A Diachronic Perspective of Chert Provisioning and Use: The Middle and Upper Paleolithic of Southwesternmost Iberia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Recent Research on the Paleolithic in the Mediterranean Region" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Hunter-gatherers relied strongly on lithic raw materials, which make them a key aspect to understand mobility, land use, and other important cultural aspects. Identifying changes in raw material provisioning through time is key to understand how different groups adapted and reorganized their culture. This is especially true for the Late Pleistocene, during which abrupt climatic changes seem to have had a severe impact on the adaptive systems of human populations. Territories like southwesternmost Iberia, that seemed to have functioned as long-term refugia for hunter-gatherer communities throughout this timeframe, are ideal scenarios for wide diachronic studies. This paper presents the results of chert raw material analysis (macroscopic and petrographic) from the MP cave site of Gruta da Companheira and the UP levels (Gravettian to Magdalenian) of the multicomponent (open-air and rockshelter) site of Vale Boi, both located near the Southwesternmost point of Iberia. Making use of a comprehensive lithotheque of regional comparative chert samples, our study allowed to study the provisioning strategies and use of chert of the Late Pleistocene from a diachronic perspective, and to better understand hunter-gatherer mobility, economical, and technological organization through time in this region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Recent Research on the Paleolithic in the Mediterranean Region   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35961.0