Lithic Technology

"Monte da Foz 1 (Benavente, Portugal) is an open-air site identified during a surface work and it was partly excavated by a rescue excavation that took place during the construction of the A10 - Highway. The excavation took place in different areas affected by the highway. The five soundings of one of those areas, the squares B10-B14, allowed the observation of a secure and preserved archaeological context. The present text is the result of the full study of the archaeological data from this archaeological level, framing it, chrono-culturally, in the evolutionary dynamics resulting from the Neolithisation process in the current portuguese territory.
The absence of eco-facts in the archaeological record didn’t allow the obtaining of absolute chronology. By this fact, chronological definition was gained according to techno-typological analysis of the material culture, and by the characterization of the typology and functional strategy of the human occupation.
The settlement seems to fit in a typology of contexts, culturally related to the early phases of the neolithisation process, more common in the current portuguese territory, the establishments of short duration.
The major presence of undecorated pottery, the significant weight of ceramic containers decorated with an incised line below the rim, the preference for a macroindustry of flakes and borers, using local raw materials (quartzite and quartz), the existence of a flint laminary industry, which brought out an interesting number of blades, bladelets and geometric armatures represented by segments and trapezes, combined with the a short duration occupation strategy, puts, crono-culturaly, the range of occupation for Monte da Foz, during the late phases of the early Neolithic, in transition to the middle Neolithic. These data suggests a settlement occupied between the 2nd half of the Vth millennium and the beginnings of the IVth millennium BC.
According to the material culture, the group that occupied the Monte da Foz 1 would be, economically and socially, connected with the interaction modalities, between the Man and Environment that characterize the neolithisation process in progress, within an overall framework of rupture compared to the Mesolithic."

During the last years researchers have debated about when the European settlement took place. The sites of the Iberian Peninsula have shown data that allow us to affirm that humans arrived to Europe more than one million of years ago. In the deposit of Gran Dolina (Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos) was found a sample of faunal, lithic and human remains (Homo antecessor) dating about 800,000 years ago. In Fuente Nueva 3 and Barranco León 5 (Granada) there have recovered faunal remains and lithic artifacts that may be able to have a chronology of 1,3 million years. In addition there are isolated findings in river terraces of the Northwest, Center and South of the Peninsula that are less conclusive. All the lithic objects recovered belong to the technical Mode 1. Finally, the possibility of an access to the Peninsula through Gibraltar is discussed.

"Abstract :
The continuation of petroarchaeological works on the Middle Palaeolithic flint series from Quercy allows us to be more precise regarding the supply networks, the non-local raw materials circulation and human group mobility. Therefore, Les Bosses site clearly shows that there were some contacts between Perigord and Quercy as early the OIS 8/9 (importation of cretaceous flints). They continued during the subsequent Palaeolithic
phases, as shown by Coudoulous (OIS 6) and la Borde, and then during the latest glaciation as shown by les Fieux. During OIS 3, there is a supply of non-local raw materials from sometimes more distant sources (Bergeracois), more particularly within the Mousterian series of Quina type from Mas-Viel and Espagnac. Besides, the techno-economical approach of Mousterian series reveals the management techniques of imported materials. Those materials, associated with productions made of local rocks (quartz, quartzites, Jurassic flints), give to the series a special structure where different types of chaînes opératoires coexist: distinctive spatiotemporal dimensions, fractioned for the non-local raw materials and more or less unified for the local raw materials. The non-local series, sometimes poor, yield a sum of key data for understanding the complexity (operative diversity) and the importance of Middle Palaeolithic knowledge (traditions) and technical know-how in the frame of pre-Neanderthal and Neanderthal mobility.

Résumé :
La poursuite des travaux de pétroarchéologie sur des séries en silex du Paléolithique moyen quercinois permet de préciser les systèmes d’approvisionnement, la circulation des matériaux allochtones et les déplacements des groupes humains. Ainsi, le gisement des Bosses donne des indications sur des contacts évidents entre le Périgord et le Quercy dès les stades 8/9
de la chronologie isotopique (importations de silex crétacés). Ceux-ci se poursuivent pendant les phases ultérieures du Paléolithique moyen ancien avec Coudoulous (OIS 6) et la Borde, puis durant le dernier Glaciaire avec les Fieux. Au cours du stade isotopique 3, on note un approvisionnement
en matériaux allochtones d’origine parfois plus lointaine (Bergeracois), notamment au sein des séries du Moustérien de type Quina du Mas-Viel et d’Espagnac. L’approche techno-économique des industries moustériennes est par ailleurs révélatrice de modes de gestion technique des matériaux importés qui, associés aux productions réalisées aux dépens de matières premières locales (quartz, quartzites, silex jurassiques), donnent aux industries une structure spécifique où coexistent des chaînes opératoires organisées suivant des modèles différents : dimensions spatiotemporelles distinctes, fractionnée pour les matériaux allochtones et plus ou moins unifiée pour les matériaux d’origine locale. Les séries allochtones, parfois numériquement peu importantes, regroupent une somme de données capitales pour appréhender la complexité (diversité opératoire) mais aussi l’emprise (traditions) des connaissances et des savoir-faire techniques du Paléolithique moyen dans cette dynamique de mobilité des groupes prénéandertaliens
et néandertaliens."

Geochronological and environmental studies show that two adjacent lake basins containing Middle Palaeolithic industries, Neumark-Nord 1 and Neumark-Nord 2 (Germany) both date to the early Corylus phase of the Eemian Interglacial, of ca. 125,000 years ago. Here hominins exploited a wide range of herbivores in a 26 ha lake landscape during a period that is often considered to be extremely challenging for Neandertals in terms of environmental conditions. We present the progressing faunal analysis of Neumark-Nord 2/2 and a new pilot study into the exploitation patterns of the Neumark-Nord 1 faunal assemblage, which clearly demonstrate the potential and importance of Neumark-Nord for the study of hominin subsistence strategies in Interglacial Landscapes.

"The goal of this paper is to analyze the lithic artefacts from layer 3 of Hornillos 2, a rockshelter located at Susques (Jujuy, Argentina),
which have been dated to the beginning of the Middle Holocene (7,760-7,430 BP). These include points of the “San Martín” type,
rarely mentioned in Argentine archaeology, but with a broad distribution around the Salar de Atacama and other salt-lake margins
in Northern Chile, as well as the upper drainage of the Loa River. Lithic analysis shows that the early Middle Holocene occupations
of the site are short term, reflecting specialized activities and a technological organization related to logistical mobility. In this
context, San Martín points had a long history involving multiple manufacture sequences."

""In recent years research in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic worldwide has been breaking boundaries, such as pushing back the earliest dates for the human occupation of Britain, the identification of a new species of hominin, cracking the Neanderthal genome and the discovery of the UK’s earliest Mesolithic house. This volume, which is the culmination of a highly successful two-day conference, aims to celebrate this trend with papers from both postgraduates and established academics, presenting new research from a variety of geographical and methodological perspectives.

The Where the Wild Things Are conference, which was held at Durham University on 24-25 March 2012, attracted some 128 delegates from some eighteen countries and allowed a wide range of researchers within the fields of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeology to present over fifty papers that demonstrated the breadth of new and innovative advances in the analysis and understanding of these periods. The mixture of contributors from a diverse range of backgrounds allowed for a greater degree of interdisciplinary discourse that is not often seen at similar conferences, where the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic are generally split apart.

The papers that have been proposed for this volume bring the ideas and interpretations set forth at the Wild Things conference to the wider archaeological audience. Collecting contributions from archaeologists conducting research within the British Isles, France, Portugal, Denmark, Russia, the Levant and Europe as a whole, this volume aims to present a cross-section of the exciting range of research currently being conducted to improve our understanding of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. By combining papers that discuss these two periods together, it is hoped that further dialogue between practitioners of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic research can be encouraged. ""

"The site of Périché, located about ten kilometres west of Limoges in
Verneuil-sur-Vienne (Haute-Vienne, France), was excavated in the context
of a preventive archaeology operation on the RD 2000 (Departmental
Road). A Middle Palaeolithic industry was discovered within the last flow
cycle of a small dejection cone fossilized by a soil slip that protected it from
erosion by transforming its convexity into a concavity. This modest assemblage
was made mainly from local raw materials collected in close or
immediate proximity to the site, including mostly quartz and a few quartzites
in the form of cobbles and vein blocks. Each group is rather diverse,
with varieties showing very unequal knapping properties but remaining of
average quality. This ensemble is completed by a few flint implements originating
from distances of around 75 to 80 km to the west or south-west as
the crow flies. The general technological base covers the great majority of
Middle Palaeolithic methods in southwest France, but is differentially distributed among the three main raw material categories. The Levallois
method is used with the imported flints. The vein blocks are almost exclusively
reduced by limited and poorly structured systems. The cobbles are
exploited by more established flaking methods, mostly Discoid. The artisans
of Périché seem to have managed these abundant but difficult local raw
materials as well as they could by selecting blocks more in consideration
of their form than their petrographic nature."