Lithic technological organization and social networks during the LGM in Southwestern Iberia
Author(s): Joao Cascalheira; Nuno Bicho
Year: 2015
Summary
Clusters of sites in particular regions of Southwestern Europe seem to reveal that the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) settlement patterns form a scenario of relatively isolated refugia that may have contracted and expanded their cultural influence as climate fluctuated. Similarities between each of these niches have been long argued, based on the distribution of specific types of lithic weaponry.
This paper will focus on a study of lithic technological organization during the LGM in Southwestern Iberia, using statistical procedures to demonstrate that similarity between regions is mainly visible in the size and type of the lithic blanks produced and, very rarely, in the specific technological attributes of their production.
From a paleoanthropological standpoint, the results indicate that the human adaptive system to the LGM in this area worked at two different, but complementary, scales. One that is essentially local, formed by several eco-cultural niches where communities have shared techno-economic schemes that are best adapted to the particularities of each ecological context. The other, supraregional, related mainly with broad geographical social ties, maintained, most probably, as an extra factor of the adaptive response to the impact of climate and landscape modifications, functioning through sharing behaviors of stylistic concepts and typological elements.
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Cite this Record
Lithic technological organization and social networks during the LGM in Southwestern Iberia. Joao Cascalheira, Nuno Bicho. Presented at The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Francisco, California. 2015 ( tDAR id: 398306)
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Keywords
Geographic Keywords
Europe
Spatial Coverage
min long: -11.074; min lat: 37.44 ; max long: 50.098; max lat: 70.845 ;