Ignacio Clemente Conte

The role played by the Magdalenian site of El Horno in the context of the Asón river basin (northern Spain) is considered in relation to its location and the physical characteristics of the surrounding area. This information has been integrated with data from the archaeological study. Special attention has been paid to the lithic tools and mammal remains recovered in the excavation as these played a particularly significant role at the site. The results suggest that the cave was occupied on a relatively stable basis although the situation changed in the course of the sequence. Level 1 reflects an occupation linked to the acquisition of meat and animal skins, worked mainly in a fresh state. The use of the site represented by Level 2 may have been more stable and complex, as this level displays greater functional diversity. Tasks involving hard animal material have been documented, as well as dry hide or leather processing. In addition, lithic reduction seems to have been more intense in Level 2.

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9 páginas, 10 figuras.-- Comunicación presentada en el 1er Congreso de Análisis Funcional de España y Portugal celebrado en Barcelona a finales de Noviembre 2001. This paper aims to offer an alternative approach to conventional (and often even non-existent) studies of macrolithic or ground stone tools found in archaeological contexts. The analysis of a unique artefact, a “mano”, from an ethnographic context (Dogon country, Mali), is used to develop a methodological model for the daily archaeological research of this type of material. From the standpoint that labour processes (which are mat mainly as tools and finished products) are the key elements in the understanding of prehistoric societies, we propose a methodology which integrates use-wear analysis (addressing the participation of the tool in the productive cycle) and residue analysis (allowing an understanding of the processed good). The combination of both techniques should allow us to make evident a series of materials and w...

""Zamostje 2 is a river bank site located in the region of Serguev
Possad (Russia). This site is constituted by occupations from
the late Mesolithic to the middle Neolithic. If no habitat was
discovered, structures and many artefacts dealing with fishing
practices have been found there. Our attention was drawn
by a particular typological set of bone artefacts from Zamostje:
narrow transverso-lateral bevel ended tools of which sides compose
invariably an angle of 45°. The functional study of around forty
pieces had allowed to match them with wood working (Лозов-
ская, 1997). However, the variability in the breaks and in the
distribution of use-wear patterns makes that kinematics could
not be apparently cleared. From these first results and with the
help of target experiments, we carried out the use wear analysis
of all the collection that counts more than one hundred of “45°
bevelled bone tools”. We expected to specify their function and
their connexions with structures dealing with fishing at Zamostje.""

Micro-wear analysis has been applied to one of the characteristic flint tools types (foicinhas) of the III millennium cal BC in Portuguese Estremadura. Foicinhas have a specific technological and typological character and their function has been discussed long time ago without any positive results. The present use-wear study makes clear that they are sickles. This provides information about the agricultural practices of the Portuguese Chalcolithic and gives new insights as to the biography of the foicinhas. This paper highlights the contribution of micro-wear analysis for an integrated socioeconomic approach to chipped stone tools.

In this report we assess the results of the microwear study of the Cova del Sardo (Catalan Pyrenees). The site is located at an altitude of 1780 m.a.s.l and presents a sequence of prehistoric occupations with radiocarbon dates from the VI millennium to III millennium cal BC. Our data indicate that lithic resources were used for both subsistence and crafting activities. Pastoralism was not the only economic activity practiced by local populations.

This article discloses the new panel with cave paintings of O Lomar, located in the municipality of Fanlo (Huesca). The style of the paintings is natunaturalistic and is included in the so-called Levantine style rock art. Its location, altitude, geolocation and support make this finding unique.

Current archaeological data show that Pyrenean mountain areas were peopled since Neolithic times. This hypothesis is sustained, among others sites, by the Cova del Sardo sequence. This little rock shelter, located in the bottom of the valley of Sant Nicolau at 1790 meters of altitude, has an archaeological sequence which begins at the Fifth millennium BC and finishes during the half of the Third millennium. The study of prehistoric lithic raw materials found in the settlement seems to indicate the existence of a number of different procurement strategies, on the basis of the geographical position of the various catchment areas and of the prehistoric mobility patterns

This paper presents the results of the archaeological and palaeoecological research conducted between 2000 and 2014 in the Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park (PNAESM). This included the systematic survey of the most of the National Park territory, included at altitudes between 1500 and 3000 m a.s.l. During the surveys, 350 archaeological sites have been detected and 78 radiocarbon dates have been realized, providing a sequence of human occupation from 10700 cal BP to modern times. In addition, three archaeological sites with stratified deposits have been fully excavated: Cova del Sardo de Boí, Abric de l’Estany de la Coveta I and Dolmen de la Font dels Coms. In parallel, 5 sedimentary cores have been extracted from lakes and one pigbog, from the Natural Park of Alt Pirineu (PNAP) and National Park (PNAESM) areas, providing a full palaeoecological sequence from the last 17.000 years cal BP. This archaeological and palaeoecological dataset (e.g. soil-sites and lake records) allowed advancing new models about the anthropization of the high-altitude areas and the social construction of pastoral landscapes.

At the current state of research, the first signs of an anthropic input on the mountain landscape in the Pyrenees date back to ca. 5000 cal
BC. The last 15 years of survey and research in the area have demonstrated that first human presence is mainly related to the development of an agro-pastoral economic system, also known as ‘Neolithic’. In this context, mid- and high-altitude areas do not appear to be isolated spaces. In contrast, the latest archaeological data suggests a strong connection between mountains, plains and coastal areas of the NE of the Iberian Peninsula. This area is transitional between the relatively arid inland plains and the alpine landscapes. Here, during a period of 3000 yrs, the palaeoecological and archaeological data shows an increase of anthropic pressure. In this paper we discuss the results of a multidisciplinary research project carried out in the Sant Nicolau valley, a glacial valley located in the western Catalan Pyrenees at altitudes between 1500 to 3000 m a.s.l., and in the rest of the Nacional Park (PNAESM). Our research involves several complementary approaches and disciplines: 1) an extensive survey of the area and the integration of all types of archaeological evidences on a regional GIS; 2) a diachronic study of all the excavated sites, which includes an economic approximation of the archaeological materials and integrated archaeobotanical analyses; 3) an analysis of the landscape evolution through palaeosols and lacustrine sedimentary cores.
The first results of this integrated approach are encouraging, showing dynamics in the occupation of the mountains that otherwise would be
impossible to detect. In the Nacional Park area human presence seems to be sporadic until the first half of the V millennium cal BC. The first
signs of anthropogenic fires, dated between 5200 and 4940 cal BC, seem to anticipate of only a few hundred years the appearance of a major archaeological record at Sant Nicolau button valley. A clear human occupation is dated between 4802 and 4368 cal AC at Cova del Sardo site, and is mainly associated with the exploitation of the subalpine stage for pastoral purposes by groups of southern provenance. Successively, the human presence becomes more discontinuous between 4229 and 3375 cal AC. Gradually moves toward higher altitudes. Indeed an increasing number of sites are established above 2000 m a.s.l., between 3484 and 2345 cal AC. The analysis of the archaeological artefacts suggests that the catchment area of these Neolithic pastoral groups goes from the Ebro Basin to the alpine areas of the Axial Pyrenees. We suggest that the modern landscape, far from being a ‘natural’ environment, is the result of a long-term process of anthropic transformation, starting VII millennia ago.

Cueva de Chaves represents a paradigm of a fully Neolithic ex-novo occupation. However, despite its importance within the chrono-cultural framework of the Iberian Prehistory, there is a lack of empirical evidences about the site's economic organization. While the herding of domesticated animals has been well-documented, agricultural and crafting activities have not been fully characterized. In this paper, we advance a socioeconomic interpretation of the flaked stone assemblage to identify the production processes in which lithic tools were involved. The results of the traceological analysis indicate that both animal and vegetal resources were exploited; food and craft production activities, which could not otherwise have emerged from the archaeological record, have been recognized. A mixed farming economy was practised at Cueva de Chaves, the ‘functional spectrum’ of which can be compared to the one of other open-air stable settlements of the western Mediterranean.

In this paper, we provide new data on fish resource exploitation during the Mesolithic and Neolithic period on the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula. Evidence from four different sites is presented: Vale Marim I (end of the seventh/beginning of the sixth millennium cal BCE) and Vale Pincel I (2nd and 3rd quarters of the sixth millennium cal BCE), both located on the southwestern Portuguese coast, and La Esparragosa and
SET Parralejos (fourth-third millennia cal BCE), both located on the southern Spanish coast. The analysis of the lithic assemblages by means of use-wear analysis provided evidence of fish-processing activities. The analysis of the archaeological tools has been based on a renewed experimental framework for fish-related use-wear traces. Despite data being still scarce and fragmentary, this study points out the necessity of a more integrating approach, including traceological analysis in the framework of a broader research on prehistoric fishing.