Procurement and mobility during the Late Pleistocene: Characterising the stone-tool assemblage of the Picamoixons site (Tarragona, NE Iberian Peninsula)

María Soto

doi:10.2218/jls.v3i2.1782

Abstract

The Picamoixons site is a rockshelter located in the province of Tarragona (NE Iberian Peninsula). It was object of two rescue campaigns during 1988 and 1993, which led to the recovery of a complete archaeological assemblage, including stone tools as well as faunal and portable art remains that date the occupation to the 14th to 11th millennium BP (calibrated). This study involves a petrographic characterisation of the stone-tool assemblage in order to establish: 1) the procurement areas, 2) the raw materials management strategies and 3) the mobility radius and territorial sizes of the hunter-gatherers groups that occupied the site. The method applied comprises in a multiscale analysis that includes systematic prospection, the petrographic characterisation of geological and archaeological samples, an analysis of the chert types represented in the knapping sequence, and the definition of the mobility axes and areas frequented according to lithic procurement.A petrographic analysis of the chert in the prospected area led to the definition of nine macroscopic varieties related to five types (Vilaplana, Morera, Maset, Vilella and Tossa cherts), related to Lower and Upper Muschelkalk (Triassic), Lutetian, Bartonian (Palaeocene) and Sannonian (Oligocene) deposits.The study of the knapping sequences indicates the main exploitation of Bartonian cherts (Tossa type), and the use of Lutetian cherts (Maset and Morera types) for configuring retouched tools. The exploitation of the remaining raw material types identified is considered sporadic and opportunistic.Defining the procurement areas enabled the mobility radius to be assessed as between 3 and 30 km, highlighting the importance of the fluvial basins as natural movement pathways. The results indicate that the main procurement territory was 16 km2 in area, associable with a forager radius. The most remote procurement distances suggest a maximum exploitation area of 260 km2, defining an intra-regional range. This range presents parallelisms with various contemporaneous hunter-gatherers groups in Western Europe, suggesting a progressive mobility reduction dynamic during the Late Pleistocene-Initial Holocene.

Highlights

An absence of regional petrographic studies has made it necessary to characterise the lithic raw materials used by the Late Glacial hunter-gatherers groups around the Prades range and Camp de Tarragona region (Tarragona, NE Spain)
This paper presents a systematic petrographic analysis of the lithic resources available in the contact area between the Ebro distal basin and the central sector of the Prelittoral Catalan Mountains, as well as the lithic assemblage from the Picamoixons site
The petrographic analysis of the chert varieties defined in the assemblage of Picamoixons site determines the potential procurement of the Vilaplana chert from the outcrops located in the Francolí and Siurana basin

Summary

Introduction

An absence of regional petrographic studies has made it necessary to characterise the lithic raw materials used by the Late Glacial hunter-gatherers groups around the Prades range and Camp de Tarragona region (Tarragona, NE Spain). This paper presents a systematic petrographic analysis of the lithic resources available in the contact area between the Ebro distal basin and the central sector of the Prelittoral Catalan Mountains, as well as the lithic assemblage from the Picamoixons site. For this purpose we petrographically characterised both the geological and archaeological records to achieve our three main objectives: 1) to define the procurement areas; 2) to analyse the distribution of the different chert types in the reduction sequence; and 3) to delimit the mobility radius, the frequented areas and the territorial sizes of the huntergatherer groups according to the lithic procurement data. Five different layers (CIIA to CIIE) were differentiated, three of them (A, B and D) presenting an archaeological record (Vallverdú 1994), only the CIIA has been excavated

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion