Oreto García-Puchol

Pressure-Knapping Blade Production in the North-Western Mediterranean Region During the Seventh Millennium cal B.C.

A review of selected Mesolithic blade and trapeze complex series in the north-western Mediterranean reinforces the hypothesis of a common use of pressure techniques for bladelet production during the seventh millennium cal B.C. This paper deals with the specificity and variability of these techniques and the consistency of the blade production methods. Mesolithic pressure technique seems to have been quickly diffused within the western Mediterranean basin, earlier than the spread of Early Neolithic communities in the same area. It then proceeded from a regional development, distinct from the Mesopotamian and Anatolian cores.

Earliest evidence of Neolithic collective burials from Eastern Iberia: radiocarbon dating at the archaeological site of Les Llometes (Alicante, Spain)

In the Valencia region of Spain, the dominant use of natural caves for collective burials during the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods has been documented. Collective burials are central to the hypothesis about social relationships in Copper Age societies from Iberia, and key to interpreting kinship-based societies. Les Llometes (Alcoi, Alicante) is one of the biggest collective burial sites existing in eastern Iberia. This article presents the direct C dates on 25 skeletal remains at the site. The results indicate that the site was used as a burial place from the end of the 5th millennium cal BC until the end of the 4th millennium cal BC, and is a first milestone for future studies that will shed light on the transition towards social structure through the use of a cemetery space. Moreover, this research is one of the few investigations of Late Neolithic collective burials in Iberia that comprises an extensive accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) C data set of almost all the individuals reported at a single site. This case also serves to highlight the utility of revisiting materials from historic excavations by C dating all the skeletal remains that define the minimum number of individuals, and therefore ensuring a more complete picture of the prehistoric human record.

Times of Neolithic transition along the western Mediterranean

espanolEl estudio de la transicion neolitica constituye un tema importante en la investigacion prehistorica. El proceso de cambio economico, desde la recoleccion hasta la agricultura, significo una de las principales transformaciones en los patrones de comportamiento humano. Este volumen se centra en investigar el proceso de neolitizacion en la periferia de una de las rutas principales en la expansion del neolitico en Europa: la region del Mediterraneo occidental. Los avances recientes en la datacion por radiocarbono, en los modelos matematicos y computacionales, en el analisis arqueometrico y en las tecnicas biomoleculares, junto con los nuevos descubrimientos arqueologicos, proporcionan nuevos conocimientos sobre este tema. Este volumen esta organizado en cinco secciones: nuevos descubrimientos y nuevas ideas sobre el neolitico mediterraneo, tiempos de reconstruccion y procesos de modelacion, interaccion paisajistica: cria y pastoreo, subsistencia dietetica de comunidades agricolas tempranas, mecanismos de dispersion humana y transmision cultural. Este volumen tambien proporciona nuevos datos empiricos para ayudar a evaluar diferentes marcos teoricos y narrativas que subyacen en los modelos propuestos para explicar la expansion de la agricultura de Oriente Medio a Europa. EnglishThe study of the Neolithic transition constitutes a major theme in prehistoric research. The process of economic change, from foraging to farming, involved one of the main transformations in human behavior patterns. This volume focuses on investigating the neolithization process at the periphery of one of the main routes in the expansion of the Neolithic in Europe: the Western Mediterranean region. Recent advances in radiocarbon dating, mathematical and computational models, archaeometric analysis and biomolecular techniques, together with new archaeological discoveries, provide novel insights into this topic. This volume is organized into five sections: new discoveries and new ideas about the Mediterranean Neolithic, reconstructing times and modeling processes, landscape interaction: farming and herding, dietary subsistence of early farming communities, human dispersal mechanisms and cultural transmission. This volume will also provide new empirical data to help readers assess different theoretical frameworks and narratives which underlie the models proposed to explain the expansion of farming from the Middle East into Europe.

Timing the Western Mediterranean Last Hunter-Gatherers and First Farmers

The spread of domestic plants and animals from the Near East towards the Western Mediterranean region is analysed using the current radiocarbon dataset relating to the last hunter-gatherers and the first farmers in the area. In order to do this, we have selected radiocarbon dates and built summed probability distributions and density maps, as a means of investigating the processes involved in the expansion of food production economies throughout this wide territory, in a ‘longue duree’ view, in accordance with a multiscalar approach covering both the general and the regional scenarios. This approach allows us to visualise the time of the expansion in this broad area, starting at the beginning of the sixth millennium cal BC, and to discuss the implied mechanisms in what seems, at least along the coast, a very rapid process: reflecting a mix of demic and cultural models with regional nuances.

Current Thoughts on the Neolithisation Process of the Western Mediterranean

The analysis of the Neolithisation process constitutes a recurrent theme in the scientific literature given the fundamental change for human populations implied in the transition from a hunting-fishing-gathering economy to one based on domestication and food production. Nonetheless, the majority of the regional syntheses on a European scale published to date have dealt mainly with the historical narrative of the process, focusing on discussing the Neolithisation process from a demographic and/or cultural perspective. In this respect, the work of Ammerman and Cavalli Sforza (1984) without doubt constituted a turning point in a number of aspects relevant to the study of the Neolithisation of Europe and the Mediterranean. Applying Fisher’s (1937) reaction/diffusion equation to the Neolithic expansion, they laid the foundation for current investigations of the expansion of livestock and agricultural farming on a continental scale. The absence of the principal wild progenitor species of domesticates (e.g., cereals and ovicaprines) in most of the European continent, and the available radiocarbon dates at the time, pointed to the Near East as their place of origin. Since then, and especially during the last 15 years, a growing number of interesting discoveries, surveys and excavations often carried out as a result of increasing urbanisation (a major issue in the Western European Mediterranean) have boosted a renewed interest in studying the Neolithic. This fieldwork has been complemented by an increasingly precise chronological framework, and provides a vital advance in accurately determining the timing of this process. The investigation of the Neolithic has been especially enriched through interpretative approaches, such as evolutionary theory, which go beyond a descriptive analysis of the data and concentrate on exploring the mechanisms and conditions involved in the framework of the cultural transition (Shennan 2008). At the same time, the development in other disciplines of new technologies has favoured the introduction of new methodologies in the study of territories, artefacts and ecofacts, giving rise to analyses that have enhanced investigation in this period. The genetic and isotopic analyses of ancient populations published in recent years deserve a special mention for their relevance to the consideration of demic impact and the coexistence of different socioeconomic traditions (e.g. Bollongino et al. 2013).