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- EcoPLis a pré-história no Rio Lis, da serra ao AtlânticoPublication . Pereira, Telmo; Carvalho, Vânia; Holliday, Trenton; Paixão, Eduardo; Monteiro, Patrícia; Évora, Marina; Marreiros, Joao; Assis, Sandra; Nora, David; Matias, Roxane; Simões, CarlosOur research focuses on the use of valleys that link the inland to the coast during Prehistory. Traditionally, research has studied rivers, coast and inland as separate landscapes, but the major characteristic of hunter-gatherers was mobility. In order to understand and reconstruct the evolution of human behaviour, our main goal is to answer the questions: “How, why and when did people circulate between these different ecological landscapes?” and “What was the impact of the major climatic shifts on that mobility?” To answer these questions our archaeological project includes survey, testing, and the excavation of archaeological sites, using high-resolution field and laboratory methodologies in order to contribute significantly to the understanding of ecological behaviour of Prehistoric populations, including extinct human species such as Neanderthals.
- Back to the edge: relative coordinate system for use-wear analysisPublication . Calandra, Ivan; Schunk, Lisa; Rodriguez, Alice; Gneisinger, Walter; Pedergnana, Antonella; Paixao, Eduardo; Pereira, Telmo; Iovita, Radu; Marreiros, JoaoUse-wear studies rely heavily on experiments and reference collections to infer the function of archeological artifacts. Sequential experiments, in particular, are necessary to understand how use-wear develops. Consequently, it is crucial to analyze the same location on the tool's surface during the course of an experiment. Being able to relocate the area of interest on a sample is also essential for reproducibility in use-wear studies. However, visual relocation has limited applicability and there is currently no easy and efficient alternative. Here we propose a simple protocol to create a coordinate system directly on the sample. Three ceramic beads that serve as reference markers are adhered onto the sample, either with epoxy resin or acrylic polymer. The former is easier to work with but the latter is reversible so it can be applied to archeological samples too. The microscope's software then relocates the position(s) of interest. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach and measure its repeatability by imaging the same position on an experimental flint blade 10 times with two confocal microscopes. Our results show that the position can be relocated automatically with a horizontal positional repeatability of approximately 14% of the field of view. Quantitative surface texture measurements according to ISO 25178 vary due to this positional inaccuracy, but it is still unknown whether this variation would mask functional differences. Although still perfectible, we argue that this protocol represents an important step toward repeatability and reproducibility in experimental archeology, especially in use-wear studies.
- Territory and abiotic resources between 33 and 15.6 ka at Vale Boi (SW Portugal)Publication . Pereira, Telmo; Bicho, Nuno Gonçalo Viana Pereira Ferreira; Cascalheira, João; Infantini, Leandro; Marreiros, Joao; Paixão, Eduardo; Terradas, XavierThe environmental shifts during the Late Pleistocene had major influences in the landscape and, consequently, in the available resources. This had direct impact on human behavior and ecology, requiring people to constantly adjust to new economical conditions. In coastal areas, the retreat of the shoreline during the colder phases might have made available presently underwater raw material sources in the form of outcrops and gravels, eventually making it easier to gather lithic raw materials.In this paper, we present our preliminary results on the diachronic variability of raw materials in Vale Boi. Vale Boi is a coastal site, located 2.5 km from the present coastline, in the margins of a freshwater stream. The site has three different loci, all rich in lithics, fauna (including marine), bone tools, adornments, charcoal, and ochre, and evidence of continuous human occupation from c. 33 to 15.6 ka cal BP. This chronostratigraphic record makes it a perfect study case for the understanding of coastal populations' behavior and economy throughout the Upper Paleolithic.Our objective is to infer the territory of resources exploitation, landscape, and economic patterns. Raw material sources are usually fixed points on the landscape (in contrast to other resources such as fauna and flora) and, therefore, are one of the best ways of understanding how people moved in the landscape and, consequently, to infer past human behavior. We used a macroscopic approach in both the archaeological and the geological record in order to correlate sources and artifacts. Despite the absence of detailed quantitative data on each chert type, our results show that the hunteregatherers who occupied Vale Boi during the Upper Paleolithic not only used several raw materials but also a variety of sources of the same raw material. This happened both diachronically and synchronically, suggesting that not only the complete sequence as well as each archaeological layer seem to have had a considerable economic complexity with the use of adjacent and distal sources. With this paper, we aim to present updated information on the variability of raw materials at Vale Boi, including the chert assemblages, along with new chert sources in order to establish a basis for a future detailed study on the raw material sourcing at the site. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.
- Rapid climatic events and long term cultural change: the case of the Portuguese Upper PaleolithicPublication . Bicho, Nuno Gonçalo Viana Pereira Ferreira; Cascalheira, João; Marreiros, Joao; Pereira, TelmoIn Western Europe, the Upper Paleolithic is marked by clear regional and diachronic technological differences. Some of these are most likely related with human adaptations to the Late Pleistocene environmental shifts. In this paper we focus on the rapid climatic change events and their influence on the Iberian regional ecology and vegetation cover. Based on those changes and their impact on the main Upper Paleolithic cultural phases in central and southern Portugal, we propose an explanatory model, to be tested in the future, where rapid climatic events, such as the D-O and Heinrich Events, have direct impact on the ecology and vegetation cover and this, in turn, cause changes in human adaptations in terms of mobility, settlement patterns, land use and technology. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.
- Lithic technological adaptation within the Gravettian of the Iberian Atlantic region: results from two case studiesPublication . Bradtmoller, Marcel; Marreiros, Joao; Pereira, Telmo; Bicho, NunoThe origins and expansion of Gravettian industries in Western Europe have recently been considered a cultural mosaic phenomena marked by regional technological facies. Probably associated with climatic oscillations, the development of these facies is likely related to sociocultural patterns and human adaptations to different ecological niches. Thereby, changes of subsistence strategies and mobility patterns are also reflected by technological and typological adaptations and innovations within the lithic assemblages. With the Iberian Peninsula being an important ecological niche for studying these phenomena, we conducted a comparative analysis of two occupations to test human ecological and lithic technological adaptations during the early Gravettian in Iberia: Cueto de la Mina on the northern Iberian Atlantic coast and Vale Boi on the western Portuguese Atlantic coast. Results show that these occupations exhibit major technological differences, but also strong similarities in the case of typological innovation/adaptation, possibly related to local resource accessibility (e.g. high-quality raw material). Based on these observations, the study provides further information concerning possible connections throughout the Iberian Atlantic coastline during an early Gravettian timeframe. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.
- Controlled experiments in lithic technology and functionPublication . Marreiros, Joao; Pereira, Telmo; Iovita, RaduFrom the earliest manifestations of tool production, technologies have played a fundamental role in the acquisition of different resources and are representative of daily activities in the lives of ancient humans, such as hunting (stone-tipped spears) and meat processing (chipped stone tools) (Lombard 2005; McPherron et al. 2010; Lombard and Phillipson 2010; Brown et al. 2012; Wilkins et al. 2012; Sahle et al. 2013; Joordens et al. 2015; Ambrose 2001; Stout 2001). Yet many questions remain, such as how and why technological changes took place in earlier populations, and how technological traditions, innovations, and novelties enabled hominins to survive and disperse across the globe (Klein 2000; McBrearty and Brooks 2000; Henshilwood et al. 2001; Marean et al. 2007; Brown et al. 2012; Režek et al. 2018).
- Late Pleistocene Landscape and Settlement Dynamics of Portuguese EstremaduraPublication . Haws, Jonathan; Benedetti, Michael; Funk, Caroline L.; Bicho, Nuno; Pereira, Telmo; Marreiros, Joao; Daniels, J. Michael; Forman, Steven L.; Minckley, Thomas A.; Denniston, Rhawn F.Here we report the results of an integrated geoarchaeological survey to study Palaeolithic human settlement dynamics in the coastal region of Portuguese Estremadura. The region has been an important focus of human occupation across multiple glacial-interglacial cycles, including periods of well-documented abrupt climate instability during MIS 3 and 2. The pedestrian survey covered a roughly 10 km wide strip of land between Sao Pedro de Muel and Peniche. The survey intensively targeted three landscape settings with Pleistocene-age surfaces and sediments: the coastal bluffs with exposed aeolian, fluvial, and colluvial sands; the Caldas da Rainha diapiric valley and associated fluvial/estuarine fills; and, Cretaceous chert-rich limestone uplands that bound the inland margin of the study area. We discovered dozens of new Palaeolithic sites, analyzed numerous Pleistocene sedimentary sections, and applied widespread OSL-dating to establish age control that allowed us to build a regional geomorphic history to contextualize Late Pleistocene human settlement across the region.
- Technology, use-wear and raw material sourcing analysis of a c. 7500 cal BP lithic assemblage from Cabeco da Amoreira shellmidden (Muge, Portugal)Publication . Paixão, Eduardo; Marreiros, Joao; Pereira, Telmo; Gibaja Bao, Juan; Cascalheira, João; Bicho, NunoThe onset of the Holocene is marked by new human ecological adaptations that are associated with the origins of the Mesolithic in the Atlantic Iberia coast. During the Mesolithic, shellmidden deposits become one of the most relevant and interesting prehistoric archeological contexts, interpreted has the result of intensive human ecological exploitation, and marked by new settlement and mobility patterns, and subsistence strategies. Based on techno-typological patterns and artifact density, each Muge shellmidden has been traditionally linked to a single and specific functionality, possibly reflecting the presence of different stylistic/ethnic groups in the territory. Therefore, characterizing settlement, mobility, site function, and technological patterns in each shellmidden is fundamental to understand the archeological record and answer major questions related to human ecological behavior during the onset of the new Holocene climatic setting. This paper presents new data on the Mesolithic from the Tagus valley, using the case study of the lithic assemblage from layer 2 of Cabeco da Amoreira shellmidden. From our interpretation, by combining lithic raw material characterization and sourcing, techno-typological and use-wear analysis, this study aims to represent an important step on understanding resource exploitation, technological systems and site function, in order to address intra and inter-site variability. In what concerns lithic raw materials, they can be found in the Pleistocene gravels that compose the upper section of the Cenozoic deposits of the River Tagus, including those underneath the site. Nevertheless, the geochemical results suggest that the chert used has correspondence with local, regional, and exogenous areas. In sum, by characterizing the Cabeco da Amoreira shellmidden lithic assemblage, results and data aim to contribute to the discussion and new interpretations on shellmiddens' function and settlement occupation patterns during the Mesolithic.