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Nada fue igual a partir del Neolítico. El control de la reproducción animal y vegetal y su consecuente domesticación estuvieron vinculados a una paulatina sedentarización y a la configuración de los primeros poblados. La herencia de este fenómeno, que se inició en Próximo Oriente hace unos 15 000 años, llega hasta nuestros días. Nuestra alimentación, nuestro modo de vida y probablemente nuestras creencias más primigenias tienen su origen en aquellos primeros agricultores y pastores. La búsqueda de nuevos territorios donde iniciar una nueva vida les llevó a moverse en distintas direcciones: el oeste de Asia, el centro de Europa y los espacios bañados por el Mediterráneo. Tras varias generaciones llegaron a la península ibérica hace unos 7700 años.

Desde que en 1990 se retomó la investigación arqueológica en la Institución Milá y Fontanals (IMF) con la incorporación de la Dra. Assumpció Vila, las líneas de investigación vinculadas a la gestión de los recursos minerales y producción del instrumental lítico y sus dinámicas de uso han sido un elemento distintivo de su actividad investigadora. Ello llevó a la creación del Laboratorio de Tecnología prehistórica, cuya denominación constituía una declaración de principios y un homenaje a S.A. Semenov, autor de la obra de referencia Tecnología prehistórica (1957). Desde su inicio, el laboratorio pretendía desarrollar herramientas para afrontar las problemáticas económicas y sociales vinculadas al estudio de la tecnología prehistórica, por lo que proponía un método de estudio para afrontar la fenomenología asociada a la gestión de los recursos minerales en su totalidad, desde las fuentes de aprovisionamiento de las materias primas hasta el abandono de sus evidencias de explotación y consumo en los que hoy reconocemos como yacimientos arqueológicos. En este marco, las colecciones de referencia y la experimentación han sido dos pilares fundamentales de las líneas de investigación del grupo `Arqueología de las Dinámicas sociales¿ (ASD), por lo que hubo que implementar distintas colecciones, en distinto grado de desarrollo. Estas conciernen a una litoteca de rocas silíceas, a técnicas de desbastado para la manufactura de instrumental lítico y al desarrollo de huellas de uso a partir de distintas acciones llevadas a cabo con estos útiles. Su singularidad radica en que las muestras de las colecciones sobrepasan el ámbito estrictamente taxonómico, recogiendo evidencias de distintas acciones técnicas vinculadas al estudio de la tecnología prehistórica. Además de las colecciones, nuestro instituto dispone de otras infraestructuras vinculadas al estudio de la tecnología prehistórica. Más allá de los laboratorios para la limpieza, preparación y conservación de distintos tipos de muestras destacamos: 1. la sala de microscopía, cuyos equipos cubren una amplia gama de técnicas, incluyendo la observación microscópica mediante luz reflejada y transmitida, así como el análisis de superficies mediante métodos 3D, basados en microscopía estereoscópica y confocal. 2. Los equipos de escaneo 3D, con dispositivos que constituyen soluciones de alta gama para la generación de modelos 3D de objetos y superficies, con gran capacidad de captura y tratamiento de datos y una elevada resolución, que permiten su uso en aplicaciones relacionadas con la metrología arqueológica. Todas estas infraestructuras y equipos forman parte de los Servicios científico-técnicos de la IMF que, más allá de la prestación de servicios a instituciones y equipos de investigación, generan una atracción notable. A modo de ejemplo, el grupo ASD tiene ahora 5 MSCA-IF vinculados, más otros 6 investigadores postdoctorales (1 RyC, 2 JdC y 3 contratados por otras instituciones). Sin embargo, este hecho contrasta con la casi nula disponibilidad de personal técnico capaz de gestionar el conjunto de estas infraestructuras, limitada a un Titulado superior (contrato temporal PTA) y un Ayudante de Investigación OPI, pendiente de incorporación y vinculado a los Servicios CT de Arqueología de la IMF.

In previous studies, we have dealt with the variability of harvesting gloss through confocal microscopy and texture analysis at the origins of agriculture in the Near East. We considered that harvesting variability was mainly caused by the different degree of humidity of cereals when reaped, as the transition from wild to domestic cereals implied the progressively riper harvesting of crops. However, an important variability of harvesting gloss can also be observed in contexts in which exploited cereals were fully domesticated. In order to understand this variability, we are carrying out a new set of sequential experiments in which sickles are used for cutting high and low different species of cereals in varied ecological contexts. In this presentation, we will show how these variables affect the characteristics of harvesting traces.

Threshing boards represent an important innovation in agricultural techniques. It allows processing huge amount of cereals and it has often associated to an increased agricultural production. Their use is attested during the Late Neolithic / Chalcolithic and Early Bronze both in south-western Asia and Europe. In the mediterranean area, their use lasted until few decades ago. Recently, as part of project focused on the analysis of the early agricultural tools of Neolithic Greece, a few elements bearing macro- and microscopic use-wear traces similar to ethnographic and archaeological threshing sledges have been identified from a number of Early and Middle Neolithic sites. In this communication, we present the result of their study, including raw-material, technological, and traceological analysis. In order to provide a stronger assessment of the nature of the observed use-wear traces a quantitative comparison with ethnographic and experimental use-wear traces is carried out by integrating confocal microscopy. Despite the low number of recorded artifacts, obtained results suggest that threshing boards were in use since early phases of the Neolithic in Greece.

Since the pioneering experiments of A. Gwinett and L. Gorelick in the 80s to solve enigmatic questions of ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian lapidary technologies, little works has been dedicated to the study of ancient hard semiprecious stone beads (quartz, carnelian, agate, amazonite, obsidian, etc.). Rarer are studies of Neolithic assemblages of the Levant and the Nile Valley that gave rise to the development of beads production by full-time specialized craftsmen long before the early Urban societies. Beyond addressing the artisans¿ skills and know-how, technological studies of hardstone beads are fundamental to reassess the techno-symbolic and social systems of the Neolithic communities. However, this task is quite challenging due to the scarcity of clearly identified Neolithic workshops, therefore the analyses are made on final products, the complex biographies of beads, and the lack of experimental referential that require, among other things, skillful experimenters. Our paper focuses on the polishing stage of chalcedony beads from the Pre-pottery Neolithic Levant and the Middle Neolithic Upper Nubia. This stage, that implies the application of successive techniques (abrasion, polish and luster/shining), is one of the most time-consuming in the chaîne opératoire yet critical for determining the products¿ quality(e)s. For this purpose, the method we applied combines optical and confocal microscopy with metrology software. To interpret the results, we applied the same analytical protocol on ethnographic chalcedony beads manufactured in traditional Indian and Yemeni workshops. As the Neolithic beads, the ethnographic ones were knapped prior to their surface treatments. By comparing the archaeological samples with the ethnographic specimens, the aims are to determine if the Neolithic beads have received successive polishing treatments including the luster, and to identify gestures and any potential use of mechanical devices.

Arrowheads are the most remarkable formal tool types in the Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN), whose study significantly contributed to the recognition of hunting practices in line with the primary zooarchaeological evidence. Previous usewear analyses on the arrowheads and projectile points from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in the Northern Levant (Tell Mureybet, Tell Halula) demonstrated reuse and recycling of these kind of tools in favour of other activities related to cutting, scraping, sawing and drilling. This trend was identified in the PPNA assemblages, while it seems to have been even more common during the PPNB in the 9th mill. BC in relation to the intensification of bidirectional blade production. This paper introduces the assemblage of arrowheads from the PPNB levels of Kharaysin, located in the Zarqa Valley in Jordan, to investigate the tool function through macro- and microscopic observations and standard use-wear analyses involving the examinations of impact stigmata and other use traces. Newly obtained data will be used to compare this Southern Levantine dataset with the evidence from the Northern Levant, in particular with Dja¿de el-Mughara, in order to inspect whether similar practices in the use of projectiles are encountered in both regions. This study is an attempt to address issues concerning the primary and secondary use of "hunting tools" and their implications on socio-economic strategies during the PPN period. The outcomes of this talk regard the very irst results of the ARROWFUNC project, a new research framework designed to study hunting at the onset of farming in SW Asia, where major economic, cultural and symbolic changes decisively reshaped lithic toolkits.

Earliest evidence of animal domestication have been found in the northern Levant and are dated to the middle of the 9th millennium cal BC. In southern Levant, pig, cattle and sheep husbandry was probably introduced from northern Levant by the late 8th cal millennium BC, but concerning goat management, the available data are far from clear. The southern Levant is being increasingly considered as another presumed primary centre of goat domestication. However, assessing the status of these animals in this region is hampered by the difficulty of morphologically distinguishing domestic goats from their wild relatives. Diet reconstruction is a powerful approach to address this issue since feeding of managed animals is partially controlled by their owners, unlike free-ranging wild populations. For the first time, we propose to contribute to this question through dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) using confocal microscopy. At first, we built a reference collection of extant wild (Capra pyrenaica) and domestic (Capra hircus) goats, whose origin, period of death and diet are known. Two groups of domestic goats have been chosen: a first group was fed by fodder. The second lived in the Mediterranean mountains and were raised in an extensive breeding system. Secondly, we identi¿¿ied the more discriminant microwear texture parameters (ISO parameters), that allowed distinguishing between domestic and wild goats. Finally, we tested these parameters on goats (Capra format aegagrus) from two key Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites in the southern Levant, Tell Qarassa (Syria) and Kharaysin (Jordan), to characterize their paleodiet.

We deal with the identification of the use of plants in prehistoric Southeast Asia through use-wear analyses

Over the last decade, confocal microscopy has been increasingly employed to investigate changes in stone tool surfaces and has proved to be an accurate technique for use-wear quantification. Promising results have been obtained characterising polish formation on both experimental and archaeological flint tools. Recent studies also highlighted the potential of confocal microscopy for the analysis of tools made on reflective materials, such as quartz and quartzite. In this contribution, we explore the capacity of confocal microscopy to quantitively discriminate use-wear on obsidian tools. The experimental samples used in this study are part of the larger reference ObsiLab collection, hosted at the Laboratory of Sardinian Antiquities and Palaeoethnology in Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy). Experimentally worn areas produced by four contact materials (meat, dry hide, cereals, and wood) were scanned using a Sensofar PLu Neox confocal microscopy, with 20x and 50x objectives, and then processed with surface measurement parameters through metrology software. The analytical protocol will be presented and discussed in order to evaluate the ability of texture parameters to discriminate use-wear surfaces on obsidian tools.

During the middle Pliocene and early Pleistocene, the diversity of local East African ecosystems changed gradually as a response to variable climatic conditions. In this scenario, early hominins had to deal with ecological selective pressures that influenced the evolution of hominin morphology. Gracile and robust australopithecines showed an adaptative shift from diets dominated by soft C3 fruits to more abrasive, brittle, and tough resources. On the other hand, early members of our genus showed smaller teeth, thinner dental enamel and greater occlusal relief than did their Australopithecus ancestors or contemporaries Paranthropus. However, craniodental morphology and dentalmicrowear have challenged the dietary ecology interpretations. Diet reconstruction through scanning-based buccal dentalmicrowear has demonstrated a valuable tool for analyzing the highly diversfied primates diets and interpreting the hominin microwear signal. Now, it is time to move forward using 3D microtexture analysis and exploring their methodological potential. In the present study, for the first time, we have analyzed the buccal microtexture patterns in a large sample of East and South Africa Plio-Pleistocene hominins to test the potential of 37 roughness parameters (ISO/FDIS 25178) to discriminate dietary signals. Microtexture parameters were measured as the median of four independent observations of buccal surface and a stepwise Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) of roughness parameters showed that Sal, Sda and Vm parameters significant discriminate between Australopithecus-P.aethiopicus and H. habilis-H. ergaster, suggesting a shift in the microtexture signal between australopithecines and early Homo. Otherwise, the South African P. robustus showed more buccal-microtexture variance than east African australopithecines, suggesting the incorporation of a wide variety of hard items in their diet. Our findings demonstrate the potential of buccal microtexture to discriminate the ecological niches that hominin occupy during the Plio-Pleistocene transition and emphasize the different pattern of H. ergaster that probably had a different foraging strategy.

The surface treatment of handmade pottery is often considered and described in ceramological studies of prehistoric collections, but it has rarely been approached from a global and experimental perspective. The comprehension of some phases of past productive processes through material remains often requires the creation of references that can guide the identification and characterisation of the actions that generated them. In this sense, experimentation can reconstruct the connections between the archaeological record and past technological processes. It is therefore an excellent way to obtain information about productive activities and the economy of ancient societies, as well as to develop new analytical methodologies at macro- and microscopic levels. We propose an experimental program about surface treatment on pottery and the used toolkit, where the main variable being explored is the category of tool involved in the fabrication of prehistoric handmade pottery. Therefore, we start from the hypothesis that different tools generate differentiable traces. A catalogue of traces generated by several pottery tools (pebble, flint spatula, pottery spatula, shell spatula, linen rag, grass, leather, etc.) was created, with the aim of characterizing and systematizing them The catalogue is composed of visual information and qualitative data about traces and surface appearance. Likewise, to test whether the visual differences observed between the various surface treatments can be quantitatively measured, laser-scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM) has been tested. Laser-scanning confocal microscopy has proved to be an accurate and easy to use technique for surface microtexture measurement. The potential of the proposed methodology for traceological and textural analysis of surface treatment in ceramics is highlighted. The possibility of discriminating different surface treatment techniques opens new perspectives for the study of prehistoric pottery.

This article presents the results of the techno-typological and use-wear analyses and contextualization of the Nahal Hemar knives from PPNB Kharaysin. The assemblage is the third largest of this enigmatic and rare tool type in the southern Levant and presents several interesting peculiarities. Almost all the knives were found in two concentrations very close to a funerary area, to which they seem to be related. Some of the knives are the longest ones found to date in the Near East and, interestingly, some could be retted. Use-wear analysis concludes that Nahal Hemar knives from Kharaysin were basically used for cutting soft animal tissue and, less frequently, scraping bones (human bodies?). The results suggest the two concentrations of knives were caches of artefacts of particular signifcance, possibly ritual and associated with the mortuary practices that took place next to where they were found. Thus, would establish, for the first time after Nahal Hemar Cave, a connection between Nahal Hemar knives and the mortuary practices of PPNB communities in the southern Levant., This study has been supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación/Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (PGC2018-096634-B-I00, PID2019-105767GB-I00 and RYC2016-21108 projects), the Fundación PALARQ, the Spanish National Research Council (PIAR program) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (SGR-2017-995).

The introduction and spread of the Neolithic “way of life” in Europe was a process that took several millennia, followed by different rhythms and displayed singularities in each geographic area. It was therefore a very complex phenomenon that, despite highly significant advances in research in recent decades, is yet to be fully understood. To deepen our understanding of the very early stages of the introduction of herding and agriculture throughout the Old Continent, the 1st Conference on the Early Neolithic of Europe wasorganisedinBarcelonaon6–8November2019.Theconferencewasagreatsuccesswithmore than 200 participants, creating a stimulating arena to discuss and debate, exclusively, the transition to the Neolithic in Europe. This special issue brings together 52 of the contributions presented in Barcelona, offering an interesting overview of the current state of research across Europe, from the Anatolia to the Algarve, highlighting the geographical, chronological and socioeconomic diversity of the transformation processes involved in the Neolithisation of Europe and providing useful starting points for future research., The work was financed by a grant generously provided by the Catalan Agency for Managementof University and Research Grants (AGAUR) (grant reference: SGR-2017-995) of the Generalitat de Catalunya

Congreso: Rock and Roll: 13th International Symposium on Knappable Lugar celebración: IPHES, Tarragona Fecha: 4th to 7th October 2021

Lugar celebración: Kiel (Alemania) Fecha: 6th to 11th September 2021

ciclo OnliNEOLITHIC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ORpEfpCcNo

En la presente recensión abordamos el contenido de una reciente publicación que se centra en un periodo histórico al que nos encontramos conectados innegablemente, como es el Neolítico, y su importancia en todos los niveles de la vida humana que recoge este escrito. Este libro pertenece a la colección del CSIC denominada ¿Qué sabemos de? En ésta se desarrollarán diferentes temas científicos de múltiples ramas, siendo el objetivo principal de estas publicaciones la divulgación científica. Publicaciones de esta índole no son menos importantes que otras ya que recordemos que uno de los objetivos de las investigaciones científicas es la transferencia del conocimiento a un público general con textos sencillos y fáciles de comprender.