Lithic cultural variability during the Gravettian in the Cantabrian Region and the western Pyrenees: State of the art

Abstract

The field and laboratory work carried out in recent decades have substantially changed our vision of various aspects of the Gravettian in the Cantabrian Region and the western Pyrenees. The objective of this work is to carry out a critical synthesis of the available data for the lithic industry of the Gravettian in this region, according to raw material procurement, exploitation strategies and typological markers. Thereby several aspects are of importance: (1) the alternating availability of high quality raw material, where two territories can be divided: one to the West, where raw material acquisition is showing a wide range of raw materials (notably flint, quartzite, quartz), and one to the East, where assemblages are completely dominated by a single raw material: flint; (2) the great similarity between different reduction strategies, mainly in relation to flint; and (3) an existing polymorphism throughout the territory in case of the tool types, within which protrude two typological groups: back elements and burins, notably the Noailles burins. The latter are massively present in the eastern part of the Cantabrian Region and the western Pyrenees. This variability does not seem to correspond to chronological phases, but has to be probably understood in functional terms.