Browsing by Author "Odriozola, Carlos P."
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- Distribution and consumption of fluorite and translucent beads in the Iberian peninsula from 6th to 2nd millennia BCPublication . Garrido-Cordero, José Ángel; Odriozola, Carlos P.; Sousa, Ana C.; Gonçalves, Victor S.; Cardoso, João LuísTranslucent minerals were valued in prehistoric societies for their rarity and socially used as highly symbolic elements. This work addresses the use and nature of Iberian translucent beads. We present the results of chemical (Raman spectroscopy, portable X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction and visible (Vis)/near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy) and contextual analyses and provide a review of the archaeological literature on the manufacture and use of translucent items during Iberian Late Prehistory. A total of 54 translucent beads from 47 sites, primarily burials, were analyzed; 33 were made from fluorite, while the remaining 21 were made of diverse translucent minerals (calcite, quartz and different silicates). The scarcity of translucent items in the archaeological record, the regional and supraregional scale of its exchange, and its recursive association to other valuables in singular contexts reinforces the idea that their owners/wearers enjoyed a high status.
- Multi-purpose fossils? The reappraisal of an Elephas antiquus molar from El Pirulejo (Magdalenian; Cordoba, Spain)Publication . Cortés-Sánchez, Miguel; Morales-Muñiz, Arturo; Jiménez-Espejo, Francisco; Évora, Marina; Dolores Simón-Vallejo, María; Garcia-Alíx, Antonio; Martínez Aguirre, Aránzazu; Antonio Riquelme-Cantal, José; Odriozola, Carlos P.; Parrilla Giráldez, Rubén; Álvarez-Lao, Diego J.Fossil gathering by humans has been rarely documented in the Iberian Peninsula. In the present paper, a multidisciplinary approach has been taken to analyze a straight-tusked elephant (Elephas antiquus) molar retrieved in a Magdalenian deposit at the rock shelter of El Pirulejo in southern Spain. The taphonomical analyses revealed a multifarious use of a tooth that had not only been worked into an anvil-sort-of-tool but also used as a core and partly tainted with a composite pigment. The dating and geochemical analyses further evidenced that the molar derived from an animal that had lived in a rather arid landscape with a temperature range between 12.3 and 14.3 A degrees C coincident with a cold episode within marine isotope stage (MIS) 6.6 and probably fed on herbaceous plants. These analyses evidence the potential fossils from archaeological sites bear for addressing a wide range of issues that include both the cultural and paleoenvironmental realms.
- Pre-Solutrean rock art in southernmost Europe: Evidence from Las Ventanas Cave (Andalusia, Spain)Publication . Cortés Sánchez, Miguel; Riquelme-Cantal, José António; Simon-Vallejo, Maria Dolores; Parrilla Giraldez, Ruben; Odriozola, Carlos P.; Calle Roman, Lydia; Carrion, Jose S.; Monge Gomez, Guadalupe; Rodriguez Vidal, Joaquin; Moyano Campos, Juan Jose; Rico Delgado, Fernando; Nieto Julian, Juan Enrique; Anton Garcia, Daniel; Aranzazu Martinez-Aguirre, M.; Jimenez Barredo, Fernando; Cantero-Chinchilla, Francisco N.The south of Iberia conserves an important group of Palaeolithic rock art sites. The graph isms have been mostly attributed to the Solutrean and Magdalenian periods, while the possibility that older remains exist has provoked extensive debate. This circumstance has been linked to both the cited periods, until recently, due to the transition from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic in the extreme southwest of Europe as well as the non-existence of some of the early periods of Palaeolithic art documented in northern Iberia. This study presents the results of interdisciplinary research conducted in Las Ventanas Cave. These results enabled us to identify a new Palaeolithic rock art site. The technical, stylistic and temporal traits point to certain similarities with the range of exterior deep engravings in Cantabrian Palaeolithic rock art. Ventanas appears to corroborate the age attributed to those kinds of graphic expression and points to the early arrival of the Upper Palaeolithic in the south of Iberia. Importantly, the results provide information on the pre-Solutrean date attributed to trilinear hind figures. These findings challenge the supposed Neanderthal survival idea at one of the main late Middle Palaeolithic southern Iberian sites (Cariguela) and, due to the parallels between them and an engraving attributed to this period in Gibraltar, it raises the possibility of interaction between modern humans and Neanderthals in the extreme southwest of Europe.