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April 2011 - present
Publications
Publications (73)
This paper presents the zooarchaeological, technological, use-wear, and spatial analyses of the earliest sedimentary subunits of TD10 (TD10.3 and TD10.4) of the Gran Dolina site (Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain), dated to c. 400 ka. Both units have yielded Acheulean technology, with occupational models characterized by the superimposition of mul...
This paper introduces the virtual field trip organised on the occasion of the 13th International Symposium on Knappable Materials in Tarragona from 4th to 6th October 2021, showing the Abric Romaní site (NE Iberian Peninsula) and the chert procurement areas located within a 30 km radius. The Abric Romaní section consists of a general presentation o...
This study presents an exceptional collection of 54 Late Pleistocene human remains that correspond to at least three Neanderthal individuals from Simanya Gran, the main gallery of Cova Simanya, located in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula. The collection comprised 53 unpublished remains that were unearthed during the 1970s and an additional tooth...
MobiLithics is a multiscalar project aimed at characterizing the lithic resources exploitation and territorial adaptive responses among the last Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens to different climatic, cultural, and biological dynamics. The project focuses on the Middle-to-Later Stone Age, in North Africa, and the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic...
The discovery of Tahya 3 (Guefaït) represents a significant breakthrough in our understanding of Homo sapiens occupations during the Late Pleistocene period in Eastern Morocco. This new open-air site holds great promise for shedding light on the activities, lifestyle, and cultural practices of our ancient human ancestors. By reformulating our knowl...
The Sant Genís Formation is located in the NE of the Iberian Peninsula (Catalonia, Spain) and is dated to the Priabonian (upper Eocene), being part of the evaporitic formations of the margin of the Ebro Basin. It is formed by a succession of sandy lutites, occasional limestone layers, marls, and local stratified gypsum and cherts, including the San...
Cal Sitjo is a new archaeological sequence located in a chert-rich region of the NE Iberian Peninsula, in the town of Sant Martí de Tous (Anoia, Barcelona). The area has undergone significant anthropisation and several archaeological sites (e.g., Vilars de Tous), quarries and workshops for the exploitation of chert (e.g., La Guinardera) have been d...
Large, conglomerate caves in north-eastern Iberia have been significant places since the Neolithic through to historical times; however, their significance during the Palaeolithic has barely been explored. This project is the first systematic study of the use of these iconic geological landmarks among Pleistocene hunter-gatherers.
The Oldowan represents the earliest recurrent evidence of human material culture and one of the longest-lasting forms of technology. Its appearance across the African continent amid the Plio-Pleistocene profound ecological transformations, and posterior dispersal throughout the Old World is at the foundation of hominin technological dependence. How...
More than 2 million years ago in East Africa, the earliest hominin stone tools evolved amidst changes in resource base, with pounding technology playing a key role in this adaptive process. Olduvai Gorge (now Oldupai) is a famed locality that remains paramount for the study of human evolution, also yielding some of the oldest battering tools in the...
In 2014, an anthropic accumulation of chert material was discovered in La Guinardera area, at the southwest of the Sant Martí de Tous town (Barcelona, NE Iberian Peninsula). In 2018 a first archaeological intervention was carried out in two locations: La Guinardera and La Guinardera Nord. After the fieldworks, these two accumulations were interpret...
Book of Abstracts of the 13th ISKM conference that took place in Tarragona in virtual form
The rock shelter site of Mumba in northern Tanzania plays a pivotal role in the overall study of the late Pleistocene archaeology of East Africa with an emphasis on the Middle to Later Stone Age transition. We used phytolith analysis to reconstruct general plant habitat physiognomy around the site from the onset of the late Pleistocene to recent ti...
Rapid environmental change is a catalyst for human evolution, driving dietary innovations, habitat diversification, and dispersal. However, there is a dearth of information to assess hominin adaptions to changing physiography during key evolutionary stages such as the early Pleistocene. Here we report a multiproxy dataset from Ewass Oldupa, in the...
The open-air site of Cantacorbs is a Neolithic chert workshop located on a calcareous mountaintop plateau (1022 masl), overlooking one of the main routes through the Prades Mountains (Tarragona, NE Iberian Peninsula). The main characteristic of the site is the abundance of knapped lithic material on the surface, in which all stages of the blade pro...
El jaciment a l’aire lliure de Cantacorbs és un taller neolític de sílex localitzat a un altiplà calcari a 1022 m.s.n.m., d’es d’on es pot controlar una de les principals rutes que creuen les muntanyes de Prades. La característica principal del jaciment és l’abundància de material lític tallat en superfície, corresponent a tots els estadis de la ca...
The emergence of agriculture in Central Africa has previously been associated with the migration of Bantu-speaking populations during an anthropogenic or climate-driven ‘opening’ of the rainforest. However, such models are based on assumptions of environmental requirements of key crops (e.g. Pennisetum glaucum) and direct insights into human dietar...
The Montmaneu Formation is located at the NE margin of the Ebro Basin (Catalonia, Spain), and is dated to the Rupelian (Lower Oligocene). It is formed by 120 m of light grey stratified limestones with bedded-nodular chert, the Panadella chert, associated with the La Segarra lacustrine system.
This chert is macroscopically characterized by very fine...
Environmental change is key for human evolution, especially at times of anatomical and behavioral change in life histories, such as the origin of meat consumption, economic diversification, and dispersal. However, for the earliest phase of human evolution featuring the technology-dependent hominins that shaped our lineage since 2.6 Ma, the Oldowan,...
This study represents the first integrated approach to the lithic raw materials exploited by the Neanderthals that occupied the Abric Romaní site (NE Iberia). Focusing on chert as the most abundant raw material (>80% of the assemblages), we determine the potential procurement areas and the mobility patterns. Geo-archaeological surveys within a radi...
Oldupai Gorge is located within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in northern Tanzania along the western margin of the East African Rift System. Oldupai's sedimentary record contains inter-stratified stone tool industries associated with the Earlier, Middle, and Later Stone Age. While diachronic technological change is...
Despite the common exploitation of quartzites as raw materials during the African Stone Age, petrographic and geochemical characterization studies have been rarely undertaken. The Naibor Soit outcrop at Oldupai Gorge (Tanzania), considered the main source for quartzite procurement in the area, probably represents the exception to this analytical sc...
The African Early Stone Age record, including that of Oldupai Gorge, reveals widespread evidence for hominin exploitation of quartzose lithic raw materials such as quartzite. However, few studies have sought to characterize these rock types grounded on the assumption that they are not amenable for provenance studies. Through the use of macroscopic,...
Strontium isotope analysis is a useful tool for tracing mobility and migration in past populations. For it to be employed, the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr values of the landscape must be well-understood. Bioavailable strontium is a combination of geological and atmospheric strontium available for use by plants and animals. In this study we begin mapping bioavailable...
The presence of skull cups (bowls made from human calvaria) is considered evidence of the ritualistic treatment of human bodies. These artefacts are characterised by careful manufacturing which can be taphonomically observed in bone surface modifications (BSM) as cut marks and percussion marks. These BSM show morphological similarities across Upper...
This article studies soil and plant phytoliths from the Eastern Serengeti Plains, specifically the Acacia-Commiphora mosaics from Oldupai Gorge, Tanzania, as present-day analogue for the environment that was contemporaneous with the emergence of the genus Homo . We investigate whether phytolith assemblages from recent soil surfaces reflect plant co...
Level M and sub-level Oa at Abric Romaní (Capellades, Barcelona, Spain) are showing various types of technological contexts. The chaines opératoires of level M show expedient strategies. The lithic assemblage of sub-level Oa is associated to hierarchized strategies and Levallois chaines opératoires. Chert is the most used rock (level M = 80.8%; lev...
Evidence for the symbolic behavior of Neandertals in the use of personal ornaments is relatively scarce. Eagle talons, which were presumably used as pendants, stand out due to their abundance. This phenomenon seems to appear concentrated in a specific area of Southwestern Europe during a span of ca. 80 Ka. Here we present the analysis of one eagle...
Evidence for the symbolic behavior of Neanderthals in the use of personal ornaments is relatively scarce. Among the few ornaments documented, eagle talons, which were presumably used as pendants, are the most frequently recorded. This phenomenon appears concentrated in a specific area of southern Europe during a span of 80 thousand years. Here, we...
Despite the common exploitation of quartzites as raw materials during the African Stone Age, petrographic and geochemical characterization studies are scarce in Palaeolithic archaeology. Naibor Soit outcrop in Oldupai Gorge (Tanzania), considered the main source for lithic procurement in the area, probably represents the exception to this analytica...
Archaeological records of the treatment of human skulls for ceremonial or cult purposes appear at the end of Palaeolithic and are shown in different ways, being able to identify through the taphonomic modifications. According to this, the presence of skull cups (bowls from human calvaria) is currently considered evidence of ritualistic treatment of...
Oldupai Gorge is located within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in northern Tanzania along the western margin of the East African Rift System. Oldupai’s sedimentary record exhibits a complex sequence of inter-stratified lithic assemblages associated with the Early, Middle, and Later Stone Age. While diachronic technol...
Ancient dental calculus research currently relies on destructive techniques whereby archeological specimens are broken down to determine their contents. Two strategies that could partly remediate a permanent loss of the original sample and enhance future analysis and reproducibility include (1) structural surface characterization through spectrosco...
Palynological record is affected by several factors, such as taphonomic processes, which could cause a bias of the pollen spectra. The study of these processes occurring on archaeological deposits could provide insight into formation and sedimentation conditions, but also into anthropogenic activities. Based on these hypotheses, we have analyzed th...
The Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe covers the last millennia of Neanderthal life together with the appearance and expansion of Modern Human populations. Culturally, it is defined by the Late Middle Paleolithic succession, and by Early Upper Paleolithic complexes like the Châtelperronian (southwestern Europe), the Protoaurignacian,...
Este artículo presenta los trabajos realizados en el yacimiento de la Balma de la Vall (Montblanc, Tarragona). Las primeras excavaciones, a inicios de los 1980, identificaron distintos niveles de ocupación humana relacionados con el Paleolítico superior final. Entre los años 2011-2013 la excavación se reemprendió con los objetivos de definir la suc...
Raw material provenance and procurement studies are an essential research line to infer landscape exploitation, mobility dynamics and territorial management among prehistoric hunter-gatherer groups. This paper proposes an original and intuitive method, the chert abundance ratio, aimed at quantifying lithic resource occurrence in the landscape while...
This paper studies soil and plant phytoliths from the Eastern Serengeti Plains, specifically the Acacia-Commiphora mosaics from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. The soil phytolith transect extends 100 ha and comprises 35 samples. Botanic collection was aimed at investigating the range of species present in the study area, learning about their phytolith pro...
The assumption that taxonomy can be ascertained by starch granule shape and size has persisted since the late nineteenth and early twentieth century biochemistry. More recent work has established that granule morphological affinity is scattered throughout phylogenetic branches, morphotype proportions vary within the genus, granules from closely rel...
Dental calculus provides ancient starch research a niche where granules may be adsorbed to minerals, coated, overgrown, entrapped, and/or protected from chemical degradation. While encapsulation offers protection from degradation, it does not shield the sample’s surface from contamination. The most common approach to retrieving microbotanical parti...
The use of personal ornaments by Neandertals is one of the scarce evidence of their symbolic behaviour. Among them stand up the eagle talons used presumably as pendants, in an analogous way than anatomically Modern Humans ( Homo sapiens ) did. Considering the broad range and time scale of Neandertals distribution across Eurasia, this phenomenon see...
Ancient starch research illuminates aspects of human ecology and economic botany that drove human evolution and cultural complexity over time, with a special emphasis on past technology, diet, health, and adaptation to changing environments and socio-economic systems. However, lapses in prevailing starch research demonstrate the exaggerated expecta...
Ancient starch research illuminates aspects of human ecology and economic botany that drove human evolution and cultural complexity over time, with a special emphasis on past technology, diet, health, and adaptation to changing environments and socio-economic systems. However, lapses in prevailing starch research demonstrate the exaggerated expecta...
Ancient starch research illuminates aspects of human ecology and economic botany that drove human evolution and cultural complexity over time, with a special emphasis on past technology, diet, health, and adaptation to changing environments and socioeconomic systems. However, lapses in prevailing starch research demonstrate the exaggerated expectat...
In the mid of the past century a series of high-altitude chert workshops were found in the Prades Mountains (Montblanc, Catalonia). These workshops were ascribed to the Neolithic, but to date just one of them -Cantacorbs- become part of a wider archaeological project. This open-air site is located in the top of a calcareous high plateau (1022 masl)...
The assumption that taxonomy can be ascertained by starch granule shape and size has persisted unchallenged since the late nineteenth and early twentieth century biochemistry. More recent work has established that granule morphological affinity is scattered throughout phylogenetic branches, morphotype proportions vary within the genus, granules fro...
Level TE9c of the Sima del Elefante site (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain) is one of the oldest sites with evidence of human occupation in western Europe. We began excavating level TE9c in 2003, and the work there continues today. The studies of the archaeology, palaeontology and geology from this locality have provided an indispensable dataset with whi...
The Picamoixons site is a rockshelter located in the province of Tarragona (NE Iberian Peninsula). It was object of two rescue campaigns during 1988 and 1993, which led to the recovery of a complete archaeological assemblage, including stone tools as well as faunal and portable art remains that date the occupation to the 14 th to 11 th millennium B...
During the 10th International Symposium on Knappable Materials (ISKM) held at Barcelona (Spain) in 2015, a field trip along “The Silica Road” was organized. It included the visit to different chert outcrops located along the Montsant Massif (Tarragona, NE Iberian Peninsula), and to the Middle Palaeolithic site of the Abric Romaní (Capellades, Barce...
European Doctor Mention Phd - Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Since the 1950s, archaeological activity has been especially prolific in Spanish regions such as Catalonia. This process brings the possibility to discover and excavate some of the most important archaeological sites in order to study the main cultural events in the past. This has been the case of Cova del Toll and Cova de la Font Major, whose card...
We present the results of prospecting in the NE of the Iberian Peninsula, with the aim of identifying the siliceous sources potentially used by the populations that occupied the marginal basins of the Ebro depression during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic.We intend to define the main characteristics of the cherts in the region studied, taking int...
According to the results from the three archaeological campaigns carried out in the
Cave of the Dead Man (Mort Cave) (2007-2009), sheltered by Mont-rebei’s gorge
(Montsec Mountains Range), confirmed human occupation throughout Recent
Prehistory has been. Ceramics have been recovered from the Late Neolithic with Saint
Pons and Treilles affinity, lin...
In this paper we present the results of core analysis of Asup level from Molí del Salt site (Vimbodí i Poblet, Tarragona/Spain), dated to ca. 11 ka 14C BP (c. 12700-13000 years cal BP). This analysis was carried out from the methodological proposals raised by various authors as Guilbaud (1995) and Vaquero (1997). With this study, we try to define t...
Recent research in Paleolithic archeology has stressed the importance of temporal issues in assemblage interpretation. Archeological assemblages are temporal constructs, formed by the addition of an unknown number of depositional events. This temporal dimension is also evident at the artifactual level, since single artifacts may undergo different e...
In the NE of the Iberian Peninsula the Late Glacial – Early Holocene period shows a cultural and demographic pattern with both abundance and absence moments. Microblade technologies start during GI‐1 event breaking the absence of evidences during the glacial period. These technologies persist during the Late Glacial an Early Holocene converging in...
Characteristics of carnivore accumulations in caves have been defined for a long time in basis of some well studied patterns.
Generally human occurrence contexts dominated by carnivores tends to be short-term and low intensity occupations and its characteristics are still discussed. Spatial distribution, activities spectrum, and derived technologic...
