Excavating in breccia: new methods developed at the Benzú rockshelter

Excavators examining breccia deposits are faced with the prospect of extracting finds from a material akin to concrete. Nevertheless such deposits are sometimes the only witness of early Palaeolithic occupation. Our inventive authors put aside the hammers, acids and explosives of earlier days, and used quarry techniques to cut the breccia into small blocks, which they then freed from their finds in the laboratory, using tools developed in palaeontology. As a result, they gathered a huge harvest of stone tools, bones and shells. It all goes to show that archaeological excavation is an exercise of infinite variety: to every problem, its solution; to every terrain, its method

Estudio morfogenético y textural de agregados cristalinos de morfología inducida de CaCO3

Tesis Univ. Complutense de Madrid.Depto. de Mineralogía y PetrologíaFac. de Ciencias GeológicasTRUEProQuestpu

Estudio morfogenético y textural de agregados cristalinos de morfología inducida de CaCO3

Tesis Univ. Complutense de Madrid.Depto. de Mineralogía y PetrologíaFac. de Ciencias GeológicasTRUEProQuestpu

Archaeometric identification of a necklace bead recovered in the funerary megatumulus of Azefal-9/1 (Duguech, Southeast of Western Sahara)

El hallazgo de una particular cuenta perforada en piedra en la excavación del conjunto sepulcral del megatúmulo de Azefal-9/1 (Sahara Occidental) ha impulsado la caracterización mineralógica del ejemplar de cara a rastrear su origen geológico. Asociada posiblemente al ajuar de un enterramiento de época protohistórica, la metodología físico-química no destructiva aplicada al análisis de la pieza ha posibilitado vincular su agregado mineralógico compositivo con los materiales metamórficos de la Dorsal del Tiris, en el mismo contexto geográfico en el que se asienta el monumento arqueológico.The finding of a particular stone-perforated bead in the excavation of the sepulchral complex of the megatumulus of Azefal-9/1 (Western Sahara) has driven the mineralogical characterization of the specimen in order to trace its geological origin. Possibly associated with the grave goods of a protohistoric era burial, the non-destructive physical-chemical methodology applied to the analysis of the piece has made it possible to link its compositional mineralogical aggregate with the metamorphic materials of the Dorsal of Tiris, in the same geographical context in which settles the archaeological monument

Geología en el entorno de la ciudad de Cádiz

Se expone un balance de la geología de la ciudad de Cádiz y de su entorno geográfico.La ocupación del territorio de la Bahía de Cádiz a lo largo de la historia ha estado también condicionada por sus características geológicas y su evolución geomorfológica. Se analiza el medio natural y la base geológica del área de la bahía y la ciudad de Cádiz, exponiendo las principales características de su evolución tectónica reciente, así como los últimos estudios geofísicos realizados en el entorno de dicha ciudad

PIXE analyses over a long period: The case of Neolithic variscite jewels from Western Europe (5th-3th millennium BC): The case of Neolithic variscite jewels from Western Europe (5th-3th millennium BC)

International audiencePIXE analysis of archeological variscite beads and pendants from the Neolithic period that were excavated in Spain, Portugal and France and of variscite geological references samples from European occurrences were carried out from 1999 to 2013 in order to trace back the circulation of this precious gemstone over three millennia. Transformations of the AGLAE external beam system and progress in spectrum processing have induced some apparent compositional variation, affecting in particular the phosphorus/aluminum ratio. This long term evolution has been taken into account with the help of geostandards to build a large and coherent geochemical database of minor and trace elements in variscite. This database allowed us to determine the provenance of the raw material and thus of the circulation of the jewels