Early Neolithic Portuguese sheep (Ovis aries):

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.

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Social organization in the Orcadian Neolithic: identification of elite domestic structures and settlements through analysis of excavation data

Scottish Archaeological Journal ◽

10.3366/saj.2018.0093 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 40 (1) ◽

pp. 25-53 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

David MacInnes

Keyword(s):

Social Organization ◽

Qualitative Data ◽

Social Hierarchy ◽

Published Data ◽

Early Neolithic ◽

Late Neolithic ◽

New Approach ◽

Qualitative Evidence ◽

Methods Of Analysis ◽

The Subject

The nature of social organization during the Orcadian Neolithic has been the subject of discussion for several decades with much of the debate focused on answering an insightful question posed by Colin Renfrew in 1979. He asked, how was society organised to construct the larger, innovative monuments of the Orcadian Late Neolithic that were centralised in the western Mainland? There are many possible answers to the question but little evidence pointing to a probable solution, so the discussion has continued for many years. This paper takes a new approach by asking a different question: what can be learned about Orcadian Neolithic social organization from the quantitative and qualitative evidence accumulating from excavated domestic structures and settlements?In an attempt to answer this question, quantitative and qualitative data about domestic structures and about settlements was collected from published reports on 15 Orcadian Neolithic excavated sites. The published data is less extensive than hoped but is sufficient to support a provisional answer: a social hierarchy probably did not develop in the Early Neolithic but almost certainly did in the Late Neolithic, for which the data is more comprehensive.While this is only one approach of several possible ways to consider the question, it is by exploring different methods of analysis and comparing them that an understanding of the Orcadian Neolithic can move forward.

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