Age and date for early arrival of the Acheulian in Europe (Barranc de la Boella, la Canonja, Spain).

Josep Vallverdú,Almudena Estalrrich,Andreu Ollé,Juan José Villalaín,Eudald Carbonell,Jaume Vilalta,Antonio Rosas,Francesc Burjachs,Ángel Carrancho,Rosa Huguet,Montserrat Esteban-Nadal,Jordi Martinell,Isabel Cáceres,Didier Bourlès,Palmira Saladié,Isabel Expósito,Marina Mosquera,Régis Braucher,Sergio Ros-Montoya,Antonio Pineda ,Josep María Vergès ,Ana Isabel Mestre García ,María Bennàsar ,Markus Bastir ,Iván Lozano‐Fernández ,Jordi Agustı́ ,Bienvenido Martı́nez-Navarro ,Lucía López‐Polín ,Antonio García-Tabernero ,Anne-Élisabeth Lebatard

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0103634

Abstract

The first arrivals of hominin populations into Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene are currently considered to have occurred as short and poorly dated biological dispersions. Questions as to the tempo and mode of these early prehistoric settlements have given rise to debates concerning the taxonomic significance of the lithic assemblages, as trace fossils, and the geographical distribution of the technological traditions found in the Lower Palaeolithic record. Here, we report on the Barranc de la Boella site which has yielded a lithic assemblage dating to ∼1 million years ago that includes large cutting tools (LCT). We argue that distinct technological traditions coexisted in the Iberian archaeological repertoires of the late Early Pleistocene age in a similar way to the earliest sub-Saharan African artefact assemblages. These differences between stone tool assemblages may be attributed to the different chronologies of hominin dispersal events. The archaeological record of Barranc de la Boella completes the geographical distribution of LCT assemblages across southern Eurasia during the EMPT (Early-Middle Pleistocene Transition, circa 942 to 641 kyr). Up to now, chronology of the earliest European LCT assemblages is based on the abundant Palaeolithic record found in terrace river sequences which have been dated to the end of the EMPT and later. However, the findings at Barranc de la Boella suggest that early LCT lithic assemblages appeared in the SW of Europe during earlier hominin dispersal episodes before the definitive colonization of temperate Eurasia took place.

Highlights

Among the results of the research devoted to the culturalstratigraphic entities of the Lower Palaeolithic, one of the most noteworthy and debatable concerns is the temporal and geographic distribution of large cutting tools (LCT) as trace fossils of the Acheulian [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
This empirical concern about the European Lower Palaeolithic record suggests that Pebble and Core (PBC) assemblages (Clactonian, Tayacian, etc.) have the same taxonomic identity as the LCT assemblages and are considered to reflect a variation in behaviour or land use, as has been described in many studies of the Early Pleistocene archaeological record at Awash basin, Olduvai and Ubeidiya, and as Leakey proposed for the Developed Oldowan [7,20,21,22]
Magnetic behaviour varies between the different units and lithologies of the profiles measured; the magnetization of a large proportion of samples with a stable characteristic component is mainly due to magnetite and/or hematite

Summary

Introduction

Among the results of the research devoted to the culturalstratigraphic entities of the Lower Palaeolithic, one of the most noteworthy and debatable concerns is the temporal and geographic distribution of large cutting tools (LCT) as trace fossils of the Acheulian [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Given that Acheulian industry is present in Asia at around 1.4 and 1.2 Ma in both the Levantine Corridor [17] and India [18,19] (Figure 1), researchers have had to reconsider the existence of LCT as trace fossils in the taxonomic identity of the Acheulian [3] This empirical concern about the European Lower Palaeolithic record suggests that PBC assemblages (Clactonian, Tayacian, etc.) have the same taxonomic identity as the LCT assemblages and are considered to reflect a variation in behaviour or land use, as has been described in many studies of the Early Pleistocene archaeological record at Awash basin, Olduvai and Ubeidiya, and as Leakey proposed for the Developed Oldowan [7,20,21,22]. The temporal distribution of this southern Acheulian (meridional Acheulian) industry is probably the same as that of the central European Acheulian, and the differences between them are considered to be one of the fundamental arguments suggesting that there was a Middle Pleistocene prehistoric corridor over the Strait of Gibraltar [6,10,11,26]

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Discussion

Conclusion