1. Views from above: the Neolithization of the Southern Central Pyrenees and the Obagues de Ratera rockshelter
- Author
-
Mazzucco, Niccolò, Gassiot Ballbè, Ermengol, Clemente-Conte, Ignacio, Barba Pérez, Marcos, Díaz Bonilla, Sara, Quesada Carrasco, Manuel, Obea, L., Garcia Casas, D., and Rodríguez Antón, David
- Subjects
Survey and excavation programmes ,Obagues de Ratera rockshelter ,Southern Central Pyrenees ,Neolithization ,National Park of d'Aigüestortes and Estany de Sant Maurici ,Neolithic ,Mesolithic - Abstract
The high mountain areas of the Pyrenees have been often labelled as marginal areas, poorly occupied during Prehistory. The implementation of systematic survey and excavation programmes during the last twenty years has radically changed this situation. Today, Pyrenean subalpine and alpine zones appear as dynamic landscapes in which past populations have carried out a diversity of practices, since at least the Mesolithic period. Between the 2015 and 2017, in the frame of a long-term project focused on the archaeological survey of the National Park of d'Aigüestortes and Estany de Sant Maurici, the excavation of the Obagues de Ratera rockshelter have been carried out. The site is a small rock shelter formed by an erratic boulder located on the northeastern slope of the Obagues de Ratera valley, at 2.329 m asl. A previous survey made in 2005 highlighted an occupation dated to the Final Neolithic period; however, extensive excavation works revealed a large archaeological sequence covering almost all the Holocene, with three earlier occupation phase, dated to the c. 4100-3900 cal BCE, c. 5700-5600 cal BCE and 8100-7800 cal BCE. In this poster, we will discuss the occupation of the Obagues de Raetera rock shelter in the framework of the Neolithization process of the Ebro valley and the Central Pyrenees, especially focusing on the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the study area.
- Published
- 2019