New data on the transition from the Gravettian to the Solutrean on Portuguese Estremadura

Almeida, Francisco; Matias, Henrique; Carvalho, Rui; Pereira, Telmo; Pinto, Adelaide; Holliday, Trenton

http://hdl.handle.net/10451/32154

Use this identifier to reference this record.

Name:	Description:	Size:	Format:
Almeida_ Matias_etal(2010)-TransitionGravettian-Solutrean.pdf		12.31 MB	Adobe PDF	Download

Send Feedback

Authors

Abstract(s)

From an anthropological perspective, the passage from the Gravettian to the Solutrean is one of the most interesting transition periods in Old World Prehistory. Between 22 kyr BP and 21 kyr BP, during the beginning stages of the Last Glacial Maximum, Iberia and Southwest France witness a process of substitution of a Pan-European Technocomplex—the Gravettian—to one of the first examples of regionalism by Anatomically Modern Humans in the European continent—the Solutrean. While the question of the origins of the Solutrean is almost as old as its first definition, the process under which it substituted the Gravettian started to be readdressed, both in Portugal and in France, after the mid 1990’s. Two chronological models for the transition have been advanced, but until very recently the lack of new archaeological contexts of the period, and the fact that the many of the sequences have been drastically affected by post depositional disturbances during the Lascaux event, prevented their systematic evaluation. Between 2007 and 2009, and in the scope of mitigation projects, archaeological fieldwork has been carried in three open air sites—Terra do Manuel (Rio Maior), Portela 2 (Leiria), and Calvaria 2 (Porto de Mós) whose stratigraphic sequences date precisely to the beginning stages of the LGM. Together with the multidisciplinary data from the Lapedo Valley rock shelter sites—Abrigo do Lagar Velho and Abrigo do Alecrim, under excavation since 1998—they allow us not only to re-evaluate the existing models for the transition, but also to enlarge the criteria of comparison between Gravettian and Solutrean in Portuguese Estremadura to subsistence strategies, mobility patterns, and inter-site functional variability.

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10451/32154

Citation

ALMEIDA F., MATIAS H., CARVALHO R., PEREIRA T, PINTO A., HOLLIDAY T. (2010) - New data on the transition from the Gravettian to the Solutrean on Portuguese Estremadura. Abstracts of the PaleoAnthropology Society 2010 Meetings. PaleoAnthropology 2010:A0001 ISSN 1545-0031 doi:10.4207/PA.2010.ABS8