Belmiro Joana, Terradas Xavier, Cascalheira João
Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and the Evolution of Human Behavior (ICArEHB), University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal.
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Madrid, Spain.
PLoS One. 2023 Oct 20;18(10):e0293223. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0293223. eCollection 2023.
Southwestern Iberia has played a key role in characterizing Late Pleistocene human ecodynamics. Among other aspects of human behavior, chert procurement and management studies in this region have received increasing attention in the past two decades, especially focusing on the sites showing repeated human occupation, such as the case of Vale Boi (Southern Portugal). However, these studies have been very limited in their geographical scope, and mostly focused on brief macroscopic descriptions of the raw materials. To further our knowledge of the relationship between regional availability of raw materials and its impact on human adaptations and mobility, a more detailed approach to characterizing geological sources is needed. This paper characterizes chert raw materials location, diversity, and availability in a geologically well-defined region of southern Portugal - the Algarve. Through macroscopic and petrographic approaches, we provide a detailed characterization of geological chert sources to build a frame of reference for chert exploitation in the region. Our results show that there are four main chert formations in Algarve, and that despite the within-source variability, sufficient differences at macroscopic and petrographic levels are present to allow clear source attribution. These results provide a baseline for raw material studies in archaeological assemblages across southwestern Iberia, that will be essential to further characterize the dynamics of human behavior in some of the most important eco-cultural niches.
伊比利亚半岛西南部在表征晚更新世人类生态动力学方面发挥了关键作用。在人类行为的其他方面中，该地区的燧石采购和管理研究在过去二十年中受到了越来越多的关注，尤其侧重于那些显示出人类反复居住的遗址，比如瓦尔博伊（葡萄牙南部）的情况。然而，这些研究的地理范围非常有限，并且大多集中在对原材料的简要宏观描述上。为了进一步了解原材料的区域可获得性及其对人类适应和流动性的影响，需要一种更详细的方法来表征地质来源。本文表征了葡萄牙南部地质定义明确的地区——阿尔加维的燧石原材料的位置、多样性和可获得性。通过宏观和岩石学方法，我们对地质燧石来源进行了详细表征，以建立该地区燧石开采的参考框架。我们的结果表明，阿尔加维有四个主要的燧石地层，并且尽管来源内部存在变异性，但在宏观和岩石学层面仍存在足够的差异，以便进行明确的来源归因。这些结果为伊比利亚半岛西南部考古组合中的原材料研究提供了一个基线，这对于进一步表征一些最重要的生态文化龛位中的人类行为动态至关重要。
