8 research outputs found
Age and date for early arrival of the Acheulian in Europe (Barranc de la Boella, la Canonja, Spain)
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.The research at Barranc de la Boella has been carried out with the financial support of the Spanish Ministerio de Economı´a y Competitividad (CGL2012-
36682; CGL2012-38358, CGL2012-38434-C03-03 and CGL2010-15326; MICINN project HAR2009-7223/HIST), Generalitat de Catalunya, AGAUR agence (projects
2014SGR-901; 2014SGR-899; 2009SGR-324, 2009PBR-0033 and 2009SGR-188) and Junta de Castilla y Leo´n BU1004A09. Financial support for Barranc de la Boella
field work and archaeological excavations is provided by the Ajuntament de la Canonja and Departament de Cultura (Servei d’Arqueologia i Paleontologia) de la
Generalitat de Catalunya. A. Carrancho’s research was funded by the International Excellence Programme, Reinforcement subprogramme of the Spanish Ministry
of Education. I. Lozano-Ferna´ndez acknowledges the pre-doctoral grant from the Fundacio´n Atapuerca. The funders had no role in study design, data collection
and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
Environmental Impacts and Scarcity Perception Influence Local Institutions in Indigenous Amazonian Kichwa Communities
Much of the literature on common-pool resources has focused on elucidating the social mechanisms and local institutions that lead to the regulation of common-pool resources. There is much less information about how management regimes translate into environmental impacts or how environmental impacts influence the emergence of management decisions. We use quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the link between forest condition, agricultural change and the emergence of common-pool resource management regimes in two indigenous Kichwa communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon. We show that forest condition is linked to agricultural production and that the perception of common-pool resource scarcity influences the emergence of management regimes. We argue that population pressure, market forces and resource scarcity, which are usually associated with measures of agricultural change can also promote the emergence of common-pool resource management regimes