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- Mapping the stone age of MozambiquePublication . Gonçalves, Célia; Raja, Mussa; Madime, Omar; Cascalheira, João; Haws, Jonathan; Matos, Daniela; Bicho, Nuno Gonçalo Viana Pereira FerreiraUnder the auspices of the Portuguese colonial government, Lereno Barradas and Santos Junior (coordinator of the Anthropological Mission of Mozambique) carried out several archaeological field surveys from 1936 to 1956 that resulted in a data set that includes a total of close to 90 sites, mostly attributed to the Stone Age. This early research added to the previous work of Van Riet Lowe in the Limpopo Valley of southern Mozambique. With the new millennium, Mozambique has emerged as a crucial geographic area in which to understand the various hypotheses about recent human evolution. Specifically, its coastal location between southern and eastern Africa is ideal for testing ideas about the link between early coastal adaptations and the appearance of anatomically modern humans (AMH). Except for the recent work by Mercader's team in northern Mozambique, the number of researchers and projects on this topic in Mozambique is still limited because of the general predominance of interest in later periods among archaeologists working in the country, mainly due to their focus on issues related to precolonial heritage and national identity. Based on the early maps from Santos Junior and more recent data acquired through various projects, we present a series of maps for the Stone Age prehistory of Mozambique. The maps are also based on a critical evaluation of the sites and a review of some of the materials that are presently curated at the Instituto de Investigacao Cientifica e Tropical (IICT) in Lisbon, Portugal, as well as the materials stored at the Department of Archaeology of Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo. The sites are also presented in an online database with the information on all sites used in this study. This database is open to all and will be updated continuously. A preliminary interpretation of the regional distribution of the sites is also attempted, linking aspects that include region, topography and altitude, geomorphology, and cultural phase. These results will be the first step for research and knowledge in Mozambique on Stone Age prehistory and the emergence and settlement pattern of AMH.
- Early upper paleolithic colonization across Europe: Time and mode of the gravettian diffusionPublication . Bicho, Nuno Gonçalo Viana Pereira Ferreira; Cascalheira, João; Gonçalves, CéliaThis study presents new models on the origin, speed and mode of the wave-of-advance leading to the definitive occupation of Europe's outskirts by Anatomically Modern Humans, during the Gravettian, between c. 37 and 30 ka ago. These models provide the estimation for possible demic dispersal routes for AMH at a stable spread rate of c. 0.7 km/year, with the likely origin in Central Europe at the site of Geissenklosterle in Germany and reaching all areas of the European landscape. The results imply that: 1. The arrival of the Gravettian populations into the far eastern European plains and to southern Iberia found regions with very low human occupation or even devoid of hominins; 2. Human demography was likely lower than previous estimates for the Upper Paleolithic; 3. The likely early AMH paths across Europe followed the European central plains and the Mediterranean coast to reach to the ends of the Italian and Iberian peninsulas.
- Middle and late stone age of the Niassa region, Northern Mozambique. Preliminary resultsPublication . Bicho, Nuno Gonçalo Viana Pereira Ferreira; Haws, Jonathan; Raja, Mussa; Madime, Omar; Gonçalves, Célia; Cascalheira, João; Benedetti, Michael M.; Pereira, Telmo; Aldeias, VeraLocated between modern-day South Africa and Tanzania, both of which have well-known and extensive Stone Age records, Mozambique's Stone Age sequence remains largely unknown in the broader context of African Pleistocene prehistory. Such lack of data occurs despite the key geographical location of the country, in southern Africa at the southeastern tip of the Great Rift Valley. As such, Mozambique is an area of interest to evaluate the origins and dispersion of Homo sapiens within Africa, particularly in relation to Middle Stone Age contexts and associated early modern human ecology and cognition.This paper focuses on preliminary survey results from the Niassa District, near Lake Niassa (also known as Lake Malawi) in northern Mozambique. The results include the discovery and location of more than 80 new surface lithic concentration localities, as well as data from two new sites, the open air surface site of Ncuala and the rock shelter of Chicaza. For Chicaza we provide a series of new radiocarbon dates for the Iron Age and Late Stone Age occupations based on preliminary testing carried out at the site. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.
- Monte do Carrascal 2 (southern Portugal): insights into lithic technology and intra-site spatial analysis of a Late Mesolithic hunting campPublication . Reis, Helena; Gonçalves, Célia; Santos, Helena; Valera, António CarlosIn this article, the results of the archaeological excavations at the Late Mesolithic site of Monte do Carrascal 2 are presented. The site, located inland, southeast from the contemporary Sado shell middens, comprised two hearths with faunal remains and a set of lithic materials that were analysed techno-typologically, as well as in terms of their spatial distribution through GIS tools (K Ripley Function, Kernel Density Estimation and Nearest Neighbour analysis). The study points to a different functionality of this site when compared to most all other Mesolithic sites known in the region, with its uncommon inland location, suggesting that it was possibly a hunting camp.
- Resilience, replacement and acculturation in the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition: The case of Muge, central PortugalPublication . Bicho, Nuno; Cascalheira, João; Gonçalves, Célia; Umbelino, Cláudia; García-Rivero, Daniel; André, LinoEvidence for the first Neolithic population in central Portugal dates to as early as c. 7600 cal BP. These first farmers were exogenous groups arriving to the Atlantic coast from the Mediterranean Sea. For a few centuries there seems to have occurred an overlap in the region between the Mesolithic Muge huntergatherers and the regional early Neolithic populations. While the trajectory of these first farmers seems to be well established, the fate of the Mesolithic populations is unknown and in generally assumed as resulting in extinction. The recent results from research in the Muge Mesolithic shellmounds (Tagus valley) with the new recovery of various loci with Neolithic occupations including human burials, human DNA, and Strontium analyses seem to indicate evidence of cultural and genetic integration between the Mesolithic and Neolithic populations. This paper will focus on the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Portuguese Estremadura and examines the hypothesis that human resilience promoted the cultural and biological integration of the Mesolithic groups into the new exogenous Neolithic communities in central Portugal. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.
- Portable art and personal ornaments from Txina-Txina: a new later stone age site in the Limpopo River Valley, southern MozambiquePublication . Bicho, Nuno Gonçalo Viana Pereira Ferreira; Cascalheira, João; André, Lino; Haws, Jonathan; Gomes, Ana; Gonçalves, Célia; Raja, Mussa; Benedetti, Michael M.This paper reports on preliminary fieldwork at the Later Stone Age site of Txina-Txina in Mozambique. Excavation yielded a long stratigraphic sequence, a large lithic assemblage, a unique decorated gastropod shell fragment and two ostrich eggshell beadsthe first of their type recovered from a Stone Age context in Mozambique.
- Modelos preditivos de ocupação do território no Mesolítico entre os vales do Tejo e SadoPublication . Gonçalves, Célia Maria Alves Gonçalves; Bicho, Nuno Gonçalo Viana Pereira FerreiraA presente dissertação apresenta os resultados da construção de um Modelo Preditivo Arqueológico baseado na análise de um conjunto de variáveis, geográficas e ambientais, de localização dos concheiros mesolíticos dos vales do Tejo e do Sado. Os principais objetivos deste estudo eram, por um lado, estabelecer critérios de diferenciação ou aproximação nos padrões de posicionamento dos sítios em ambas as bacias hidrográficas, e por outro, fornecer um conjunto de dados preditivos catográficos e numéricos que permitissem complementar o atual conhecimento sobre os sistemas de ocupação e exploração do território durante o Mesolítico no Centro de Portugal e que pudessem, simultaneamente, servir de ponto de partida para investigação futura no terreno. Assim, através de uma metodologia que seguiu essencialmente uma abordagem estatística descritiva e univariada que resultou na elaboração de quatro modelos construídos, através do método da adição binári,a estabeleceram-se como principais contribuições deste estudo: (1) a existência de uma diferenciação efetiva entre os padrões de localização e escolha da envolvência ambiental e paisagística para implantação dos concheiros nos vales do Tejo e do Sado, que quando confrontada com os dados arqueológicos atualmente disponíveis, que demonstram padrões morfo-estruturais distintos na composição dos sítios que integram cada um dos núcleos de concheiros, bem como as características dos vestígios artefactuais, parecem confirmar a existência efetiva de diferenças culturais entre os dois conjuntos; (2) e, numa perspectiva mais metodológica, a corroboração da viabilidade e eficácia da aplicação deste modelo específico de abordagem preditiva a sociedades de caçadores-recolectores mesolíticos, tendo em conta os índices de sucesso, quer estatísticos quer com comprovação dos dados de trabalhos preliminares de prospeção, muito mais elevados que noutros estudos efetuados noutros pontos do planeta.