Hunting on the coast: An image gallery of Rompecráneos

The Rompecráneo is a special kind of lithic artifact which was, presumably, involved in the capture of pinnipeds carried out along the Patagonian coast of Argentina during prehistoric times. Recent papers had offered some information about their morphology but up to now they are poorly studied. In order to offset this situation in a previous work we addressed their role in hunting technics developed at the archaeological locality of Punta Entrada (Santa Cruz, Argentina). This allowed us to propose that rompecráneos were used in combination with spears when hunting on the coast. With the aim of expanding this information, here we present an image gallery of some rompecráneos recovered there. Two of these pieces share a similar morphology but were made of different lithic raw materials. The other one has the appearance of a bola stone but its weight is higher than other bola stones in Patagonia. That is why it is considered a different kind of artifact. The importance of studying these kinds of artifacts is that they have the potential of providing information about the way people interacted with the different resources (biotic and abiotic) in the past so that a better understanding of human behavior can be developed. Gallery Figure 1. Geographic location of Punta Entrada. Figure 2. Rompecráneo made of andesite. The base can be seen in the lower part of the image. Weight: 593 g. Figure 3. Different view of the rompecráneo shown in Figure 2 Figure 4. Rompecráneo made of coquina. The base can be seen in the lower part of the image. Weight: 421 g. Figure 5. Different view of the rompecráneo shown in Figure 3. Figure 6. Bola stone made of andesite. Weight:1.476 kg. Figure 7. Detail of the groove of the bola stone shown in Figure 6 Figure 8. Context of recovery of bola stone presented in Figure 6.

Między Wschodem a Zachodem. Inwentarz krzemienny z osady ludności kultury ceramiki wstęgowej rytej na stanowisku Podlesie 6, woj. świętokrzyskie

Paper presents results of analysis of the assemblage of flint artefacts from the settlement of Linear Pottery culture (LBK) at the site no. 6 in Podlesie, Świętokrzyskie voivodeship. Importance of the site is primarily by its location: on the border of two geographical regions, two geological conditions, two settlement eccentrics of the LBK and two provinces of lithic raw materials. Within the flint assemblage we can distinguish two main classes of lithical artefacts: an internally cohesive collection of 104 obsidian products and a collection of 2069 artefacts made of at least five different types of flint. In the group of siliceous rocks, the most numerous is the Jurassic flint from Cracow area – 53%. Second place in the inventory is occupied by the Światchowski flint, which share reaches the level of 19%. Only slightly smaller are amounts of chocolate flint – 15%.

Piecing together a new mosaic: Gravettian lithic resources and economic territories in the Western Pyrenees

To palliate the current scarcity of information about lithic raw materials in the Western Pyrenees during the Gravettian, the study of ten assemblages has explored the flint procurement patterns and economic organisation of the territory. The study was based on the macro- and microscopic analysis of the different lithic remains. A wide range of flint varieties were used, including some excellent rocks for knapping and others of poorer quality. This diversified catchment pattern was defined by the criteria of quality and suitability for reduction. Although procurement took place mostly at the primary outcrops, there is some evidence of limited acquisition in secondary deposits. Within the economic territory of the Western Pyrenees, divergences in the connections between the outcrops on one side of the mountains and the archaeological sites on the other may indicate different territorial or economic roles for each side. In general terms, the northern side may have been more residential with more stable habitation, while the southern side was linked with logistic tasks and more seasonal occupation. The economic connections between this territory and surrounding areas revealed by the lithic resources are the reflection of inter-group contacts and an economic mosaic imbricated with a cultural or symbolic one.

Turonian flint economy in the easternmost Magdalenian: new data from Stare Baraki, site 1 (eastern Poland)

Magdalenian communities exploited mostly local and regional good-quality lithic raw materials. In south-eastern Poland, being the easternmost fringe of the Magdalenian range, Turonian grey flint had a particular importance. Outcrops of this raw material occur both at the west and at the east sides the Vistula River Gorge. The varieties from the eastern area (called here “eastern Turonian flint” or ETF) are common among inventories of the Magdalenian sites situated to west of the Vistula river. This fact points toward the frequent penetration of the ETF outcrop area by those societies. However, no Magdalenian sites were known directly from the ETF deposit area, and this gap in knowledge restricted further understanding of the character and diversity of Magdalenian activity there. Therefore, in this paper, we present the results of searching for Magdalenian sites within the ETF outcrop zone. Applied methodology included study of the archive archaeological materials, followed by detail survey and excavation of the selected site—Stare Baraki 1. This site documents a short stay or multiple stays of Magdalenian people, who were focused on Turonian flint knapping. Lithic inventory records collecting of several local flint varieties at the distance up to around 20 km from the site, followed by almost all stages of flint working. The material from Stare Baraki is the first known and currently the only trace of the Magdalenian people inside the zone of Turonian flint deposits on the right bank of the Vistula river. The study in Stare Baraki delivered new data for the reconstruction of territory exploitation strategies used in the easternmost Magdalenian.

The Gravettian on the Basque Crossroads:a glimpse of Palaeolithic territoriality

In recent decades, the Gravettian in the Basque Country has ceased to be a poorly known bridge between the Aurignacian and the Solutrean and has acquired its own personality. Progress in fieldwork and laboratory studies, the discovery of new sites in rock-shelters and in the open air, changes in the location pattern of the sites, and better knowledge of the lithic raw materials and their spatial distribution have greatly improved our understanding of the period. The main advances made since 1990 are described in this overview. At the present time, we are probably closer to describing territoriality in the Gravettian than for any other technocomplex in the region.

Lithic resources as a proxy for the social use of territory among hunter-gatherers of Central Chile

This paper presents the results of a study of the composition of lithic raw materials from the contexts of archaeological sites of hunter-gatherers of Central Chile (latitudes 33° to 34.5° S) between 5000 to 1000 years BP. This territory is characterized by a wide distribution of certain coarse and medium-grained lithic raw materials (andesite, basalt and granite), preferably used in low formatted tools, and the specific location of those of fine grain (obsidian and siliceous rocks), suitable for bifacial reduction, only in some localities. In this analysis, 22 sites have been included, each of which presents different proportions of these raw materials in their context, a set that, when analysed in terms of the diversity of each case, generated clear spatial groupings which were ratified by means of a principle component analysis. These groupings of sites are located in direct association with the lithic landscape of different localities within the region, although we propose that the simple cost-benefit explanation would not account for their formation. According to the authors, these groups would be marked by behaviours that can only result from social restrictions on access to certain sources of these raw materials, especially considering that the distances between their location and the position of the different sources in several cases is not too large to be considered a factor in itself. These restrictions could be interpreted as the existence of socially different groups within the study area, a question that is compared with ethnographic data currently available on the size of the territories of different groups of hunter-gatherers and their annual mobility ranges.

Last Glacial Maximum landscape and Epigravettian horse hunting strategy in Central Europe: The case of Stránská skála IV

With the end of MIS3, the unity of larger Gravettian settlements based predominantly on mammoth exploitation split into a mosaic of smaller Epigravettian sites with specific behaviors and economies. Based on C14 chronology, the site of Stránská skála IV (together with Grubgraben, Ságvár and Kašov), correlates with a brief warm period after the Last Glacial Maximum around 22 ka calBP. We detected two main accumulations of predominantly horse bones under a rock cliff suggesting that the site was not a regular settlement but rather a specialised hunting site. No features or hearths were recovered. Lithic raw materials were imported from long distances, and the horse hunting strategy profitted from the specific geographic qualitites of the site. Preferential location of Epigravettian sites in secluded valleys is a pattern generally recognized in Moravia and usually explained as a response to the harsh MIS2 climates.