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La variabilité régionale des industries lithiques de la fin du Paléolithique Supérieur au Portugal
... The TL and OSL dates of Fariseu layer 4 (Table 1), obtained on fragments of burnt quartzite and sediment, are consistent with their stratigraphic position and in agreement with the 14 C dates on bone samples (Aubry, 2009). The formation of this unit by slope processes, resulting from cryoclastic degradation of metasediments, mostly accumulated at the base of the slope, at the edge of the alluvial plain, is identical in nature to layer 3 of Quinta da Barca Sul ) ; the respective archaeological contents are similar as well (Aubry, 2009;Gameiro, 2009Gameiro, , 2012. ...
... However, the sedimentary gaps mentioned above do not allow neither a detailed characterization of the Solutrean-to-Early Magdalenian transition nor the definition of a Middle Magdalenian phase. These hiatuses seem to correlate with climate changes (Zilhão, 1997a(Zilhão, , 1997bAubry et al., 2008aAubry et al., , 2011Gameiro, 2012) and do not imply the changes in population dynamics and demographic density that some have argued for (Bicho and Haws, 2012). ...
... Other locally available rocks, such as quartzite, which is often used for expedient flake debitage, were also used; its percentage can reach up to 20% (Lapa dos Coelhos layer 3). Good quality quartz was used for bladelet debitage in Lapa dos Coelhos layer 4, where it represents up to 36% of the assemblage (Gameiro, 2012;Gameiro et al., 2013). ...
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.
... Both are located in limestone regions, with flint sources in a 15 km range and abundant quartz and quartzite or greywacke gravels in their vicinities. Data from these sites are considered congruent with that coming from relatively well studied areas such as the Lower Tagus Valley (Bicho, 1992;Zilhão, 1997;Almeida, 2000;Gameiro, 2012), northeastern Portugal (Aubry, 1998a(Aubry, , 1998b(Aubry, , 2009Gameiro, 2012), the Central Limestone Massif (Zilhão,1997;Almeida, 2000;Aubry et al., 2001;Gameiro and Almeida, 2001;Almeida et al., 2002Almeida et al., , 2004Bicho et al., 2003;Gameiro, 2012), and the Southern Limestone Massif (Marreiros, 2009;Mendonça, 2009;Cascalheira, 2010). Absolute dates from the sites indicated in the manuscript can be seen in Table 2. ...
... Both are located in limestone regions, with flint sources in a 15 km range and abundant quartz and quartzite or greywacke gravels in their vicinities. Data from these sites are considered congruent with that coming from relatively well studied areas such as the Lower Tagus Valley (Bicho, 1992;Zilhão, 1997;Almeida, 2000;Gameiro, 2012), northeastern Portugal (Aubry, 1998a(Aubry, , 1998b(Aubry, , 2009Gameiro, 2012), the Central Limestone Massif (Zilhão,1997;Almeida, 2000;Aubry et al., 2001;Gameiro and Almeida, 2001;Almeida et al., 2002Almeida et al., , 2004Bicho et al., 2003;Gameiro, 2012), and the Southern Limestone Massif (Marreiros, 2009;Mendonça, 2009;Cascalheira, 2010). Absolute dates from the sites indicated in the manuscript can be seen in Table 2. ...
... Both are located in limestone regions, with flint sources in a 15 km range and abundant quartz and quartzite or greywacke gravels in their vicinities. Data from these sites are considered congruent with that coming from relatively well studied areas such as the Lower Tagus Valley (Bicho, 1992;Zilhão, 1997;Almeida, 2000;Gameiro, 2012), northeastern Portugal (Aubry, 1998a(Aubry, , 1998b(Aubry, , 2009Gameiro, 2012), the Central Limestone Massif (Zilhão,1997;Almeida, 2000;Aubry et al., 2001;Gameiro and Almeida, 2001;Almeida et al., 2002Almeida et al., , 2004Bicho et al., 2003;Gameiro, 2012), and the Southern Limestone Massif (Marreiros, 2009;Mendonça, 2009;Cascalheira, 2010). Absolute dates from the sites indicated in the manuscript can be seen in Table 2. ...
Identifying the causes of visible changes in the archaeological record is one of the major goals of archaeological and anthropological research. Environmental shifts have been often suggested as one of the primary drivers of anthropological changes, due to their impact on biotic resources. Considerably less attention has been given to changes in the availability of lithic raw materials. If raw materials for tool production were available in constant, predictable amounts then stability or slow shifts of technological strategies would be expected in the archaeological record. However, this is not the case in the Iberian Paleolithic, even considering that some of the observed changes may be driven by culture, setting or function. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of changes in raw material availability through the action of geodynamic processes, which could have exerted selective pressures on the technological strategies employed by human populations. This approach highlights the possible impact of environmental factors on human populations not just through food and habitat, but also through geology.
... Areeiro 3 is the exception that proves the rule regarding Early Mesolithic technological behaviour, making the bridge with the Upper Palaeolithic way of doing represented at several sites of the Rio Maior basin, particularly those dated to the late Pleistocene (Bicho, 2000;Gameiro, 2012;Zilhão, 1997). Important differences exist however between these sites and Areeiro 3. ...
... led to the non-detection of this component at the Barca site, we must admit that there may have been other hunting strategies, techniques, and methods (e.g., fire, snare trappings) that were not recorded archaeologically, but which were part of the practices and knowledge of the Barca groups. Although only found in small numbers, the Late Upper Palaeolithic sites excavated in the same geographical region systematically document armatures made of flint from long-distant sources (Gameiro, 2012;Gameiro et al., 2020). ...
What determines the choice of a particular lithic solution from among the set of knowledge and skills that are part of the cultural background of a group? The Early Mesolithic of the SW Iberian Peninsula shows a high diversity of lithic solutions considering the various aspects of the manufacturing process. At each site, the group selects the most adequate solution to respond efficiently to the needs. Contemporary sites may document quite different lithic components; there are no recurring patterns. Macrolithic and microlithic technologies were adopted, depending on the site, but the selection of one rather than another seems to be independent of the function of the site. Then, what does dictate the choice? A number of factors come to mind such as environmental contingencies, purpose, ability, and ethnicity. This Early Mesolithic defining trait diverges from the pattern observed for the final Upper Palaeolithic, where the same constellation of tools is systematically represented in the archaeological record, as well as flint, even in regions where flint as a natural resource is absent. Macrolithic technologies directed towards the massive production of cutting edges and heavy-duty tools produced from medium coarse-grained rocks co-exist, in SW Iberian Early Mesolithic, with microlithic technologies focused on the production of small bladelets made from good quality chert types and transformed into tiny armatures. Although contemporaneous, each lithic solution has its own geographical identity. How should we study these distinctive productions while at the same time respecting their diversity? No analytical template is sufficiently comprehensible to enable us to understand the multitude of “memories” that lithics carry. However, some approaches can help us to overcome the impasse by letting us read the hidden histories that lie behind lithic artefacts.
... This group comprises open-air sites, rockshelters and caves Aubry et al. 2011;Gameiro 2012;Zilhão 1997b Finally, the Vau site, on the lower Vouga Valley (Pereiro 2015), is located in an intermediate area, still within the Iberian Massif but close to the Lusitanian basin and its flint sources ( Figure 4). ...
... At this point it is important to make a distinction other than that of local or regional and exotic raw materials, which is the distinction between raw materials of specialized use and those of opportunistic or expedient use. In all assemblages from the Côa Valley, independent of the chronology, retouched flake tools are essentially made on the local quartz and quartzite, and retouched bladelet tools are made on flint, silcrete, euhedral quartz and fine-grained varieties of quartz, using the same reduction sequence (Aubry 2009;Aubry et al. in press;Gameiro 2012). The raw material used to produce bladelet tools reveal a large geographic range of supply and retouched bladelets show the same typical impact fractures produced by their use as composite hunting tools (Aubry & Igreja 2009). ...
We present the results of the study of lithic raw materials used in Upper Palaeolithic occupations preserved in caves, rockshelters and open-air sites from two different geological environments in Portugal. For the sites located in the Lusitanian Basin, flint or silcrete sources are easily available in close vicinity. The Côa Valley sites, located in the Iberian Massif, are within a geological environment where restricted fine-grained vein quartz and siliceous metamorphic rocks are available, but no flint or silcrete, even though both are present in the archaeological assemblages. Data from the two clusters of sites are compared with a third newly located site in the Lower Vouga valley, at the limit of the Iberian Massif with the Lusitanian Basin, where quartz vein raw material types are locally available and flint is about 40 kilometres distant. This study reveals prehistoric adaptations to these different geological contexts, with shorter networks for the Lusitanian basin sites contrasting with the long distance ones for the Côa Valley, and the Vouga site at an intermediary position. Finally, we propose that lithic raw material supply networks, defined by a GIS least-cost algorithm, could be used as a proxy not only for territoriality in the case of local and regional lithic raw material sources, but also to infer long-distance social networks between different Palaeolithic human groups, created and maintained to promote the access to asymmetrically distributed resources.
... After the post-LGM warming until the Middle Holocene forests expanded with an increase of Mediterranean vegetation (Carrión, 2015). At the same time, the proliferation of archaeological sites suggests an increase in population (Thacker, 2002(Thacker, , 2006, of intensity in resource exploitation (Bicho et al., 2011(Bicho et al., , 2000Haws, 2006Haws, , 2003Hockett and Haws, 2009), and the diversity of regional technological traits with rapid but discrete chronological changes (Bicho, 1992;Gameiro, 2012;Gameiro et al., 2020;Holst, 2017;Zilhão, 1997). Precisely during the Early Holocene, the regional toolkits are very similar to the Magdalenian, but already include the introduction of geometrics made on Upper Paleolithic-like bladelets (Araújo, 2012;Bicho, 1998Bicho, , 2002Pereira and Carvalho, 2015). ...
Throughout prehistory, landscapes were repeatedly subjected to both global and localized climatic fluctuations that changed the regional environments where human groups lived. This instability demanded constant adaptation and, as a result, the functionality of some sites changed over time.
In this light, the western coast of Iberia represents an exceptional case study due to the proximity between at least some oceanic cores and archaeological sites, which should facilitate an accurate reconstruction of the relationships between paleoenvironmental conditions and the coeval patterns of human behavior. This region, and in particular the valley of the River Lis, is marked by wide exposed plateaus cut by narrow and deep canyons. In this paper we present the stratigraphic, archaeometric, technological and archaeobotanical record of Poço Rock Shelter, located in one of these canyons, which hints at the human responses to such changes, and discuss the link between its Solutrean and Epipaleolithic occupations to specific activities. During the coldest part of the Last Glacial Maximum, we hypothesize that there was intensive exploitation of a chert outcrop above the roof to produce blades and Solutrean tips. Later, during Bond Event 6, after that outcrop had been exhausted, there was intensive consumption of shellfish gathered between the mouth of the canyon and the sea. We hypothesize that these strikingly different roles demonstrate how hunter-gatherers adapted to local conditions, and exploited specific resources, promising to provide a better understanding about its functional role during specific extreme climate events.
... Assim, o EcoPLis poderá ajudar significativamente a esclarecer estas e outras dúvidas sobre a ocupação humana plistocénica no ocidente peninsular, bem como ajudar a completar e refinar a informação atualmente disponível (e.g. Almeida 2000, Angelucci & Zilhão, 2009, Aubry et al., 2001Aubry et al 2006, Aubry et al., 2010Bicho 1992, Bicho et al., 2003, 2009, Bico et al 2013, Brugal & Raposo 1999, Cardoso et al 2002Cascalheira 2013, Cascalheira & Bicho 2013, Cura, 2013, Gameiro, 2012, Haws 2012, Haws et al 1011, Hockett 2005, Manne 2010, Manne et al 2012, Marreiros, 2013, Marreiros & Bicho 2013, Marreiros et al, Pereira 2010, Pereira et al 2012, Zilhão, 1997Zilhão et al., 2011). Campanha 2015: Os trabalhos realizados em 2015 tiveram como objetivo caracterizar as condições de preservação do depósito, bem como a recolha de vestígios para caracterização cronológica, estratigráfica, funcional e tafonómica e de formação de sítio. ...
EcoPLis 2017: Manual de campo
EcoPLis 2017: Handbook of field work.
... Thus, the post-Younger Dryas amelioration does not seem to have had major impact in the settlement, technological and economic strategies of the hunter-gatherers of Estremadura (for a different view, see Araújo, 2009). Indeed, in this region (at least where research has been intensive), the archaeological record seems to be consistent in showing only very discrete changes on those cultural traits; as mentioned above, several authors even recognize strong similarities between the Late Magdalenian (Bicho, 2000;Gameiro, 2012;Zilhão, 1997) and the Epipaleolithic (e.g., Araújo, 2003Araújo, , 2009Araújo, , 2011Bicho, 1994) with respect to lithic production. The question that is still to be answered is how fast the shift to the typically Mesolithic "blade and trapeze techno-complex" was, which can only be possible using assemblages dated to around the 8.2 ka cal BP event -as is the case of the Pena d'Água layer F -which seems to mark the transition to the Mesolithic. ...
In Central Portugal (westernmost Eurasia) the transition from the traditional Pleistocene hunter–gatherer societies to the complex Mesolithic societies of the Holocene has been debated for decades. While some argue that these differences were a progressive phenomenon that started with the shift from the Pleistocene to the Holocene, others defend that the Late Pleistocene patterns were fairly similar to those of the Epipaleolithic and that the major shift was rapid, dramatic and triggered by the necessary adaptation to the 8.2 ka cal BP (8.09–8.25 ka cal BP) climatic event. The study of lithic raw material provenance might be useful for this discussion, since it has been suggested that the Magdalenian and Epipaleolithic populations from this region were collecting this resources within a close range territory, whereas the Mesolithic populations were acquiring them at longer distances.
... Thus, the post-Younger Dryas amelioration does not seem to have had major impact in the settlement, technological and economic strategies of the hunter-gatherers of Estremadura (for a different view, see Araújo, 2009). Indeed, in this region (at least where research has been intensive), the archaeological record seems to be consistent in showing only very discrete changes on those cultural traits; as mentioned above, several authors even recognize strong similarities between the Late Magdalenian (Bicho, 2000;Gameiro, 2012;Zilhão, 1997) and the Epipaleolithic (e.g., Araújo, 2003Araújo, , 2009Araújo, , 2011Bicho, 1994) with respect to lithic production. The question that is still to be answered is how fast the shift to the typically Mesolithic "blade and trapeze techno-complex" was, which can only be possible using assemblages dated to around the 8.2 ka cal BP event -as is the case of the Pena d'Água layer F -which seems to mark the transition to the Mesolithic. ...
In central Portugal, the basic structures of the Pleistocene economy, technology and social organization patterns remain fairly similar until the 8.2 ky cal BP climatic event. Their impact has not yet been thoroughly analysed with regard to changes in lithic technology. The Epipaleolithic occupation of Pena d'Água Rock-shelter is dated to ca. 8.19 ky cal BP. In this paper we present a description of its lithic assemblage and put it in context with coeval and later sites of the Middle Tagus, highlighting the observed differences that pre- and post-date this event. Results indicate similarity in raw material acquisition strategies, mainly locally available quartzite cobbles for flake production. After the 8.2 ky event, chert becomes more common, allowing the systematic production of bladelet toolkits with high percentages of geometrics. Reorganized mobility patterns, from forager to logistic, may explain these changes, which remain stable until the Neolithic, ca. 7.4 ky cal BP.
Field methods for the 2020's field season in the Ocreza Valley.
This work deals with Late Upper Palaeolithic (Azilian and Laborian) lithic industries in the French Pyrenees. Assemblages are compared at an interregional level in order to contextualize and clarify this period. Since its discovery at the end of 19th century, the Azilian was characterized by its specific lithic industry (backed points), osseous artefacts (harpoons) and artistic remains (painted pebbles). However, new discoveries have shed new light on our understanding the Azilian. Six lithic assemblages were examined in this study: Rhodes II (Ariège), Troubat (Hautes-Pyrénées), La Tourasse (Haute-Garonne), Le Poeymaü (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), Gouërris (Haute-Garonne) and Pagès (Lot), allowing us to investigate the evolution of the Azilian and Laborian technocomplexes and to comparatively evaluate this process at the scale of Western Europe. The beginning of the Azilian in the Pyrenees differs from what is observed in the northern Aquitain basin; the Magdalenian seems to persist until 14 200 cal. BP, while the Early Azilian is only observed in the Basque country. However, during the recent phase some common traits are identified at a larger scale (France, Pyrenees, Cantabria), most notably a technological simplification. Still, the Pyrenean Azilian (between 14 200 and 12 500 cal. BP) preserves its regional lithic signature, defined by the presence of double backed points, small scrapers and the use of bipolar reduction on an anvil. The Laborian, sporadically present in the Pyrenees, may indicate a later technical reinvestment, characterized by a more regular and straight production of lamino-lamellar blanks, which is a trend that appears to be observed in the whole Western Europe around 12 500 cal. BP.
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