Ernestina Badal

Vegetation changes and human action from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age (7000–4000 B.P.) in Alicante, Spain, based on charcoal analysis

Charcoal analysis reveals various palaeo-ecological phases from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. Agriculture starts about 7000 B.P. in favourable ecological conditions. Most of the charcoal spectra from sites on the coast represent thermomediterranean holm-oak forest; those from the inland mountains represent mesome-diterranean holm-oak forest. The Neolithic I Impressed Ware people were the first to clear the forest to plant their crops. This clearance of primary woodland resulted in the development of secondary vegetation of pine woods or scrub. The scrub reached its maximum during the Bell Beaker phase and Bronze Age in the Cova de les Cendres. In the Neolithic II open air sites, the percentages of Quercus ilex/coccifera remain high. This may be the result of a different exploitation of the land, or suitable conditions for the growth and survival of the vegetation.

Wood use in a medieval village: the contribution of wood charcoal analysis to the history of land use during the 13th and 14th centuries a . d . at Pobla d’Ifach, Calp, Alicante, Spain

Excavations on the Rock of Ifach, Alicante, Spain have revealed the remains of a medieval settlement that flourished between a.d. 1297 and 1359. Wood charcoal analysis combined with archaeological evidence and historical records allow an assessment of the local vegetation of the area during the medieval period, the obtaining and use of firewood and the commercial routes for supplying timber. Pinus halepensis and to a lesser degree various matorral taxa were used for fuel during the main occupation phases at the settlement. The resource exploitation network of the settlement expanded over the adjacent coastal area, with firewood obtained from pine woodlands there. The timbers used in the construction of the settlement were mainly from pines that originated nearby (P. halepensis) or which were transported by river from woodland areas to the north which were controlled by the Crown of Aragon (P. nigra/sylvestris, P. pinaster). The partial destruction of the village in a.d. 1359 and its gradual abandonment are reflected in changes observed in fuel supplying practices that then concentrated on the local matorral vegetation of the rock itself.

Precise dating of the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition in Murcia (Spain) supports late Neandertal persistence in Iberia

The late persistence in Southern Iberia of a Neandertal-associated Middle Paleolithic is supported by the archeological stratigraphy and the radiocarbon and luminescence dating of three newly excavated localities in the Mula basin of Murcia (Spain). At Cueva Antón, Mousterian layer I-k can be no more than 37,100 years-old. At La Boja, the basal Aurignacian can be no less than 36,500 years-old. The regional Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition process is thereby bounded to the first half of the 37th millennium Before Present, in agreement with evidence from Andalusia, Gibraltar and Portugal. This chronology represents a lag of minimally 3000 years with the rest of Europe, where that transition and the associated process of Neandertal/modern human admixture took place between 40,000 and 42,000 years ago. The lag implies the presence of an effective barrier to migration and diffusion across the Ebro river depression, which, based on available paleoenvironmental indicators, would at that time have represented a major biogeographical divide. In addition, (a) the Phlegraean Fields caldera explosion, which occurred 39,850 years ago, would have stalled the Neandertal/modern human admixture front because of the population sink it generated in Central and Eastern Europe, and (b) the long period of ameliorated climate that came soon after (Greenland Interstadial 8, during which forests underwent a marked expansion in Iberian regions south of 40°N) would have enhanced the “Ebro Frontier” effect. These findings have two broader paleoanthropological implications: firstly, that, below the Ebro, the archeological record made prior to 37,000 years ago must be attributed, in all its aspects and components, to the Neandertals (or their ancestors); secondly, that modern human emergence is best seen as an uneven, punctuated process during which long-lasting barriers to gene flow and cultural diffusion could have existed across rather short distances, with attendant consequences for ancient genetics and models of human population history.

Land Snails as a Diet Diversification Proxy during the Early Upper Palaeolithic in Europe

Despite the ubiquity of terrestrial gastropods in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene archaeological record, it is still unknown when and how this type of invertebrate resource was incorporated into human diets. In this paper, we report the oldest evidence of land snail exploitation as a food resource in Europe dated to 31.3-26.9 ka yr cal BP from the recently discovered site of Cova de la Barriada (eastern Iberian Peninsula). Mono-specific accumulations of large Iberus alonensis land snails (Ferussac 1821) were found in three different archaeological levels in association with combustion structures, along with lithic and faunal assemblages. Using a new analytical protocol based on taphonomic, microX-Ray Diffractometer (DXR) and biometric analyses, we investigated the patterns of selection, consumption and accumulation of land snails at the site. The results display a strong mono-specific gathering of adult individuals, most of them older than 55 weeks, which were roasted in ambers of pine and juniper under 375°C. This case study uncovers new patterns of invertebrate exploitation during the Gravettian in southwestern Europe without known precedents in the Middle Palaeolithic nor the Aurignacian. In the Mediterranean context, such an early occurrence contrasts with the neighbouring areas of Morocco, France, Italy and the Balkans, where the systematic nutritional use of land snails appears approximately 10,000 years later during the Iberomaurisian and the Late Epigravettian. The appearance of this new subsistence activity in the eastern and southern regions of Spain was coeval to other demographically driven transformations in the archaeological record, suggesting different chronological patterns of resource intensification and diet broadening along the Upper Palaeolithic in the Mediterranean basin.

Identification of plant cells in black pigments of prehistoric Spanish Levantine rock art by means of a multi-analytical approach. A new method for social identity materialization using chaîne opératoire

We present a new multi-analytical approach to the characterization of black pigments in Spanish Levantine rock art. This new protocol seeks to identify the raw materials that were used, as well as reconstruct the different technical gestures and decision-making processes involved in the obtaining of these black pigments. For the first of these goals, the pictorial matter of the black figurative motifs documented at the Les Dogues rock art shelter (Ares del Maestre, Castellón, Spain) was characterized through the combination of physicochemical and archeobotanical analyses. During the first stage of our research protocol, in situ and non-destructive analyses were carried out by means of portable Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence spectrometry (EDXRF); during the second stage, samples were analyzed by Optical Microscopy (OM), Raman spectroscopy, and Scanning Electron Microscopy coupled with Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX). Two major conclusions have been drawn from these analyses: first, charred plant matter has been identified as a main component of these prehistoric black pigments; and second, angiosperm and conifer charcoal was a primary raw material for pigment production, identified by means of the archaeobotanical study of plant cells. For the second goal, black charcoal pigments were replicated in the laboratory by using different raw materials and binders and by reproducing two main chaînes opératoires. The comparative study of the structure and preservation of plant tissues of both prehistoric and experimental pigments by means of SEM-EDX underlines both a complex preparation process and the use of likely pigment recipes, mixing raw material with fatty or oily binders. Finally, the formal and stylistic analysis of the motifs portrayed at Les Dogues allowed us to explore the relationship between identified stylistic phases and black charcoal pigment use, raising new archaeological questions concerning the acquisition of know-how and the transfer of traditionally learned chaînes opératoires in Spanish Levantine rock art.