Search

In this paper, we concentrate on the neolithisation process in Mediterranean Iberia through a diachronic view (from 8600–6800 cal. BP), focusing on social interaction as a factor in articulating new cultural ties. To do this, we apply techniques centred on similarities in material culture by applying Social Network Analysis (SNA). For the first time, we point to the geometric projectiles, taking into account their recurrence in both Mesolithic and Neolithic groups as part of their characteristic hunting equipment. We hypothesise that patterns of cultural variability would express the changing flow of information between communities according to their mobility strategies (last hunter-gatherer groups), including economic and social behaviour, and that these relationships will be restructured with the arrival of the newcomer farmers and herders and their new spatial and social arrangement. The results obtained allow us to describe a connected and homogeneous Late Mesolithic network dramatically structured by the Neolithic arrival. Since then, a heterogenous pattern emerged, involving connected periods, network ruptures, and small-world phenomena. The emergence of this characteristic could support the flow of information when the network presents a clustered structure, the last probably due to regionalisation events. These diachronic dynamics fit well with demographic and socioecological trends observed from regional literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A methodological proposal was developed for the study of prehistoric siliceous artefacts which includes the use of smartphone photography as an analytical tool. Different kinds of materials (cherts, rock crystal and quartzite) were sampled from the lithic assemblage of La Calvera rock-shelter (Camaleño, Spain), chosen as a case study. Each sample was photographed with a smartphone and colour features were compared with portable and non-destructive standardised techniques including visible spectrophotometry, Raman, diffuse reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and portable X-ray fluorescence. The obtained results suggest that smartphone image analysis is a reliable approach to characterise siliceous rocks and that it can be a valuable, cheap and fast method especially suitable for the first screening of large lithic assemblages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work represents the first attempt using an archaeometric approach to characterize the potential chert outcrops and retrace the provenance of the chert raw materials in the Mesolithic and Neolithic contexts of the Eastern Iberia central site of Cueva de la Cocina (Dos Aguas, Valencia). Therefore, a research project aimed at identifying and characterizing potential sources in the surroundings of the site was carried out, as a first step, to test some hypotheses related to raw material provenance. Elemental profiles of several archaeological artifacts and of geological samples collected in different local and nonlocal outcrops were obtained using X‐ray fluorescence spectroscopy and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. These chemical data were processed using multivariate statistics to investigate the possible links between the outcrops and archaeological artifacts. Preliminary results point to the use of local raw materials and also the presence of rocks outcropping in a perimeter of more than 50 km around Cueva de la Cocina, opening a new window to investigate the socioecological dynamics of the last hunter‐gatherer and the first farmer inhabitants from a diachronic point of view in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the stratigraphical sequence of Cocina Cave (Spain) employing and testing for the first time the capability of rare earth elements as markers of human activities in caves. Located in Dos Aguas (Valencian Community, Spain), Cocina Cave is characterized by the presence of several Holocene archaeological deposits from the final Mesolithic to the present day and is a pivotal site for understanding the socio‐ecological dynamics of the last hunter‐gatherer inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula and the transition to pastoral and agricultural economies in the Western Mediterranean. However, the identification of strata from particular time‐periods in the cave is often difficult due to the homogeneity of layers, the poor archaeological record in some strata and the presence of severe disturbance phenomena. The methodological approach of this study consisted of cross‐referencing rare earth elements and other chemical markers with the archaeological stratigraphical interpretation, in an attempt to not only support the identification of the anthropic contribution to the formation of Cocina Cave strata, but also to characterize and confirm different natural and occupational episodes, particularly those associated with hunter‐gatherer, early agriculturalist, and shepherd activities. Sediments were collected from different excavation areas and analysed for major elements, trace elements, rare earth elements (REE), soil organic matter (SOM) amounts and pH. Multivariate statistics were employed to group samples according to their elemental profile, and these were then compared to the archaeological temporal interpretation. The obtained results showed that REE amount and fractionation geochemical processes were regulated by carbonates, phosphates and pH. The use of REE as markers was particularly useful as their concentrations and their calculated ratios and anomaly distributions were demonstrated to be highly consistent with the archaeological stratigraphical interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much attention has been placed on the drivers of vegetation change on the Iberian Peninsula. While climate plays a key role in determining the species pools within different regions and exerts a strong influence on broad vegetation patterning, the role of humans, particularly during prehistory, is less clear. The aim of this paper is to assess the influence of prehistoric population change on shaping vegetation patterns in eastern Iberia and the Balearic Islands between the start of the Neolithic and the late Bronze Age. In all, 3385 radiocarbon dates have been compiled across the study area to provide a palaeodemographic proxy (radiocarbon summed probability distributions (SPDs)). Modelled trends in palaeodemographics are compared with regional-scale vegetation patterns deduced from analysis of 30 fossil pollen sequences. The pollen sequences have been standardised with count data aggregated into contiguous 200-year time windows from 11,000 cal. yr BP to the present. Samples have been classified using cluster analysis to determine the predominant regional land cover types through the Holocene. Regional human impact indices and diversity metrics have been derived for north-east and south-east Spain and the Balearic Islands. The SPDs show characteristic boom-and-bust cycles of population growth and collapse, but there is no clear synchronism between north-east and south-east Spain other than the rise of Neolithic farming. In north-east Iberia, patterns of demographic change are strongly linked to changes in vegetation diversity and human impact indicator groups. In the south-east, increases in population throughout the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Age result in more open landscapes and increased vegetation diversity. The demographic maximum occurred early in the 3rd millennium cal. BP on the Balearic Islands and is associated with the highest levels of human impact indicator groups. The results demonstrate the importance of population change in shaping the abundance and diversity of taxa within broad climatically determined biomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Valencia region of Spain, the dominant use of natural caves for collective burials during the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods has been documented. Collective burials are central to the hypothesis about social relationships in Copper Age societies from Iberia, and key to interpreting kinship-based societies. Les Llometes (Alcoi, Alicante) is one of the biggest collective burial sites existing in eastern Iberia. This article presents the direct 14C dates on 25 skeletal remains at the site. The results indicate that the site was used as a burial place from the end of the 5th millennium cal BC until the end of the 4th millennium cal BC, and is a first milestone for future studies that will shed light on the transition towards social structure through the use of a cemetery space. Moreover, this research is one of the few investigations of Late Neolithic collective burials in Iberia that comprises an extensive accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C data set of almost all the individuals reported at a single site. This case also serves to highlight the utility of revisiting materials from historic excavations by 14C dating all the skeletal remains that define the minimum number of individuals, and therefore ensuring a more complete picture of the prehistoric human record. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Western Mediterranean, spanning southern Italy to Portugal, can be considered a single archaeological unit where the diagnostic characteristics of Early Neolithic contexts share common elements, marked by the spread of Cardium-Impressed ceramics. Although some consensus exists regarding the origin of these wares in southern Italy, the debate surrounding its process of expansion to the west remains open. Iberia is a key region for the analysis of the neolithisation process due to its location at the end of the Neolithic Mediterranean expansion. This view includes the problems linked with the mechanism of this spread and the evolutionary dynamics of the early agricultural societies. Our goals are to evaluate the rich archaeological and palaeoenvironmental database produced by recent decades of research in this area in order to address issues related to the Neolithic Transition. We especially deal with the role played by climatic events in the observed dynamics of the last Mesolithic and the Early Neolithic (ca. 8500-6900 cal BP). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present article we use geometric microliths (a specific type of arrowhead) and Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) in order to evaluate possible origin points and expansion routes for the Neolithic in the Iberian Peninsula. In order to do so, we divide the Iberian Peninsula in four areas (Ebro river, Catalan shores, Xúquer river and Guadalquivir river) and we sample the geometric microliths existing in the sites with the oldest radiocarbon dates for each zone. On this data, we perform a partial Mantel test with three matrices: geographic distance matrix, cultural distance matrix and chronological distance matrix. After this is done, we simulate a series of partial Mantel tests where we alter the chronological matrix by using an expansion model with randomised origin points, and using the distribution of the observed partial Mantel test's results as a summary statistic within an Approximate Bayesian Computation-Sequential Monte-Carlo (ABC-SMC) algorithm framework. Our results point clearly to a Neolithic expansion route following the Northern Mediterranean, whilst the Southern Mediterranean route could also find support and should be further discussed. The most probable origin points focus on the Xúquer river area., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

We assembled genome-wide data from 271 ancient Iberians, of whom 176 are from the largely unsampled period after 2000 BCE, thereby providing a high-resolution time transect of the Iberian Peninsula. We document high genetic substructure between northwestern and southeastern hunter-gatherers before the spread of farming. We reveal sporadic contacts between Iberia and North Africa by ~2500 BCE and, by ~2000 BCE, the replacement of 40% of Iberia's ancestry and nearly 100% of its Y-chromosomes by people with Steppe ancestry. We show that, in the Iron Age, Steppe ancestry had spread not only into Indo-European-speaking regions but also into non-Indo-European-speaking ones, and we reveal that present-day Basques are best described as a typical Iron Age population without the admixture events that later affected the rest of Iberia. Additionally, we document how, beginning at least in the Roman period, the ancestry of the peninsula was transformed by gene flow from North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean., (Copyright © 2019 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.)