The earliest European Acheulean: new insights into the large shaped tools from the late Early Pleistocene site of Barranc de la Boella (Tarragona, Spain)

Abstract

Since the oldest known Acheulean lithic techno-typological features in Europe were reported at the site of Barranc de la Boella (Tarragona, Spain), continuous fieldwork has been conducted there in archeological deposits of the late Early Pleistocene age (0.99–0.78 Ma). As a result, excavations in two of the three open-air localities have significantly expanded the collection of lithic and faunal remains, allowing us to make progress in the interpretation of the hominin behaviors in an open-air fluvial-deltaic sedimentary environment. This includes examples of cumulative palimpsests, such as those found at the locality of La Mina, in which hominins only had a minimal role as modifying agents, as well as the extraordinary mammoth butchery site recorded at the Pit 1 locality. The aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive update of the collection of large shaped tools and to assess its significance in the framework of the earliest occurrence of the Acheulean in Europe. This cultural entity is increasingly well-documented for the early Middle Pleistocene, but very little is known about its presence in Europe before the Brunhes–Matuyama boundary. Large shaped tools appear in the three localities explored in the Unit II of Barranc de la Boella, including choppers (unifacial and bifacial) and standard Acheulean forms, such as picks, knives, and cleaver-like forms. Techno-typological and morphometrical analyses revealed a basic heavy-duty component obtained through simple shaping sequences coupled with significantly more elaborate tools produced on various large blanks (cobbles, slabs, or flakes). The complete bifacial and bilateral shapings have yet to be documented, but the present specific tool assemblage attests to the Early Acheulean technological threshold. Hence, the archaeological data from Barranc de la Boella provide insights into the first appearance of the Acheulean technology in Europe and add critical information to the debate on the technological variability of the Early Pleistocene hominin occupation of the continent. The results of this study revealed a technological assemblage unique in the known late Early Pleistocene archeological record from Europe, different from the rest of ancient Acheulean sites in this continent, which are dated at the Middle Pleistocene. This lends support to the hypothesis that Barranc de la Boella may represent a previously unrecognized Early Acheulean dispersion out of Africa connected to its first evidence at the gates of Eurasia, potentially moving over the northern Mediterranean coastal road to reach Western Europe.

Reinforcing the idea of an early dispersal of Hippopotamus amphibius in Europe: Restoration and multidisciplinary study of the skull from the Middle Pleistocene of Cava Montanari (Rome, central Italy)

“…1.2-0.8 Ma), which witnessed the coexistence of late Villafranchian holdovers with several newcomers and the Galerian (ca. 0.8-0.4 Ma), featuring the spread in Europe of several still living species, e.g., Cervus elaphus, Sus scrofa and C. crocuta, and of the Acheulean technocultural complex [24, [80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90]. Nonetheless, the pace of the turnover, the synchronicity between bioevents, the related biochronological correlations and nomenclature, and the precise relationships between climatic, environmental, and faunal changes are hotly debated (e.g., [91][92][93]).…”

The Occurrence of Suids in the Post-Olduvai to Pre-Jaramillo Pleistocene of Europe and Implications for Late Villafranchian Biochronology and Faunal Dynamics

“…For instance, the bone accumulation of Poggio Rosso has been interpreted as primarily resulting from the activity of the giant hyena Pachycrocuta brevirostris [49,98], a species which was also directly involved at Vallparadís [52], and generally regarded as a major taphonomic agent during the Early Pleistocene of Europe [45]. The extent of the influence of the first hominins dispersing into Europe on the environment and on specific sites is debated, and arguably it was less relevant than in later chronologies, although growing with the spread of the Acheulean since the very late Early Pleistocene and during the Middle Pleistocene [99,100]. In any case, hominins also probably preferred preys other than suids, as, for instance, testified by the several Middle Pleistocene archaeological sites in which suid remains are scanty or absent [92].…”

Blank predetermination in the Iberian Acheulean. Insight from the cleaver on flake assemblage of Casal do Azemel site (Leiria, Portugal) by a Geometric Morphometric approach

“…Current data show that the proliferation of Acheulean sites occurs mostly from the Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 11 to MIS 6 (Daura et al 2018;Ferreira et al 2021;Méndez-Quintas et al 2020;Rubio-Jara et al 2016;Santonja et al 2016), after emerging during MIS 13, with a later chronology than in other European regions (Antoine et al 2019;Falguères et al 2015;Key et al 2022;Moncel et al 2013;2019;2022;Moncel & Ashton 2018;Voinchet et al 2015) -although it has been proposed that an Early Acheulean presence in Iberia could be recorded at Barranc de La Boella, dated between 1.0-0.8 Ma (Vallverdú et al 2014), the presence of lithic elements that would allow it to be unequivocally linked to this technocomplex was regarded as problematic by some researchers (e.g., Méndez-Quintas et al 2018: 8;Moncel et al 2015: 303;Santonja et al 2016: 370), with recent data promoting new discussions on this topic (Ollé et al 2023).…”