scholarly journals The First Neolithic Occupation of La Cova del Randero (Pedreguer, Alicante, Spain)

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1492-1505
Author(s):  
Consuelo Roca de Togores Muñoz ◽  
Laura M. Sirvent Cañada ◽  
Silvia Martínez Amorós ◽  
Olga Gómez Pérez ◽  
Virginia Barciela González ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Ovis Aries ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Specific Nature ◽  
Environmental Characteristics ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
Multidisciplinary Study ◽  
Pastoral Communities ◽  
Mountain Environment

Abstract The excavations at “Cova del Randero” (Pedreguer, Alicante, Spain) began in 2007 within the programme of archaeological interventions of the Archaeological Museum of Alicante. The cavity, located in one of the valleys that connect the coast with the inland mountains, presents a wide sequence of occupations that begins in the Upper Palaeolithic and continues throughout the different phases of the Neolithic. The results of a multidisciplinary study, carried out in an archaeological context associated with the first Neolithic presence of the cavity, are presented here. This occupation is defined by a unique combustion structure to which a set of artefacts and biofacts are linked. This archaeological context, probably of a specific nature, is related to the first agro-pastoral communities settled in the area. The fireplace is well defined stratigraphically and sedimentologically because of its reddish soil, which corresponds to hunter-gatherer occupation levels of the cavity, and under the greyish sediments that characterise the use of the cave as a fold during the Middle Neolithic. This occupation event was dated both by the associated materials, among which a fragment of cardial ceramic was found, and by radiocarbon dating of a metacarpus of Ovis aries around 5075–4910 cal BC (epicardial Early Neolithic). This data allows us to link the occupation of the cavity at this time with pastoral activity in a medium mountain environment. However, it also allows us to infer the environmental characteristics in which the first farming communities of the mountains of Alicante were developed.

scholarly journals Radiocarbon dating of lead white: novel application in the study of polychrome sculpture

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Sá ◽  
Laura Hendriks ◽  
Isabel Pombo Cardoso ◽  
Irka Hajdas
Keyword(s):  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Lead White ◽  
Human History ◽  
White Pigment ◽  
Multidisciplinary Study ◽  
Paint Systems ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Polychrome Sculpture ◽  
Cultural Heritage Objects ◽  
Source Of Information

AbstractRecently, radiocarbon dating underwent considerable technological advances allowing unprecedented sample size downscaling. These achievements introduced novel opportunities in dating cultural heritage objects. Within this pioneering research, the possibility of a direct 14C dating of lead white pigment and organic binder in paint samples was investigated on polychrome sculptures, a foremost artistic expression in human history. The polychromy, an indivisible part of polychrome sculpture, holds a key role in the interpretation and understanding of these artworks. Unlike in other painted artworks, the study of polychromies is repeatedly hampered by repaints and degradation. The omnipresence of lead white within the original polychromy was thus pursued as dating proxy. Thermal decomposition allowed bypassing geologic carbonate interferences caused by the object's support material, while an added solvent extraction successfully removed conservation products. This radiocarbon dating survey of the polychromy from 16 Portuguese medieval limestone sculptures confirmed that some were produced within the proposed chronologies while others were revised. Within this multidisciplinary study, the potential of radiocarbon dating as a complementary source of information about these complex paint systems guiding their interpretation is demonstrated. The challenges of this innovative approach are highlighted and improvements on sampling and sample preparation are discussed.

Early Neolithic Portuguese sheep (Ovis aries):

2020 ◽  
pp. 177-200
Author(s):  
Simon J. M. Davis ◽  
Teresa Simões
Keyword(s):  
Ovis Aries ◽  
Early Neolithic

scholarly journals The Neolithic Site of Serra Cicora: Results of the AMS Radiocarbon Dating

Radiocarbon ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
G Quarta ◽  
M D'Elia ◽  
E Ingravallo ◽  
I Tiberi ◽  
L Calcagnile
Keyword(s):  
Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Ams Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Neolithic Site ◽  
New Information ◽  
Definition Of

Bone and charcoal samples from the Neolithic site of Serra Cicora in the Salento Peninsula (southern Italy) have been dated by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). Measurements appear to support other archaeological evidence and have shown that 2 distinct phases of human occupation of the site can be identified: the first occupation in the Early Neolithic and a second occupation in the Middle-Late Neolithic. The results provide new information and are a fundamental contribution to the definition of the absolute chronology of the Middle-Late Neolithic in this part of Europe.

scholarly journals The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in Hohlenstein-Stadel cave (Swabian Jura, Germany): A comparison between ESR, U-series and radiocarbon dating

2020 ◽  
Vol 556 ◽  
pp. 49-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Richard ◽  
C. Falguères ◽  
E. Pons-Branchu ◽  
D. Richter ◽  
T. Beutelspacher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic

scholarly journals Territoriality and Settlement in Southern France in the Early Neolithic: Diversity as a Strategy?

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 923-938
Author(s):  
Claire Manen ◽  
Thomas Perrin ◽  
Laurent Bouby ◽  
Stéphanie Bréhard ◽  
Elsa Defranould ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Southern France ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
Site Type ◽  
Surrounding Environment ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract In the western Mediterranean, the question of the settlement patterns of the first farming communities remains a much debated issue. Frequently compared with the LBK model, based on hundreds of well-documented villages, the settlement organization of the Impressed Ware complex is still poorly characterized and highly diversified. New data obtained in Southern France (Languedoc) may shed light on this matter, based on new excavations, revised data, and a multi-proxy perspective (site type, domestic area, food supply strategies, activities, spheres of acquisition of raw material, and so forth). Rather than reproducing a pattern of site locations and settlement structuring, it seems that these Early Neolithic groups sought to optimize the location and structuring of their settlements in relation to the specific characteristics of the surrounding environment and available resources. We therefore propose that the diversity observed in the settlement organization of these first farming communities is a reflection of a social organization well-adapted to the diversity of the ecosystem.

Dating Magdalenian Art in North Spain: The Current Situation

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
César González Sainz
Keyword(s):  
Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Present Situation ◽  
Lower Number ◽  
The Other ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Absolute Dating ◽  
Stratigraphic Sequences ◽  
Cave Art

The graphic activity of Magdalenian human groups forms the most spectacular part of the archaeological record in Cantabrian Spain and, at the same time, represents probably the most expressive aspect of the culture of those Upper Palaeolithic hunters. Since the early 1990s, several projects have tried to fix more precisely the chronology of the cave art through the application of radiocarbon dating by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (Valladas et al. 1992, 2001; Moure Romanillo and González Sainz 2000; Fortea Pérez 2002). The present article attempts an integrated discussion of the results of the absolute chronology for Magdalenian cave art and the present situation of the most reliable parallels between this and the mobile art of the same period. It is well known that the ordering in time of cave art is rather more complex than that of decorated objects, which are dated by their archaeological context (and therefore both this context and the artefacts themselves can be dated by radiocarbon). In Cantabrian Spain, the approaches to dating cave art, especially for the Magdalenian depictions, are the series of superimpositions known on certain walls of a few caves, the analogy with stratified mobile art, and absolute dating, essentially for this period, radiocarbon dating by accelerator. Other procedures, such as the correlation with stratigraphic sequences, offer good results in pre-Magdalenian periods (Fortea 1994), but are limited in the period that interests us here to just a few cases, such as Cueva del Mirón, in relation with some rather modest depictions (González Morales and Straus, 2000). 1. Series of superimposed figures of different kinds have often been described, on panels in a limited number of cave sites. In Cantabrian Spain, the main examples are found in the caves of La Peña del Candamo, Tito Bustillo, Llonín, Altamira, El Castillo, La Pasiega, and La Garma Lower Passage—in other words, the main cave art centres, repeatedly used over long periods in the Upper Palaeolithic. These sites tend to differ quite clearly from the other cave art sites, which are more or less synchronic internally (they have a much lower number of depictions which, above all, are more homogeneous in style and techniques).

scholarly journals Dental calculus reveals Mesolithic foragers in the Balkans consumed domesticated plant foods

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (37) ◽  
pp. 10298-10303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuela Cristiani ◽  
Anita Radini ◽  
Marija Edinborough ◽  
Dušan Borić
Keyword(s):  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Dental Calculus ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Human Teeth ◽  
Plant Foods ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
Early Farming ◽  
Late Mesolithic

Researchers agree that domesticated plants were introduced into southeast Europe from southwest Asia as a part of a Neolithic “package,” which included domesticated animals and artifacts typical of farming communities. It is commonly believed that this package reached inland areas of the Balkans by ∼6200 calibrated (cal.) BC or later. Our analysis of the starch record entrapped in dental calculus of Mesolithic human teeth at the site of Vlasac in the Danube Gorges of the central Balkans provides direct evidence that already by ∼6600 cal. BC, if not earlier, Late Mesolithic foragers of this region consumed domestic cereals, such as Triticum monococcum, Triticum dicoccum, and Hordeum distichon, which were also the main crops found among Early Neolithic communities of southeast Europe. We infer that “exotic” Neolithic domesticated plants were introduced to southern Europe independently almost half a millennium earlier than previously thought, through networks that enabled exchanges between inland Mesolithic foragers and early farming groups found along the Aegean coast of Turkey.

The Presidential Address for 1931: Early Neanthropic Man and his Relation to the Ice Age

1932 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 253-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. P. T. Burchell
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Address ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Glacial Deposits ◽  
East Anglia ◽  
North East ◽  
Boulder Clay

In order to prepare an address calculated to be of general interest to my fellow archæologists, it is essential that it be composed of a variety of ingredients. Now, it so happens that the results I have been obtaining during the course of my investigations in the last few years not only embrace a large number of culture phases, but, when arranged in proper sequence, they form a consecutive narrative. Furthermore, the greater part of the researches I have undertaken relates to those periods in British prehistory concerning which we know least. I refer to the so-called ‘Upper Palæolithic’ and ‘Early Neolithic’ times.It is not my intention to deal in this paper with those inter-glacial and cultural phases which antedate the formation of the Lower Purple Boulder Clay of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and the Lower Chalky Boulder Clay of East Anglia, though I would mention I have recently discovered in the glacial deposits of north-east Ireland specimens similar to those which have been found beneath the Cromer Forest Bed of Norfolk and in the Sub-Crag Detritus Bed of Norfolk and Suffolk. These specimens will be fully described and illustrated in our “Proceedings” at a later date.

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