La tecnología lítica de La Maya y El Basalito (Salamanca): nuevas aportaciones desde la talla experimental

Experimental archaeology is a field that helps us to understand how prehistoric activities developed. Experimentation also facilitates our understanding of hominid tool knapping procedures and technologies.Experimental knapping is one of the main methodologies used to analyse the influence of raw materials, the knapper's role, cultural heritage and economy in prehistoric technological repertoires.Two classic Mode 2 (Acheulian) deposits were studied within the framework of these experimental premises: La Maya and El Basalito. Tool variations were analyzed, differentiating aspects related to technical solutions from those associated with the group's cultural tradition and the intensity of the occupation.La arqueología experimental es una disciplina que facilita la comprensión del desarrollo de las diferentes actividades de la prehistoria. A través de la experimentación se pueden llegar a comprender los procedimientos y las técnicas que llevaron a cabo los homínidos en la fabricación de sus herramientas.La talla experimental es una de las principales vías metodológicas en el análisis de la influencia de las materias primas, el papel del tallador, la herencia cultural y la economía en los repertorios tecnológicos del pasado.El estudio bajo esas premisas experimentales, de dos yacimientos clásicos del Modo 2 del achelense: La Maya y El Basalito, permiten analizar la variabilidad instrumental, diferenciando los aspectos ligados a soluciones técnicas de aquellos relacionados a la tradición cultural del grupo o al grado de intensidad ocupacional

Visitor profiling at the Museum of Human Evolution of Burgos (Spain)

This paper presents the first study ever conducted on the profile of visitors to the Museum of Human Evolution of Burgos (Spain), which exhibits the finds of the Atapuerca archaeo-paleontological sites. The research was guided by the principles of public communication of science and the methodology of the studies on museum visitors. The analysis reveals a positive perception; the Museum is associated with the sites and they are valued as cultural heritage. Complaints are very limited but useful to produce a set of recommendations to further improve the exhibition. In addition, the findings are placed in the context of similar research carried out at other museums in Spain.Fil: Conforti, María Eugenia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tandil. Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Paleontológicas del Cuaternario Pampeano. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Paleontológicas del Cuaternario Pampeano; ArgentinaFil: Chaparro, Maria Gabriela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tandil. Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Paleontológicas del Cuaternario Pampeano. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Paleontológicas del Cuaternario Pampeano; ArgentinaFil: Degele, Pamela Esther. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tandil. Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Paleontológicas del Cuaternario Pampeano. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Paleontológicas del Cuaternario Pampeano; ArgentinaFil: Diez Fernandez Lomana, Juan Carlos. Universidad de Burgos; Españ

A structure from the sixth millennium cal BC with no artifactual content at San Quirce (Palencia, Spain): a multidisciplinary study

During the course of the excavations of the San Quirce open-air archaeological site in Spain, an unusual negative structure was identified in the Holocene level dated ca. sixth millennium cal BC. A fire pit alongside a single post-hole and intense fire-burning activity was recorded. Yet, the most striking feature of the structure is the absence of any artifactual or faunal record associated to it, something without a known archaeological parallel. Its interpretation represents an archaeological challenge addressed through a multidisciplinary approach including geoarchaeological, palaeobotanical techniques and experimental archaeology. Fifteen stratigraphically distinguishable combustion events showing a diachronic fire record, the significant structure’s dimensions and particularly the post-hole, indicate its anthropic origin. Archaeomagnetic and micromorphological data allowed reconstructing and temporally sequencing some formation and post-depositional processes, some involving water flows. Maximum heating temperatures between 480 and 525 °C were determined in one of the combustion features studied. The identification of grassy tufts would suggest a seasonal settlement of the site. We cannot yield a definite explanation for the artifactual absence, but the available data and an experimental archaeology recreation suggest that the structure could be used as a small hut/open-air bivouac, over which short-lived occupations were repeatedly carried out.Junta de Castilla y León (project BU235P18) with also FEDER founding

Human remains from Valdegoba Cave (Huérmeces, Burgos, Spain)

Systematic excavations, begun in 1987, at the Valdegoba cave site in northern Spain have yielded the remains of five individuals associated with a Middle Paleolithic stone tool technology and Pleistocene fauna. A fragmentary mandible of an adolescent (VB1), preserving nearly a full set of teeth, exhibits a symphyseal tubercle and slight incurvatio mandibulae anterior on the external symphysis. Both the superior and inferior transverse tori are present on the internal aspect. A second individual (VB2) is represented by a set of ten deciduous teeth consistent with an age at death of 6–9 months. A proximal manual phalanx (VB3) displays a relatively broad head, a characteristic which is found in both Neandertals, as well as European Middle Pleistocene hominids. VB4 is a fourth metatarsal that lacks the distal epiphysis, indicating it comes from an adolescent individual, and has a relatively high robusticity index. Finally, VB5 is a fifth metatarsal of an adult. The VB1 mandible shows a combination of archaic characteristics as well as more specific Neandertal morphological traits. The VB2 deciduous teeth are very small, and both the metrics and morphology seem more consistent with a modern human classification. The postcranial elements are undiagnostic, U-Th dating has provided an age of >350 ka for the base of the sequence and a date of <73·2 ± �5 ka for level 7, near the top. Faunal analysis and radiometric dates from other nearby Mousterian sites suggests that the Valdegoba site is correlative with oxygen isotope stages 3–6 on the Iberian peninsula, and an Upper Pleistocene age for the Valdegoba hominids seems most reasonable

Partial Genetic Turnover in Neandertals: Continuity in the East and Population Replacement in the West

Remarkably little is known about the population-level processes leading up to the extinction of the neandertal. To examine this, we use mitochondrial DNA sequences from 13 neandertal individuals, including a novel sequence from northern Spain, to examine neandertal demographic history. Our analyses indicate that recent western European neandertals (48 kyr) European neandertals. Using control region sequences, Bayesian demographic simulations provide higher support for a model of population fragmentation followed by separate demographic trajectories in subpopulations over a null model of a single stable population. The most parsimonious explanation for these results is that of a population turnover in western Europe during early Marine Isotope Stage 3, predating the arrival of anatomically modern humans in the region

Zooarqueología de Atapuerca (Burgos) e implicaciones paleoeconómicas del estudio tafonómico de yacimientos del Pleistoceno medio

Tesis en CD-ROM Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Geografía e Historia, Departamento de Prehistoria y Etnología, 1992Depto. de Prehistoria, Historia Antigua y ArqueologíaFac. de Geografía e HistoriaTRUEpu

Zooarqueología de Atapuerca (Burgos) e implicaciones paleoeconómicas del estudio tafonómico de yacimientos del Pleistoceno medio

Tesis en CD-ROM Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Geografía e Historia, Departamento de Prehistoria y Etnología, 1992Depto. de Prehistoria, Historia Antigua y ArqueologíaFac. de Geografía e HistoriaTRUEpu

PATRONES DE ASENTAMIENTO Y USO DEL TERRITORIO EN LA SIERRA DE ATAPUERCA

Presentamos un modelo de estudio sobre patrones de asentamiento que parte de una revisión histórica de las diferentes corrientes que han tratado este tema. A partir de esta revisión y apoyándonos en un marco teórico, desarrollamos una metodología de trabajo que concluye en la exposición de los primeros resultados extraídos en nuestra región objeto de estudio, la Sierra de Atapuerca.In this paper we present a study of settlement patterns since a historical revision of different streams. From this revision and a theoretical context, we explain a work methodology. This paper finish with an exposition of first results about the region we had studied: Sierra de Atapuerca.Agradecemos a Eudald Carbonell, Jesús Jordá y José Ramos los comentarios y sugerencias que hicieron a este artículo. Este trabajo, integrado dentro del proyecto del Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología BXX2000-1258-C03-01, ha sido también subvencionado por la Consejería de Cultura de la Junta de Castilla y León. La investigación de M. N. se ha realizado gracias a una beca predoctoral de la Fundación Duques de Soria — Universidad de Burgos