Understanding mobility and landscape use is important in reconstructing subsistence behavior, range, and group size, and it may contribute to our understanding of phenomena such as the dynamics of biological and cultural interactions between distinct populations of Upper Pleistocene humans. However, studies using traditional strontium isotope analysis are generally limited to identifying locations of childhood residence or nonlocal individuals and lack the sampling resolution to detect movement over short timescales. Here, using an optimized methodology, we present highly spatially resolved 87 Sr/ 86 Sr measurements made by laser ablation multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry along the growth axis of the enamel of two marine isotope stage 5b, Middle Paleolithic Neanderthal teeth (Gruta da Oliveira), a Tardiglacial, Late Magdalenian human tooth (Galeria da Cisterna), and associated contemporaneous fauna from the Almonda karst system, Torres Novas, Portugal. Strontium isotope mapping of the region shows extreme variation in 87 Sr/ 86 Sr, with values ranging from 0.7080 to 0.7160 over a distance of c. 50 km, allowing short-distance (and arguably short-duration) movement to be detected. We find that the early Middle Paleolithic individuals roamed across a subsistence territory of approximately 600 km 2 , while the Late Magdalenian individual parsimoniously fits a pattern of limited, probably seasonal movement along the right bank of the 20-km-long Almonda River valley, between mouth and spring, exploiting a smaller territory of approximately 300 km 2 . We argue that the differences in territory size are due to an increase in population density during the Late Upper Paleolithic.

Gruta do Caldeirão features a c . 6 m-thick archaeological stratification capped by Holocene layers ABC-D and Ea, which overlie layer Eb, a deposit of Magdalenian age that underwent significant disturbance, intrusion, and component mixing caused by funerary use of the cave during the Early Neolithic. Here, we provide an updated overview of the stratigraphy and archaeological content of the underlying Pleistocene succession, whose chronology we refine using radiocarbon and single-grain optically stimulated luminescence dating. We find a high degree of stratigraphic integrity. Dating anomalies exist in association with the succession’s two major discontinuities: between layer Eb and Upper Solutrean layer Fa, and between Early Upper Palaeolithic layer K and Middle Palaeolithic layer L. Mostly, the anomalies consist of older-than-expected radiocarbon ages and can be explained by bioturbation and palimpsest-forming sedimentation hiatuses. Combined with palaeoenvironmental inferences derived from magnetic susceptibility analyses, the dating shows that sedimentation rates varied in tandem with the oscillations in global climate revealed by the Greenland oxygen isotope record. A steep increase in sedimentation rate is observed through the Last Glacial Maximum, resulting in a c . 1.5 m-thick accumulation containing conspicuous remains of occupation by people of the Solutrean technocomplex, whose traditional subdivision is corroborated: the index fossils appear in the expected stratigraphic order; the diagnostics of the Protosolutrean and the Lower Solutrean predate 24,000 years ago; and the constraints on the Upper Solutrean place it after Greenland Interstadial 2.2. (23,220–23,340 years ago). Human usage of the site during the Early Upper and the Middle Palaeolithic is episodic and low-intensity: stone tools are few, and the faunal remains relate to carnivore activity. The Middle Palaeolithic is found to persist beyond 39,000 years ago, at least three millennia longer than in the Franco-Cantabrian region. This conclusion is upheld by Bayesian modelling and stands even if the radiocarbon ages for the Middle Palaeolithic levels are removed from consideration (on account of observed inversions and the method’s potential for underestimation when used close to its limit of applicability). A number of localities in Spain and Portugal reveal a similar persistence pattern. The key evidence comes from high-resolution fluviatile contexts spared by the site formation issues that our study of Caldeirão brings to light—palimpsest formation, post-depositional disturbance, and erosion. These processes. are ubiquitous in the cave and rock-shelter sites of Iberia, reflecting the impact on karst archives of the variation in climate and environments that occurred through the Upper Pleistocene, and especially at two key points in time: between 37,000 and 42,000 years ago, and after the Last Glacial Maximum. Such empirical difficulties go a long way towards explaining the controversies surrounding the associated cultural transitions: from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic, and from the Solutrean to the Magdalenian. Alongside potential dating error caused by incomplete decontamination, proper consideration of sample association issues is required if we are ever to fully understand what happened with the human settlement of Iberia during these critical intervals, and especially so with regards to the fate of Iberia’s last Neandertal populations.

Sourced from the Tyrrhenian Islands and exchanged over long distances, obsidian was used widely across prehistoric Western Europe. An obsidian core and bladelets from a newly discovered rockshelter site in south-eastern Spain, however, raised the possibility of an unrecognised mainland source of obsidian. EDXRF analysis of the Early Magdalenian finds from La Boja links them to a source 125km to the south-west. The artefacts were discarded during two brief activity phases at the site, indicating that obsidian procurement was integral to the technological choices of the site's users. The specificities of the technocomplex may explain the unique nature of this occurrence.

Marine food-reliant subsistence systems such as those in the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) were not thought to exist in Europe until the much later Mesolithic. Whether this apparent lag reflects taphonomic biases or behavioral distinctions between archaic and modern humans remains much debated. Figueira Brava cave, in the Arrábida range (Portugal), provides an exceptionally well preserved record of Neandertal coastal resource exploitation on a comparable scale to the MSA and dated to ~86 to 106 thousand years ago. The breadth of the subsistence base-pine nuts, marine invertebrates, fish, marine birds and mammals, tortoises, waterfowl, and hoofed game-exceeds that of regional early Holocene sites. Fisher-hunter-gatherer economies are not the preserve of anatomically modern people; by the Last Interglacial, they were in place across the Old World in the appropriate settings.

Neste artigo sao apresentados dados relativos ao nivel de base da sequencia sedimentar escavada no sitio do Vau, no âmbito da construcao do Aproveitamento Hidroeletrico de Ribeiradio-Ermida. Apos uma breve apresentacao da localizacao, estratigrafia e trabalhos de escavacao, sera efetuada uma descricao dos principais aspetos da tipo-tecnologia litica, identificando as fases de aprovisionamento, producao, transformacao e abandono dos artefactos. A realizacao de remontagens liticas permitiu complementar os dados tecnologicos. A identificacao e escavacao deste sitio arqueologico possibilitou a obtencao de novos elementos para a caracterizacao de uma fase do Gravettense Medio, pouco conhecida no territorio portugues, como o provam os escassos paralelos na Estremadura e nos vales dos rios Coa e Sabor.

A identificacao recente, no Vale do Vouga, de tres sitios de habitat com amplo espectro de ocupacao diacronica durante o final do Paleolitico Superior, constitui uma preciosa achega para a definicao da sequencia crono-cultural do Paleolitico Superior em Portugal. Apresentamos uma analise sintetica das modalidades de producao, transformacao e utilizacao da utensilagem litica recuperada no Rodo, Vau e Bispeira 8, procedendo- -se tambem a sua comparacao com os sitios analogos da Estremadura portuguesa e do Vale do Coa para afinar a integracao crono-cultural das distintas ocupacoes humanas identificadas.

Bifaces dominate the Acheulean stone tools recovered during the archaeological excavation of layer X of Gruta da Aroeira, dated to 389-436 ka. Faunal remains and a human cranium were found in association with this lithic assemblage. The raw materials used are mostly quartz and quartzite cobbles available in the vicinity of the site. Technological and systematic analysis shows that there are no Levallois elements and suggests that on-site knapping consisted of the reduction of centripetal cores. Flake cleavers are absent. Use-wear analysis indicates the processing of hard materials, mainly wood. Gruta da Aroeira represents one of the few Middle Pleistocene sites that provide securely dated diagnostic human remains and associated Acheulean lithics, thus representing a major step forward in our understanding of the variability of westernmost Europe's Acheulean and of the human populations that made it. (C) 2018 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

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.

In this work we present the results of the study of the raw materials used for knapping in the centre and northern Portugal. Applying the archaeopetrological identification to lithic materials gathered in the field surveys and their comparison with prehistoric lithic assemblages. We have taken into account several lithic raw materials as: quartzite, quartz, fl and silcretes). As a result many geographical areas have been related with several archaeological territories.

The cave site of Gruta da Oliveira is located in the Almonda karst system, at the interface between the Central Limestone Massif of Portuguese Estremadura (CLM) and the adjacent Sedimentary Basin of the River Tagus (TSB). The cave presents a stratification dated to ~37-107 ka containing hearth features, Neanderthal skeletal remains, as well as fauna, microfauna and wood charcoal remains. The lithic assemblages are large and feature a diverse range of raw materials. Knappable lithic raw materials in primary, sub-primary and secondary position in the CLM and the TSB were systematically surveyed and sampled. The characterization of the geological samples was carried out at both the macro- and the microscopic scales and data were systematized under the petroarcheological and “evolutionary chain of silica” approaches. The study of the lithic assemblage from layer 14 (dated to the ~61-93 ka 95.4% probability interval by TL) indicates that the Gruta da Oliveira Neanderthals used quartzite, quartz and flint from sources located less than 30 km away in both the CLM and the TSB.

We present the results of the study of lithic raw materials used in Upper Palaeolithic occupations preserved in caves, rockshelters and open-air sites from two different geological environments in Portugal. For the sites located in the Lusitanian Basin, flint or silcrete sources are easily available in close vicinity. The Côa Valley sites, located in the Iberian Massif, are within a geological environment where restricted fine-grained vein quartz and siliceous metamorphic rocks are available, but no flint or silcrete, even though both are present in the archaeological assemblages. Data from the two clusters of sites are compared with a third newly located site in the Lower Vouga valley, at the limit of the Iberian Massif with the Lusitanian Basin, where quartz vein raw material types are locally available and flint is about 40 kilometres distant. This study reveals prehistoric adaptations to these different geological contexts, with shorter networks for the Lusitanian basin sites contrasting with the long distance ones for the Côa Valley, and the Vouga site at an intermediary position. Finally, we propose that lithic raw material supply networks, defined by a GIS least-cost algorithm, could be used as a proxy not only for territoriality in the case of local and regional lithic raw material sources, but also to infer long-distance social networks between different Palaeolithic human groups, created and maintained to promote the access to asymmetrically distributed resources.

Solutrean culture has been interpreted as a response to the Last Glacial Maximum in western Europe. However, to establish a link depends on our knowledge of the impact of global climatic changes at a local level and on the differential preservation and significance of the record. The identification of lithic sources, technology, function, and place of discard is an effective way to mitigate some of these biases and to improve our understanding of hunter-gatherer societies. We present the results of a study of flint materials found in several rockshelters and open-air sites preserving Upper Solutrean lithic assemblages from France and Portugal, using a Geographic Information System. The network defined by a leastcost algorithm is considered a proxy for social and territorial reconstruction. Our goal is to identify recurrences and differences in Solutrean raw material network and management as compared with Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic assemblages in the same areas, considering environmental changes.

EnglishThe site of Cardina (Ox Jumping) was the first archaeological site with Paleolithic occupation identified in the Coa Valley. The identification showed that, unlike the generalized theory, the hinterland of the Iberian Peninsula was occupied during the Upper Paleolithic. The archaeological excavations carried out between 1996 and 2001 have come to attest a Paleolithic occupation sequence, with different phases between the Gravettian and the Azilian and identify a set of structures. After 13 years, the site was again the subject of excavation work in two campaigns between May and October this year, under the Archaeological Multiannual Research Project “Chronology and paleoenvironments of Paleolithic occupation of the Coa Valley”. Its objectives were to extend the area of intervention in the site platform, complete the chrono-stratigraphic sequence of their occupation and better understanding of their spatial organization over time. In this paper we present the preliminary results of the 2014 campaigns, especially the identification of new Gravettian and Magdalenian structures and remains of Middle Paleolithic occupations portuguesO sitio da Cardina (Salto do Boi) foi o primeiro sitio arqueologico com ocupacao paleolitica identificado no Vale do Coa. A sua identificacao comprovou que, ao contrario da teoria entao generalizada, o interior da Peninsula Iberica foi de facto ocupado durante o Paleolitico Superior. As intervencoes arqueologicas realizadas entre 1996 e 2001 vieram atestar uma sequencia de ocupacao paleolitica, com diferentes fases entre o Gravettense e o Azilense, bem como identificar um conjunto de estruturas. Passados 13 anos, o sitio voltou a ser objeto de trabalhos de escavacao em duas campanhas entre maio e outubro deste ano, no âmbito do Projeto de Investigacao Plurianual de Arqueologia “Cronologia e paleo-ambientes da ocupacao paleolitica do Vale do Coa”. Os seus objetivos foram alargar a area de intervencao na plataforma do sitio, completar a sequencia crono-estratigrafica da sua ocupacao e compreender melhor a sua organizacao espacial ao longo do tempo. Neste artigo apresenta-se os resultados preliminares das campanhas de 2014, destacando-se a identificacao de novas estruturas gravettenses e magdalenenses e de vestigios de ocupacoes do Paleolitico Medio

This paper presents the relationship between a potential :flint procurement source (Casa! dos Matos) and a NeolithicChalcolithic site (E'abeca Gorda 1) located in its immediate surroundings. The macroscopical comparison between the raw material used for flaked stone artifacts in Cabeca Gorda 1 and the raw material that occurs in Casal dos Matos suggests at least a spatial relationship between a local procurement area and a specific consumption context thus reinforcing the evident continuity between local procurement, production and consumption sites in the Prehistory of the ancient peasant communities in the Portuguese Estremadura, between the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic (3100-2600 cal BCE). This paper is not intended to present the exhaustive study of the flaked stone industry of Cabeca Gorda 1, but to set a conceptual framework, based on the currently available data, fbr a specific model of raw material exploitation by comparing with other instances offlint procurement in the same region. This conceptual framework can then be used not only for the area where these sites are included but also for other regions where similar contexts can be identified.

This article has been withdrawn at the request of the author(s) and/or editor. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. The full Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy .

This paper presents the relationship between a potential flint procurement source (Casal dos Matos) and a Neolithic- Chalcolithic site (Cabeça Gorda 1) located in its immediate surroundings. The macroscopical comparison between the raw material used for flaked stone artifacts in Cabeça Gorda 1 and the raw material that occurs in Casal dos Matos suggests at least a spatial relationship between a local procurement area and a specific consumption context – thus reinforcing the evident continuity between local procurement, production and consumption sites in the Prehistory of the ancient peasant communities in the Portuguese Estremadura, between the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic (3100-2600 cal BCE). This paper is not intended to present the exhaustive study of the flaked stone industry of Cabeça Gorda 1, but to set a conceptual framework, based on the currently available data, for a specific model of raw material exploitation by comparing with other instances of flint procurement in the same region. This conceptual framework can then be used not only for the area where these sites are included but also for other regions where similar contexts can be identified.