the province of Lugo, north-western Iberia. The cave site contains a number of Palaeolithic engravings—narrow and shallow grooves—that are dispersed on the walls of the cave. As direct contact with the panel would be extremely harmful for the rock surface, we have decided to use 3D methods to record the motifs. Thus, we app...

Cova Eirós is located in the province of Lugo, north-western Iberia. The cave site contains a number of Palaeolithic engravings—narrow and shallow grooves—that are dispersed on the walls of the cave. As direct contact with the panel would be extremely harmful for the rock surface, we have decided to use 3D methods to record the motifs. Thus, we app...

Since the first half of the 1970s a number of studies on the microvertebrates of the Late Pleistocene of the Iberian Peninsula have been undertaken. In northwest Iberia, however, we only have the small-vertebrate analyses of Valdavara-1 and A Valiña. In this paper we are going to present the data from Cova Eirós. Cova Eirós is emerging as a referen...

This paper aims to update the information available on the lithic assemblage from the entire sequence of TD6 now that the most recent excavations have been completed, and to explore possible changes in both occupational patterns and technological strategies evidenced in the unit. This is the first study to analyse the entire TD6 sequence, including...

The Aïn Beni Mathar-Guefaït basin provides a long stratigraphic sequence and a faunal record that covers the Early and Middle Pleistocene. During the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene, a fluvio-lacustrine basin developed in the area. This landscape has been occupied by hominin developing a Mode 1 technology. This fluvio-lacustrine basin has its final...

Here we present a new site in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain): Galería de las Estatuas (GE), which provides new information about Mousterian occupations in the Iberian Plateau. The GE was an ancient entrance to the cave system, which is currently closed and sealed by a stalagmitic crust, below which a detritic sedimentary sequence of more t...

This article analyses the relationship between the characteristics of the raw materials and the cutting edges of Sierra de Atapuerca lithic tools during the Lower and Middle Pleistocene. In previous publications, we have analysed how the cutting edge and weight of a tool determine its cutting efficiency and the amount of force it is capable of appl...

This article presents the first results of an archaeo-palaeontological study which began in 2007 at the sites of Chazumba I and II in the Barranca del Muerto, located in the Sierra Madre del Sur (Santiago Chazumba, Oaxaca, Mexico). The excavation work is part of a larger international cooperation project titled “Biodiversity and Quaternary hunter–g...

At Cova Eirós, we discovered 13 panels with paintings and engravings that stylistically point to the final moments of the Upper Paleolithic. Scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and Fourier transform Raman spectroscopy were used to identify charcoal as black pigment. Although contamination from medieval fires insid...

Cave sites with Mousterian occupations in the Iberian Peninsula are mainly limited to the Northern, Eastern and Southern mountain ranges. Thus, the information available for the interior part of the Iberian Peninsula is very limited. Since 2008, we are working on a new cave site in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain): Galería de las Estatuas (G...

From the archaeological project “Poboamento durante o Plistoceno medio / Holoceno nas comarcas orientais de Galicia” we promote a scientific dissemination effort focused on the archaeological, paleontological and natural heritage of the Eastern regions of Galicia. The support of the population, the Local Administration and the media configure an id...

The lithic assemblage of the Pont-de-Lavaud site (Indre, France) shows a technical choice within the Lower Pleistocene European Mode 1 sites, which is defined by the widespread use of the bipolar-on-anvil knapping technique. Although it is traditionally considered an expedient percussion method, in this lithic assemblage a selective technical behav...

This article analyses the use of quartz as a raw material during the Lower Palaeolithic in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula. We studied the use of quartz at 9 sites with chronologies ranging from the end of the Early Pleistocene to the end of the Middle Pleistocene. Quartz was used in all assemblages studied, and was always collected close to...

In Western Europe, Acheulean cultural evidence is well attested by ca. 0.5 Ma. However, recent work has proven that it was present earlier; at the end of the Early Pleistocene. The timing and mode of the Western European Acheulean needs still to be investigated, and this knowledge appears to be strongly dependent upon data from sites with sufficien...

En este trabajo se presentan los datos preliminares llevados a cabo durante los últimos años en Eritrea. La zona del Afar es ampliamente conocida por su contribución al estudio de la evolución humana. La cuenca de Engel Ela – Ramud se localiza al noreste del valle del Rift, y al sur de la cuenca de Buia. Se trata de un conjunto de nuevos yacimiento...

Abstract This paper expands upon the preliminary refit analysis of the NW area of unit TD10.1 at Gran Dolina (Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain) (López-Ortega et al., 2011). The refit study described here has been conducted on the quartz and quartzite assemblage recovered from unit TD10.1, consisting of a total of 4302 artefacts (709 quartz and...

La Cansaladeta is a site located in a narrow passage dug out by the Francolí River in the Pre-littoral Catalan range (NE Iberia). The archaeological deposit lies on top of a+45-50m fluvial terrace, and contains a rich Middle Pleistocene stratigraphic succession in which 10 archaeological layers have been identified.Here, we present the description...

This paper is a new approach to the study of the Palaeolithic sites located in the Monforte de Lemos basin. Their distributional study allow us to characterize the settlement patterns from the Lower Paleolithic (Mode 2) to the Upper Paleolithic (Mode 4). Geographic Information Systems have been applied in order to define the different patterns and...

Cet article analyse les qualités des matières premières employées dans deux gisements (Gran Dolina et Galería) de la Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Espagne) pendant le Pléistocène inférieur et moyen, et son influence sur le processus de la taille. Ces sites archéologiques ont une séquence chronologique qui nous permet d́étudier ĺévolution de la techn...

This poster analyses the qualities of the raw materials used in Gran Dolina and Galería and their influence in the development of knapping process. Combining technological analysis and experimental archaeology has proven to be an excellent tool for the understanding the different interpretation of the qualities of raw materials and their relation w...

This poster analyses the relationship between the weight and cutting edge of lithic artefacts from the main Lower Palaeolithic sites of the Sierra de Atapuerca. The weight and cutting edge of a tool determine its cutting ability and the amount of force it is capable of, making them extremely important aspects of study to further our understanding o...

The archaeological site of Valverde is placed on a slope of the Valverde Mount, near one of the entrances into the basin of Monforte de Lemos (Galicia, Lugo). After the finding of a lithic scatter a survey was carried out in 2007-2009, yielding more than 2400 implements. The lithic assemblage is characterized by the presence of expedient “chaines o...