Raw material procurement at Boila Rockshelter, Epirus, as an indicator of hunter-gatherer mobility in Greece during the Late Upper Palaeolithic and Early Mesolithic

Elefanti, Paraskevi; Marshall, Gilbert; Stergiou, Christos L.; Kotjabopoulou, Eleni

doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102719

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Moreover, "black chert" is known from the Vigla limestone outcropping in the Vikos Gorge, near the village of Papingo in the Vikos-Aoos Geopark of the Tymphi Massif (Epirus), in the north-western part of the Pindus Range [42]. Artefacts made from this raw material have been visually identified among the knapped stones recovered mainly from the Late Neolithic-Bronze Age sites discovered around Samarina during our surveys.…”

Section: Lithic Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 85%

Mountain Landscape and Human Settlement in the Pindus Range: The Samarina Highland Zones of Western Macedonia, Greece

Biagi

Starnini

Efstratiou

et al. 2022

Land

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Past human mountain settlement patterns and resource and high-altitude landscape exploitation are underexplored research fields in archaeology. This study presents data gathered during more than 20 years of fieldwork in the Pindus range of Western Macedonia (Greece), focusing in particular on Holocene land use. The investigated territory is located around the Vlach town of Samarina. The area is partly bounded by Mounts Vasilitsa, Gurguliu, Bogdani and Anitsa, and their interconnecting watersheds between ca. 1400 and 2000 m a.s.l. This research led to the discovery of many sites and findspots of lithic and ceramic artefacts attributed to the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Late Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, and several Historical periods. The radiocarbon results show an unexpected longue durée of Holocene human landscape use. The number of sites, their distribution, location, and subsistence strategies exhibit shifts between the Middle Palaeolithic and different periods of the Holocene, which are closely related to the exploitation of the mountain environment and its resources. Moreover, typical knapped stone artefacts have been used as a proxy for dating the glacial landforms which characterise the Samarina highland zone; we correlate them to the better-known moraine systems of Mount Tymphi in Epirus and contribute to the reconstruction of the Pleistocene glacial landscapes of the Pindus Range.

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Section: Lithic Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 85%

Mountain Landscape and Human Settlement in the Pindus Range: The Samarina Highland Zones of Western Macedonia, Greece

Biagi

Starnini

Efstratiou

et al. 2022

Land

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“…The goal of this approach is to identify elemental features that discriminate geologic samples from one deposit from others to source the geological origin of the raw materials used to manufacture artifacts, often using multivariate statistics techniques of classification like discriminant analysis (DA; Moreau et al, 2019;O'Leary et al, 2017). For example, among the possible markers, rare-earth elements (REE: La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, Lu, and Sc and Y) have been shown to be particularly effective in discriminating different types of cherts and solving provenance issues (Elefanti et al, 2021;Finkel et al, 2019;Olofsson & Rodushkin, 2011;Ramacciotti et al, 2019a). Indeed, robust geochemical studies proved that different sedimentary environments distinguish chert through characteristic REE levels and fractionation (Murray, 1994) and they were used as provenance markers in studies carried out on a wide range of geoarchaeological materials (Aura Tortosa et al, 2020;Gallello et al, 2016;Lecuit et al, 2018;Ramacciotti et al, 2019bRamacciotti et al, , 2020.…”

Section: Assessment Of Lithic Raw Materials Procurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moving to the land: First archaeometric study of chert procurement atCueva de la Cocina(Eastern Iberia)

et al. 2022

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The present work represents the first attempt using an archaeometric approach to characterize the potential chert outcrops and retrace the provenance of the chert raw materials in the Mesolithic and Neolithic contexts of the Eastern Iberia central site of Cueva de la Cocina (Dos Aguas, Valencia). Therefore, a research project aimed at identifying and characterizing potential sources in the surroundings of the site was carried out, as a first step, to test some hypotheses related to raw material provenance. Elemental profiles of several archaeological artifacts and of geological samples collected in different local and nonlocal outcrops were obtained using X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. These chemical data were processed using multivariate statistics to investigate the possible links between the outcrops and archaeological artifacts. Preliminary results point to the use of local raw materials and also the presence of rocks outcropping in a perimeter of more than 50 km around Cueva de la Cocina, opening a new window to investigate the socioecological dynamics of the last hunter-gatherer and the first farmer inhabitants from a diachronic point of view in this region.

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“…There has also been some Late Palaeolithic material from the Pindos highlands (ID817; Biagi et al 2015). A recent study of late Upper Palaeolithic and Early Mesolithic raw material procurement at the rockshelter at Boïla (ID10499) suggests changes in resource management, an increasingly localized use of the landscape and a reduction of mobility at the Pleistocene to Holocene transition in western Greece (Elefanti et al 2021).…”

Section: Upper Palaeolithicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Palaeolithic archaeology: a review of recent research

Tourloukis¹

2021

Arch. Rep.

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In contrast to a relatively long history of Palaeolithic investigations in western Europe, research on the Palaeolithic period in Greece has lagged behind considerably. This article reviews the last decade of Palaeolithic research in Greece, with the aim of highlighting key aspects of recent developments in the field. Newly discovered Lower Palaeolithic sites, such as Marathousa 1 in Megalopolis, have offered rare, high-resolution windows into hunter-gatherer adaptations during the earliest-known peopling of the Greek peninsula. Palaeolithic sites in insular settings, exemplified by the latest discoveries in Crete and Naxos, have stirred up intriguing discussions about early seafaring but, most importantly, provide support to a revised view of the role of the Aegean in early human dispersals. Zooarchaeological, palaeoenvironmental and dating analyses of Middle and Upper Palaeolithic materials from new and older assemblages have provided valuable insights that help contextualize the information distilled from lithic industries. In sum, recent excavations, surveys and assessments of new and older collections have together contributed to the compilation of an important corpus of novel and significant data. Palaeolithic Greece is no longer a terra incognita, and it carries the potential to become a key player in understanding early human societies in southern Europe.

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Raw material procurement at Boila Rockshelter, Epirus, as an indicator of hunter-gatherer mobility in Greece during the Late Upper Palaeolithic and Early Mesolithic

Cited by 7 publications

References 28 publications

Mountain Landscape and Human Settlement in the Pindus Range: The Samarina Highland Zones of Western Macedonia, Greece

Mountain Landscape and Human Settlement in the Pindus Range: The Samarina Highland Zones of Western Macedonia, Greece

Moving to the land: First archaeometric study of chert procurement atCueva de la Cocina(Eastern Iberia)

Palaeolithic archaeology: a review of recent research

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