Foraging Assemblages Volume 1

Edited by Dušan Borić,Dragana Antonović, and Bojana Mihailović

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1Foraging Assemblages is the publication of the proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on the Mesolithic in Europe, held in Belgrade in September 2015. The two volumes of these proceedings gather 121 contributions on Mesolithic research in Europe, covering almost every corner of the continent. The book presents a cross-section of recent Mesolithic research, with geographic foci ranging from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, and from Ireland to Russia and Georgia. The papers in the volumes cover diverse topics and are grouped into 11 thematic sections, each with an introduction written by prominent Mesolithic experts. The reader will learn about changes in forager lifeways and the colonization

of new territories at the end of the Ice Age and the beginning of the Holocene warming; the use of diverse landscapes and resources; climatic instabilities that influenced patterns of settlement and subsistence; the organization of settlements and dwelling spaces; the formation of regional identities expressed through various aspects of material culture and technologies of artefact production, use, and discard; aspects of social relations and mobility; symbolic, ritual, and mortuary practices; diverse ways in which Mesolithic communities of Europe were transformed into or superseded by Neolithic ways of being; and how we have researched, represented, and discussed the Mesolithic.

Volume 1Transitions – Beginnings

Colonization

Landscapes

Settlement

Regional Identities

People in Their Environment

Volume 2Technology

Social Relations, Communication, Mobility

Rites and Symbols

Transitions – Endings

Representing and Narrating the Mesolithic

Foraging Assemblages

Volume 1

Edited by Dušan Borić,

Dragana Antonović, and Bojana Mihailović

Serbian Archaeological Society The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University

Belgrade & New York

The NOMIS Foundation provided a grant in support of preparation and publication of this book

Publishers Serbian Archaeological Society, Belgrade, Republic od SerbiaThe Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University, New York, USA

For PublishersAdam CrnobrnjaDavid Freedberg

Edited by© Dusan Boric, Dragana Antonovic, Bojana Mihailovic 2021

This publication is in copyright. No reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of the authors.

First published 2021

Peer-reviewed byPablo AriasNuno BichoClive BonsallDusan BoricChantal ConnellerEmanuela CristianiVesna DimitrijevicFederica FontanaOle GrønJudith GrünbergLars Larsson Dusan MihailovicNicky MillnerT. Douglas PriceRick SchultingRobert Whallon

Copy-editing and proof-readingHannah ElmerDusan Boric

DesignDusan Pavlic

Index compiled byMia Boric Dusan Boric

Desktop publishingMarko Huber

Print run 400

Printed by Publikum

ISBN 978-86-80094-14-4 978-86-80094-16-8A CIP record of this book is available from the National Library of Serbia, Belgrade

Front Cover Illustration: Sculpted sandstone boulder named ‘Chronos’ (inv. no. 5) from Lepenski Vir (National Museum in Belgrade)Back Cover Illustration: Lepenski Vir during excavations (Photograph courtesy of Alan McPherron)

CIP - Каталогизација у публикацијиНародна библиотека Србије, Београд

903(4)"632/633"(082)902.2(4)(082)

FORAGING Assemblages. Vol. 1 / edited by Dušan Borić, Dragana Antonović, and Bojana Mihailović. - Belgrade : Serbian Archaeological Society ; New York : The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University, 2021 (Belgrade : Publikum). - XLII, 351 str. : ilustr. ; 29 cm

"Foraging Assemblages represents the publication of the proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on the Mesolithic in Europe, held in Belgrade in September 14- 18, 2015." --> Preface. - Tekst štampan dvostubačno. - Tiraž 400. - Preface: str. XXV-XXX. - Napomene i bibliografske reference uz tekst. - Bibliografija uz svaki rad.

ISBN 978-86-80094-14-4 (SAS)ISBN 978-86-80094-16-8 (niz)

1. Borić, Dušan, 1973- [уредник] 2. Antonović, Dragana, 1960- [уредник] 3. Mihailović, Bojana, 1963- [уредник]

а) Археолошка налазишта, праисторијска -- Европа -- Мезолит -- Зборници б) Археолошка истраживања -- Европа -- Зборници

COBISS.SR-ID 34449929

Contents

VOLUME IList of Contributors ix

Preface xxv

The Danube Gorges Mesolithic: The first fifty years (Dušan Borić) xxvii

Transitions – Beginnings 1

1 Introduction: Transitions – Beginnings (Dušan Mihailović and Robert Whallon) 3

2 Transition and tradition: Lithic variability in the cave of Vlakno, Croatia (Dario Vujević and Mario Bodružić)

5

3 Workspace organization of a Final Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer camp (Anton A. Simonenko and Olesya I. Uspenskaya Aleksandrova)

12

4 The problem of the Palaeolithic to Mesolithic transition on the Upper and Middle Don River (central Russia) (Alexander N. Bessudnov and Alexander A. Bessudnov)

20

5 Early Holocene human adaptation and palaeoenvironment of the north-western Caucasus (Elena V. Leonova, Olesya I. Uspenskaya, Natalia V. Serdyuk, Elena A. Spiridonova, Alexey S. Tesakov, Elena V. Chernysheva, Pavel D. Frolov, and Elena V. Syromyatnikova)

29

6 Early Mesolithic of northern Bohemia: 2015 excavations (Jiří Svoboda) 36

7 The last hunter-gatherers of South Arabia: A review of the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene archaeological record (Yamandú Hieronymus Hilbert)

45

Colonization 53

8 Introduction: Colonization 55

9 First Mesolithic occupations at high altitudes in Vercors (Isère, France): The case studies of Les Coins I, Roybon, and Gerland (Alexandre Angelin and Régis Picavet)

57

10 The Mesolithic site of Borovskoye 2 in light of the Pre-Boreal habitation in Karelia (Sergey Lisitsyn, Alexey Tarasov, Nataliya Tsvetkova, and Stanislav Belsky)

64

11 The Mesolithic of Fontanella rockshelter (Vilafranca, eastern Mediterranean Iberia) and the last hunters-gatherers of northern Valencian country (Dídac Román, Inés Domingo, and Jordi Nadal)

74

Landscapes 83

12 Introduction: Landscapes (Dušan Borić) 85

13 The missing landscapes and territories of Mesolithic Portugal (Ana Cristina Araújo and Ana Maria Costa)

88

14 A comparative perspective on Mesolithic assemblages from different landscapes in Bohemia (Katarína Kapustka, Jan Eigner, and Matthew Walls)

94

15 The Early Mesolithic of the Piave River basin: Mountain tops, riverbanks, and seashores? (Federica Fontana, Davide Visentin, and Stefano Bertola)

102

16 Integrating communities and landscape: A wetland perspective from the Lower Rhine area (Luc W. S. W. Amkreutz)

110

iv Contents

17 Tracing raw materials: Procurement strategies and movements in the Early Mesolithic, a case study from Larvik, south-eastern Norway (Guro Fossum)

118

18 Local or imported? Tracking the provenance of flint raw materials of the Mesolithic habitants of Estonia and northern Latvia with the help of geochemical methods (Kristiina Johanson, Aivar Kriiska, Jaan Aruväli, Peeter Somelar, Kaarel Sikk, and Liina Sepp)

123

19 The Upper Dee Tributaries Project: Finding the Mesolithic in the mountains of Scotland (Shannon M. Fraser, Gordon Noble, Graeme Warren, Richard Tipping, Danny Paterson, Wishart Mitchell, Ann Clarke, and Caroline R. Wickham-Jones)

129

20 Surviving Doggerland (Caroline R. Wickham-Jones) 135

21 A Mesolithic moment in time: The Drumnaglea Cache (Peter Woodman† and Sarah Close) 142

22 Transient campsites, logistic campsites, and the cumulative taphonomy of Malham Tarn site A: A persistent place in the northern Pennines (William A. Lovis and Randolph E. Donahue)

148

Settlement 157

23 Introduction: Settlements, dwellings, pits, and middens – still very far from a theory of everything! (Ole Grøn and Nuno Bicho)

159

24 Of space and time: The non-midden components of the Cabeço da Amoreira Mesolithic shell mound (Muge, central Portugal) (João Cascalheira, Nuno Bicho, Célia Gonçalves, Daniel García-Rivero, and Pedro Horta)

162

25 Looking for the ‘Asturian’ dwelling areas: New data from El Alloru and Sierra Plana de la Borbolla (Asturias, Spain) (Pablo Arias, Miriam Cubas, Miguel Ángel Fano, Esteban Álvarez-Fernández, Ana Cristina Araújo, Marián Cueto, Patricia Fernández Sánchez, Eneko Iriarte, Inés L. López-Dóriga, Sara Núñez, Christoph Salzmann, Carlos Duarte, Felix Teichner, Luis C. Teira, and Paloma Uzquiano)

169

26 Habitation areas in Asturian shell middens and site formation processes: Mazaculos II cave (La Franca, Asturias, northern Iberia) and the new sites of El Total III and El Mazo (Manuel R. González Morales)

177

27 Mesolithic settlement patterns and occupation of central and eastern Cantabria (Spain) (Mercedes Pérez-Bartolomé)

184

28 Domestic life by the ocean: Beg-er-Vil, c. 6200–6000 cal BC (Grégor Marchand and Catherine Dupont) 191

29 Mesolithic pit-sites in Champagne (France): First data, key issues (Nathalie Achard-Corompt, Emmanuel Ghesquiere, Christophe Laurelut, Charlotte Leduc, Arnaud Remy, Isabelle Richard, Vincent Riquier, Luc Sanson, and Julia Wattez)

198

30 Some observations on the archaeological record of the (Late) Mesolithic in the northern Netherlands (Marcel J. L. Th. Niekus)

202

31 Life on the lake edge: Mesolithic habitation at Star Carr (Nicky Milner, Chantal Conneller, Barry Taylor, Mike Bamforth, Julian C. Carty, Shannon Croft, Ben Elliott, Becky Knight, Aimée Little, Harry K. Robson, Charlotte C. A. Rowley, and Maisie Taylor)

210

32 Late Mesolithic shallow pithouse from Sąsieczno 4 (central Poland) (Grzegorz Osipowicz) 216

33 Mesolithic complexes on the right bank of the Vyatka River (the middle Volga Basin) (Tаtyana Gusentsova)

223

34 Mesolithic hearth-pits and cooking-pits in western Sweden and south-eastern Norway: When, where, how, and a bit about why (Robert Hernek)

227

35 Mesolithic ‘ghost’ sites and related Stone Age problems with lithics (Ole Grøn and Hans Peeters) 233

36 Sømmevågen. A Late Mesolithic–Early Neolithic settlement complex in south-western Norway: Preliminary results (Trond Meling, Hilde Fyllingen, and Sean D. Denham)

240

37 Mesolithic settlement on Utsira, western Norway: Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in transition as reflected by dwellings and site patterns (Arne Johan Nærøy)

246

38 Mesolithic dwellings from Motala, Sweden (Ann Westermark) 252

vContents

Regional Identities 259

39 Introduction: Regional identities (Rick Schulting) 261

40 Holocene foraging in the Dinaric Alps: Current research on the Mesolithic of Montenegro (Dušan Borić, Emanuela Cristiani, Ljiljana Đuričić, Dragana Filipović, Ethel Allué, Zvezdana Vušović-Lučić, and Nikola Borovinić)

264

41 New perspectives on the Mesolithic of the Sado Valley (southern Portugal): Preliminary results of the SADO MESO project (Pablo Arias, Mariana T. Diniz, Ana Cristina Araújo, Ángel Armendariz, and Luis C. Teira)

274

42 The ‘Asturian’ and its neighbours in the twenty-first century: Recent perspectives on the Mesolithic of northern Spain (Pablo Arias, Esteban Álvarez-Fernández, Miriam Cubas, Miguel Ángel Fano, María J. Iriarte-Chiapusso, Mercedes Pérez Bartolomé, and Jesús Tapia)

281

43 The Mesolithic in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula (Galicia, Spain): The state of art (Eduardo Ramil Rego, Natividad Fuertes Prieto, Carlos Fernández Rodríguez, Eduardo González Gómez de Agüero, and Ana Neira Campos)

289

44 The last foragers in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula: New evidence of human occupation during the seventh/sixth millennia cal BC (Antoni Palomo, Igor Bodganovic, Raquel Piqué, Rafel Rosillo, Xavier Terradas, Marta Alcolea, Marian Berihuete, and Maria Saña)

295

45 The Late Mesolithic of the south-western coast of Portugal: The lithic industry of Vale Marim I in focus (Joaquina Soares, Niccolò Mazzucco, and Carlos Tavares da Silva)

301

46 The temporality of the Mesolithic in southern France (Thomas Perrin) 308

47 Re-evaluating the old excavation from Pinnberg, Germany (Daniel Groß, Steffen Berckhan, Nadine Hauschild, Anna-Lena Räder, and Anne Sohst)

312

48 Exploring early Ertebølle: Results of preliminary assessments at a submerged site in the Kiel Bay (Baltic Sea, Germany) and its potential (Julia Goldhammer, Annika B. Müller, Laura Brandt, Steffen Wolters, and Sönke Hartz)

318

49 Identifying regional practices in cave use during the Mesolithic in south-western Britain (Caroline Rosen)

324

50 About time for the Mesolithic near Stonehenge: New perspectives from Trench 24 at Blick Mead, Vespasian’s Camp, Amesbury (David Jacques, Tom Lyons, Barry Bishop, and Tom Phillips)

330

51 Secrets of Blue Maiden: The archaeology of a virgin island in the Baltic Sea (Kenneth Alexandersson, Anna-Karin Andersson, and Ludvig Papmehl-Dufay)

337

52 Mesolithic site locations in the river valleys of Karelia, west of Ladoga Lake, Russia (Hannu Takala, Mark. M. Shakhnovich, Aleksey Yu. Tarasov, and Anssi Malinen)

345

VOLUME II

People in Their Environment 355

53 Introduction: People in their environment (Clive Bonsall and Vesna Dimitrijević) 357

54 Late Glacial to Early Holocene environs and wood use at Lepenski Vir (Ethel Allué, Dragana Filipović, Emanuela Cristiani, and Dušan Borić)

359

55 Plant use at the Mesolithic site of Parque Darwin (Madrid, Spain) (Marian Berihuete Azorín, Marta Alcolea Gracia, Raquel Piqué i Huerta, and Javier Baena Preysler)

367

56 A tale of foxes and deer, or how people changed their eating habits during the Mesolithic at Vlakno cave (Croatia) (Siniša Radović, Victoria Pía Spry-Marqués, and Dario Vujević)

374

57 Coastal resource exploitation patterns and climatic conditions during the Early Mesolithic in the Cantabrian region (northern Iberia): Preliminary data from the shell midden site of El Mazo (Asier García-Escárzaga, Igor Gutiérrez-Zugasti, David Cuenca-Solana, Adolfo Cobo, and Manuel R. González-Morales)

382

vi Contents

58 How ‘marine’ were coastal Mesolithic diets? (Rick J. Schulting) 389

59 The seasonality of hunting during the Mesolithic in southern Scandinavia (Ola Magnell) 398

60 Incremental growth line analysis of the European oyster (Ostrea edulis, Linnaeus, 1758) from the kitchen midden at Eskilsø, Denmark (Harry K. Robson, Søren A. Sørensen, Eva M. Laurie, and Nicky Milner)

404

61 Skellerup Enge: Evidence for a distinctive subsistence economy in western Denmark during the early Ertebølle (Kenneth Ritchie, Søren H. Andersen, and Esben Kannegaard)

410

62 Hunting beyond red deer: Exploring species patterning in Early Mesolithic faunal assemblages in Britain and north-western Europe (Nick J. Overton)

416

63 Size estimations of sturgeons (Acipenseridae) from the Mesolithic-Neolithic Danube Gorges (Ivana Živaljević, Igor V. Askeyev, Dilyara N. Shaymuratova (Galimova), Oleg V. Askeyev, Sergey P. Monakhov, Dušan Borić, and Sofija Stefanović)

422

Technology 429

64 Introduction: Technology (Federica Fontana, Emanuela Cristiani, and Dušan Mihailović) 431

65 Couteaux de Rouffignac: A new insight into an old tool (Davide Visentin, Sylvie Philibert, and Nicolas Valdeyron)

434

66 The lithic assemblage of the Mesolithic station of Alp2 (pre-alpine mountain range of Chartreuse, northern French Alps): Preliminary data (Jocelyn Robbe)

440

67 The First and Second Mesolithic of La Grande Rivoire (Vercors range, Isère, France): A diachronic perspective on lithic technology (Alexandre Angelin, Thomas Perrin, and Pierre-Yves Nicod)

444

68 Techno-functional approach to a technological breakthrough: The Second Mesolithic of Montclus rockshelter (Gard, France) (Elsa Defranould, Sylvie Philibert, and Thomas Perrin)

452

69 The late microblade complexes and the emergence of geometric microliths in north-eastern Iberia (Dídac Román, Pilar García-Argüelles, Jordi Nadal, and Josep Maria Fullola)

457

70 Mesolithic raw material management south of the Picos de Europa (northern Spain) (Diego Herrero-Alonso, Natividad Fuertes-Prieto, and Ana Neira-Campos)

464

71 New perspectives on Mesolithic technology in northern Iberia: Data from El Mazo shell midden site (Asturias, Spain) (Natividad Fuertes-Prieto, John Rissetto, Igor Gutiérrez-Zugasti, David Cuenca-Solana, and Manuel R. González Morales)

470

72 The conical core pressure blade concept: A Mesolithic chaîne opératoire (Tuija Rankama and Jarmo Kankaanpää)

476

73 Middle and Late Mesolithic microblade technology in eastern Norway: Gradual development or abrupt change? (Svein Vatsvåg Nielsen and Torgeir Winther)

482

74 Shaori II: An obsidian workshop in Javakheti, Georgia (Dimitri Narimanishvili, Petranka Nedelcheva, and Ivan Gatsov)

490

75 Finding, shaping, hiding: Caching behaviour in the Middle Mesolithic of south-eastern Norway (Lucia Uchermann Koxvold)

495

76 Hafting flake axes: Technological and functional aspects of an assemblage from north-western Norway (John Asbjørn Havstein)

499

77 Quantifying Irish shale Mesolithic axes/adzes (Bernard Gilhooly) 505

78 Technology of osseous artefacts in the Mesolithic Danube Gorges: The evidence from Vlasac (Serbia) (Emanuela Cristiani and Dušan Borić)

512

79 Antler in material culture of the Iron Gates Mesolithic (Selena Vitezović) 520

80 Tools made from wild boar canines during the French Mesolithic: A technological and functional study of the collection from Le Cuzoul de Gramat (France) (Benjamin Marquebielle and Emmanuelle Fabre)

526

viiContents

81 Lost at the bottom of the lake. Leister prongs from the Early and Middle Mesolithic (Lars Larsson, Björn Nilsson, and Arne Sjöström)

535

82 Late Glacial and Early Holocene osseous projectile weaponry from the Polish Lowlands: The case of a point from Witów (Justyna Orłowska)

540

Social Relations, Communication, Mobility 547

83 Introduction: Social relations, communication, mobility (Chantal Conneller) 549

84 Role of personal ornaments: Vlakno cave (Croatia) (Barbara Cvitkušić and Dario Vujević) 551

85 Marine shells as grave goods at S’Omu e S’Orku (Sardinia, Italy) (Emanuela Cristiani, Rita T. Melis, and Margherita Mussi)

558

86 Visual information in Cabeço da Amoreira, Muge (Portugal): Shell adornment technology (Lino André and Nuno Bicho)

567

87 Neighbours on the other side of the sea: Late Mesolithic relations in eastern Middle Sweden (Jenny Holm)

574

88 Sedentary hunters, mobile farmers: The spread of agriculture into prehistoric Europe (T. Douglas Price, Lars Larsson, Ola Magnell, and Dušan Borić)

579

Rites and Symbols 585

89 Introduction: Rites and Symbols (Judith M. Grünberg and Lars Larsson) 587

90 A portable object in motion – Complex layers of meaning embedded in an ornamented sandstone-object from the Late Mesolithic site of Brunstad (Norway) (Almut Schülke)

590

91 Net patterns in Mesolithic art of north-western Europe (Tomasz Płonka) 595

92 Protective patterns in Mesolithic art (Peter Vang Petersen) 602

93 Mesolithic engraved bone pins: The art of fashion at Téviec (Morbihan, France) (Éva David) 610

94 Final destruction and ultimate humiliation of an enemy during the Mesolithic of southern Scandinavia (Erik Brinch Petersen)

619

95 Archaeological remains of Mesolithic funerary rites and symbols (Judith M. Grünberg) 622

96 Buried side by side: The last hunter-gatherers of the south-western Iberian Peninsula through the lens of their mortuary practices (Rita Peyroteo-Stjerna)

629

97 Depositions of human skulls and cremated bones along the River Motala Ström at Strandvägen, Motala (Fredrik Molin, Sara Gummesson, Linus Hagberg, and Jan Storå)

637

98 Human–animal symbolism within a ritual space in the Mesolithic wetland deposit at Kanaljorden, Motala (Fredrik Hallgren, Sara Gummesson, Karin Berggren, and Jan Storå)

644

99 What are grave goods? Some thoughts about finds and features in Mesolithic mortuary practice (Lars Larsson)

649

100 Mesolithic companions: The significance of animal remains within Mesolithic burials in Zvejnieki and Skateholm (Aija Macāne)

655

101 Pit or grave? ‘Emptied’ graves from the cemetery at Dudka, Masuria, north-eastern Poland (Karolina Bugajska)

660

102 Beware of dogs! Burials and loose dog bones at Dudka and Szczepanki, Masuria, north-eastern Poland (Witold Gumiński)

668

103 Shamans in the Mesolithic? Re-analysis of antler headdresses from the North European Plain (Markus Wild)

678

104 Birds in ritual practice of eastern European forest hunter-gatherers (Ekaterina Kashina and Elena Kaverzneva)

685

Transitions – Endings 693

105 Transitions – Endings: Introduction (T. Douglas Price) 695

106 Modelling the empty spaces: Mesolithic in the micro-region of central Serbia (Vera Bogosavljević Petrović and Andrej Starović)

699

107 How North Iberia was lost? The Early Neolithic in Cantabrian Spain (Miguel Ángel Fano and Miriam Cubas)

706

108 Debating Neolithization from a Mesolithic point of view: The Sado Valley (Portugal) experience (Mariana Diniz, Pablo Arias Cabal, Ana Cristina Araújo, and Rita Peyroteo-Stjerna)

713

109 The Caucasian route of Neolithization in the Pontic-Caspian region (Alexander Gorelik, Andrej Tsybriy, and Viktor Tsybriy)

720

110 The Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic of the Kama region, Russia: Aspects of the Neolithization process (Evgeniia Lychagina)

727

111 The Late Mesolithic in western Lesser Poland: Spectators or participants in the Neolithization? (Marek Nowak, Mirosław Zając, and Justyna Zakrzeńska)

733

112 Wetland sites in a dry land area. A survey for Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic sites in and around the Zwischenahner Meer Lake, Germany (Svea Mahlstedt)

740

113 Forager-farmer contacts in the Scheldt Basin (Flanders, Belgium) in the late sixth-early fifth millennia BC: Evidence from the site of Bazel-Sluis (Erwin Meylemans, Yves Perdaen, Joris Sergant, Jan Bastiaens, Koen Deforce, Anton Ervynck, and Philippe Crombé)

746

114 Ritual continuity between the Late Mesolithic Ertebølle and Early Neolithic Funnel Beaker cultures (Søren Anker Sørensen)

750

115 Continuity and change: hunters and farmers in the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition, Östergötland, eastern middle Sweden (Tom Carlsson)

756

116 The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in South Norway: Cylindrical blade technology as an indicator of change (Dag Erik Færø Olsen)

763

Representing and Narrating the Mesolithic 771

117 Introduction: Representing and Narrating the Mesolithic (Nicky Milner) 773

118 Mesolithic movie stars: Analyzing rare film archives of the Muge excavations from the early twentieth century (Ana Abrunhosa and António H. B. Gonçalves)

776

119 Elusive, perplexing, and peculiar? Presenting the Mesolithic to twenty-first century audiences (Don Henson)

785

120 Public perceptions and engagement with the Jomon and the Mesolithic (Don Henson) 789

121 Building Mesolithic: An experimental archaeological approach to Mesolithic buildings in Ireland (Graeme Warren)

796

Index 805

Regional Identities

41. New perspectives on the Mesolithic of the Sado Valley (southern Portugal): Preliminary results of the SADO MESO projectPablo Arias, Mariana T. Diniz, Ana Cristina Araújo, Ángel Armendariz, and Luis C. Teira

The lower Sado Valley in southern Portugal is one of the most important concentrations of Mesolithic settlements in Europe. Moreover, many of the sites included cemeteries, which have provided valuable information on mortuary practices of the last hunter-gatherers in southern Iberia and a very important sample of human remains. Despite the development of large systematic excavations in the mid-twentieth century and recent attempts to re-examine some sites, only very partial information was available. Yet, there are rich unpublished archaeological collections in the National Museum of Archaeology in Lisbon, and the preservation of most of the sites is quite satisfactory. Since 2010, a Luso-Spanish interdisciplinary team has systematically been re-appraising this area within the framework of COASTTRAN , CoChange, and SimTIC – three successive research projects on the transition to the Neolithic in coastal areas of south-western Atlantic Europe and the development of symbolic thought in the late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. The project design and preliminary results of the first six fieldwork seasons are presented in this paper.

Keywords: shell middens, Mesolithic settlement, marine resources, cemeteries

IntroductionThe Sado shell middens are one of the classic reference points for the European Mesolithic. Twelve sites, some of them containing large cemeteries, have been recorded in the low-er sector of this valley, which crosses a Tertiary basin in the Alentejo region of southern Portugal. The sites are relatively concentrated within a 15 km sector of the valley (Fig. 41.1), found surprisingly upstream (some 40 km from the current mouth of the river near the city of Setúbal) for settlements that display a high density of evidence documenting the ex-ploitation of marine or estuarine resources. Most of the sites were systematically excavated from 1955 to 1966 by Manuel Heleno, the then director of the Museu Nacional de Arque-ologia (National Museum of Archaeology), and his team (Heleno 1956; Santos et al. 1974; Soares and Silva 2013). Ar-chaeological work on the Sado Mesolithic was resumed in the 1980s by José M. Arnaud, who revised mostly unpub-lished collections from Heleno’s fieldwork and opened new excavations at the sites of Cabeço das Amoreiras, Cabeço do Pez, and Poças de São Bento, the latter in collaboration with Lars Larsson (Arnaud 1990; Larsson 1996, 2010). How-ever, this promising programme was interrupted before its completion, and research in the Sado was nearly abandoned.

Thus, the Sado Mesolithic remained poorly known, with only a reference to the existence of cemeteries in shell mid-dens, lacking updated information despite some partial re-visions of the materials in the National Museum of Archae-ology (Araújo 1995–1997; Cunha and Umbelino 1995–1997; Diniz 2010; Nukushina 2012; Umbelino 2006; Umbelino and Cunha 2012).

This was the reason why the SADO MESO project was launched in 2010 as an interdisciplinary research project conducted by a Luso-Spanish team consisting of 33 re-searchers (archaeologists, geologists, archaeozoologists, archaeobotanists, and physicists). The SADO MESO pro-ject is included in a larger research programme proposing a comparative approach in studying processes of transition to the Neolithic in Atlantic Europe, funded by the Spanish government and by a grant from the Portuguese Science Agency (see the acknowledgements section at the end of this paper for details). The project attempts to investigate the evolution of human communities in the Sado Valley during the Mesolithic and Neolithic, combining system-atic fieldwork with new analysis of the material from the previous excavations. The main aim is to characterize late hunter-gatherers in this region from a regional perspective

41. New perspectives on the Mesolithic of the Sado Valley (southern Portugal): Preliminary results of the SADO MESO project 275

and to assess their contribution to early farming commu-nities (for a general summary of the project see Arias and Diniz 2015, 2020; Arias et al. 2015; Diniz and Arias 2012)

Field research (2010–2015)Notwithstanding a previous programme oriented towards the Palaeolithic in the middle and upper sector (Burke et al. 2011), no systematic archaeological survey of the Sado Valley had been attempted. This was one of the project’s first priorities. A sub-team led by Leonor Rocha and Enri-que Cerrillo investigated and registered transects through-out the region, focusing on areas where geomorphologi-cal analysis showed that the Middle Holocene sediments might have been preserved (Rocha et al. 2013). Among the results of this research, we can highlight the discovery of a new prehistoric shell midden in the lower Sado, the site of Barreirão (Fig. 41.1).

Simultaneously, a geological survey aiming at identify-ing sources of lithic raw materials was carried out under the direction of Nuno Pimentel and the collaboration of Diana Nukushina. The results of this survey show that most of the rocks knapped by Mesolithic groups (siliceous slates, chert, jasper, quartz, quartzite) were available in the region, most of them in the Paleogene conglomerates located between

Torrão and Alcácer do Sal. As the distribution of this kind of resources is not homogenous in that part of Alentejo, it is likely that the proximity to lithic raw material sourc-es might have been one of the factors contributing to the dense settlement of Mesolithic groups in that part of the valley (Pimentel et al. 2015).

Palaeoenvironmental analysis of the area was also among the priorities of the project, because the evolution of the Sado estuary during the Holocene is still poorly under-stood. Since 2012, we have developed a programme of sys-tematic sedimentological analysis of the alluvial plain of the Sado, including geophysical profiles of the valley and seven sedimentary cores, including two mechanical perforations reaching the bedrock. The samples obtained are currently under analysis by a team from the Faculty of Geology of the University of Lisbon led by Conceição Freitas and constitute one of the main sources for the PhD dissertation of one of the researchers in the project, Ana M. Costa.

Sedimentological analysis has also been performed at a micro-scale level. Four two-metre deep cores extracted by Eneko Iriarte and Carlos Duarte Simões using a per-cussion window sampler at the site of Poças de São Bento (Fig.  41.2) were hermetically sealed and conserved at 3–4 ºC, and later analyzed in the laboratory using an Avaatech

Fig. 41.1. Location of shell middens in the Sado Valley. Key: 1. Arapouco; 2. Cabeço do Rebolador; 3. Barreirão; 4. Poças de São Bento; 5. Fonte da Mina; 6. Barrada das Vieiras; 7. Cabeço das Amoreiras; 8. Vale de Romeiras; 9. Cabeço do Pez; 10. Várzea da Mó; 11. Barrada do Grilo; 12. Barranco da Moura.

Pablo Arias, Mariana T. Diniz, Ana Cristina Araújo, Ángel Armendariz, and Luis C. Teira276

XRF core-scanner. The prelim-inary results of one of the cores have already been published (Du-arte et al. 2015), providing valu-able evidence of the changes in human activity at that site, and in the context of the environmental evolution of the area during the Holocene. Further analyses were undertaken within the framework of Carlos Duarte Simões’ doctoral research, focussing on micromor-phology (Simões 2019).

The surveying techniques applied also included a detailed analysis of the interior parts of the sites. In 2013, an extensive archae-omagnetic survey was performed by Felix Teichner and Christoph Salzmann at the sites of Poças de São Bento and Vale de Romeiras, using a MAGNETO®-ARCH-5-ca-nal-system, produced by the firm Sensys Sensorik & Systemtech-nologie GmbH, with a measur-ing range of ±3000 nT and an accuracy of 0.1 nT. It allowed us to discover a wide range of mag-netic anomalies (Arias et al. 2017). At the site of Poças de São Bento, some of the anomalies were tested in the course of the ensuing exca-vation seasons, and in five out of six cases proved to be prehistoric features, including a Mesolithic human burial. At Romeiras, a preliminary interpretation of the geomagnetic survey suggests that the shell midden might have actually been larger than recorded during the previous fieldwork by Heleno’s team (Arnaud 1989). However, a fur-ther analysis is required to confirm this finding.

One of the main goals of the SADO MESO project was to understand shell middens’ formation processes. This was one of the aims of the archaeological excavations carried out. We have selected three sites seen as representative of the variability in the existing sample of sites and which were ap-parently reasonably well preserved: Cabeço do Pez and Ca-beço das Amoreiras, both placed in the most typical type of location, a promontory facing the alluvial plain – the former in the concentration which is farthest from the mouth of the river and the latter in the central part; and the third, Poças de São Bento, near a lateral rivulet in the lowest part of the concentration of sites, 3 km from the Sado (Fig. 41.1).

At Poças de São Bento, a total surface of 59.5 square metres was opened between 2010 and 2015 (Fig.  41.2).

Although some lateral variations were found, the stratigra-phy (generally around 1 to 1.5 m thick) is quite homogene-ous over most of the excavated areas. From bottom to top, the following units were distinguished (Fig. 41.3):• Geological substrate: Cenozoic ferruginous reddish or

yellowish sandstone and sands. • Phase A: Greyish sands with a low density of shells and

lithics. • Phase B: A dense accumulation of mollusc shells (main-

ly Scrobicularia plana and, in a smaller proportion, Cer-astoderma edule) in a sandy sediment with a low density of other kinds of archaeological materials. Radiocarbon dating has placed this phase between the late seventh and mid-sixth millennium cal BC.

• Phase C: Blackish sand with some allochthonous sand-stone blocks and a low density of shells and sparse ar-chaeological material, including lithics, bones, and a few Neolithic pottery sherds. This unit appears to corre-spond to the upper horizon of a palaeosol. Radiocarbon

Fig. 41.2. Poças de São Bento, indicating the excavation areas (S1to S11) and the sedimentology cores (PSB-A to PSB-D).

41. New perspectives on the Mesolithic of the Sado Valley (southern Portugal): Preliminary results of the SADO MESO project 277

dates are consistent with the style of pottery present here and confirm a dating to the early fifth millennium cal BC.

• Phase D: Yellowish sand with a low density of archaeo-logical remains, including some modern pottery.

• Surface. Modern soil.This interpretation is in good agreement with the re-

sults of the independent chemo-stratigraphical analysis, which characterized the sequence of the site as an aggra-dational soil record, resulting from the intercalation of pal-aeosols and aeolian sediments (Duarte et al. 2015), divided into phases which approximately correspond to those dis-tinguished during the excavation.

The main period of human activity at Poças de São Bento is Phase B, dating to the late seventh to mid-sixth millennium cal BC, which appears to correspond with the earliest human occupation of the site. The OSL analysis dating the sands of Phase A to c. 10,000 cal BC suggests that this layer may have been formed by post-depositional processes producing a ver-tical migration of archaeological material (mainly mollusc shells) from the Mesolithic deposit above. This type of mi-gration appears to have been frequent in sandy stratigraphies (Balek 2002; Gifford-Gonzalez et al. 1985). Phase B yielded a very high density of shells, justifying the description of the site as a ‘shell midden’. However, it was not particularly rich in other types of archaeological materials. Lithic indus-try consisted of trapezes and irregularly retouched flakes in addition to numerous blanks (Fig. 41.4) (Araújo et al. 2015). Bone artefacts and items of adornment were also found, the latter including ceramic pendants similar to those described by L. Larsson (2010, 39, fig. 10, 17–18). The mammal remains were dominated by red deer (Cervus elaphus), wild boar (Sus scrofa), and rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). However, the most interesting result of the excavations is the discovery of several anthropogenic structures, including cooking or stor-age pits, hearths, and two burials: a dog grave and a human interment, the latter detected through the geophysical survey.

Phase C, dating c. 5000 cal BC, appears separated from the Late Mesolithic layers described above by a chronolog-ical hiatus. The evidence of human presence is attested by a number of Neolithic sherds, suggesting that the site was frequented by early farming communities. However, the density of archaeological remains corresponding to this period is so low that the nature and causes of the activity of those groups in this area remain unclear and should be addressed through future research.

Cabeço das Amoreiras is a large site located on a small promontory (in Portuguese cabeço), dominating the cen-tral part of the section of the Sado Valley with a concentra-tion of evidence of Mesolithic settlement. At this site, four test pits were opened during the 2014 and 2015 field seasons of the SADO MESO project. Although the excavated area is still too small for far-reaching conclusions, the sequence appears to be quite similar to that described at Poças de São Bento. It is formed of a surface layer disturbed by recent human activity and animal burrowing, sandy layers with prehistoric and later pottery, and, at the bottom, a Meso-lithic deposit with a high density of estuarine shells (sim-ilar to other sites, these were mainly Scrobicularia plana and Cerastoderma edule). Apparently, the site must have been formed through an intense Mesolithic occupation dating to the late seventh and sixth millennia cal BC, with a later, less prominent, Neolithic presence, the material of which has previously been analyzed (Diniz 2010). Further human activity includes evidence from late Antiquity, con-sisting of fragments of pottery and a radiocarbon date that falls into the fifth century AD, obtained in the framework of the COASTTRAN project, on a dog (Canis familiaris) skeleton recovered during J. Arnaud’s excavations.

According to the information from previous projects, Ca-beço do Pez appears to be the largest Mesolithic site in the Sado Valley (c. 4000 square metres). Since extensive excava-tions by the team from the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia and more limited work by J. Arnaud already had cleared most

Fig. 41.3. Poças de São Bento. Stratigraphy on the northern section of excavation area 1.

Pablo Arias, Mariana T. Diniz, Ana Cristina Araújo, Ángel Armendariz, and Luis C. Teira278

of the central Mesolithic settlement area, our excavation fo-cused on the edges of the shell midden, one of them located in the north-western part of the site and the other close to the upper part of the southern slope. These excavations revealed a complex stratigraphy with an important lateral variability, and, in the latter investigated area, showed strong erosional processes. As with the previously described sites, the main phase of the prehistoric presence at the site corresponds to the Late Mesolithic (with radiocarbon dates covering the sixth millennium cal BC), followed, apparently after a hiatus, by a Neolithic occupation.

Laboratory analyses As mentioned above, the SADO MESO project focuses on the systematic application of a series of scientific techniques to the archaeological record of Holocene sites in the valley. There-fore, the representativeness of the samples is of key importance in obtaining reliable results. Hence fieldwork procedures have followed a most detailed protocol, designed by the directors of the excavation in collaboration with Patricia Fernández and Jorge Vallejo. In the field, the system was based on the subdi-vision of the material into Stratigraphic Units (SU), following E. Harris’s (1989) system of recording along with georeferenc-ing of all visible archaeological items and sediment in 10 dm3 units. This procedure allowed us to achieve an accuracy of 1 cm for the objects recorded in situ and of <13.4 cm for those recovered from sediment samples. All recovered material, in-cluding sedimentary units, was recorded in the field and reg-istered in a database, controlling the whole process in the field lab using a barcode system. All sediments from prehistoric layers were processed using a Syraf-type flotation machine and sieving the resulting residue using a 250 μm mesh or in the case of heavier sediment residue using a 2 mm mesh. The former was sorted under a binocular microscope by an ar-chaeobotanist, whereas the latter was sorted using naked eye to recover lithics, bone, pottery, and items of adornment. Due to their high density, the molluscs, fish, and micromammal

remains were totally recovered from a random subsample of 12.5 percent obtained using a riffle box.

Among the results of the analyses, we should highlight the excellent returns of the systematic sampling for plant macro-remains. The Sado sites have provided one of the best collections of plant macro-remains for the Mesolith-ic of south-western Europe. The analysis conducted by Inés López-Dóriga’ provided substantial data on the exploitation of a wide range of wild plants by the Mesolithic communities of the Sado (López-Dóriga 2016; López-Dóriga et al. 2015).

The preliminary results of the sedimentary sampling have demonstrated that during the Middle Holocene estua-rine conditions prevailed in the Sado Valley up to São Bento (Costa et al. 2019, 2020). Further work is needed to estab-lish the exact limits of the palaeoestuary of the Sado and to check whether differences in stable isotope values in human remains found between the lower sites and those located upstream could relate to different distances from estuarine resources. Moreover, the preliminary analysis of the fish re-mains from Poças de São Bento shows a clear predominance of open-sea species, such as sardines (Sardina pilchardus) over estuarine species (Sónia Gabriel, pers. comm.). If the preliminary results are corroborated with other strands of data, an alternative hypothesis will be necessary to justify the intriguing presence of sites with a high density of marine re-mains so far away from the coast.

Some experimental archaeology programmes are cur-rently in progress within our project that try to fulfil one of its objectives: understanding the shell midden formation processes. With that aim, at Poças de São Bento, our collabo-rator Carlos Duarte Simões has created an experimental ac-cumulation of Scrobicularia plana shells on the sand of the site’s sterile Quaternary sediments. The evolution of this ar-tificially created sediment accumulation is being monitored systematically to account for a series of important variables. In addition, Ana M. Costa carries out a study of the effect of fire on shells of the same species that will probably help us in

Fig. 41.4. Poças de São Bento. Lithic industries.

41. New perspectives on the Mesolithic of the Sado Valley (southern Portugal): Preliminary results of the SADO MESO project 279

understanding the high degree of variability in the shell mid-den sediments observed during our excavations.

Preliminary resultsAs the title of this section stresses, SADO MESO is an ongo-ing project, so most of the results must be considered provi-sional and possibly subject to revisions in the light of future research. The factors influencing the Mesolithic settlement pattern in the Sado Valley are still not well understood. On-going research will probably provide more information on the depth of the palaeoestuary, something critical for the eco-nomic and social organization of the regional hunter-gather-ers. We should also assess the relevance of other factors, such as access to freshwater sources, or the supply network of lithic raw materials.

At the micro-scale level, recent excavations at Cabeço do Pez, Amoreiras, and Poças de São Bento confirm that the Sado shell middens cannot be described as mounds like other sites of this kind elsewhere. They rather appear to be extend-ed and heterogeneous surfaces with irregular, but generally shallow accumulation of shells and other coeval material. It must be noted that there were more negative features than expected, as already observed in Larsson’s work at Poças de São Bento.

An interesting finding linked to the symbolic realm ire-lates to the discovery of a dog burial, a feature found in the northern European Mesolithic and absent from southern Europe, although some evidence of such features has been found in the Tagus sites (Detry and Cardoso 2010).

The transition to the Neolithic is still very poorly under-stood (see Diniz et al. this volume). Despite a number of ra-diocarbon dates that suggest a continuity in the formation of some shell middens until the late sixth or the early fifth millennium cal BC (Cabeço do Pez, Cabeço das Amoreiras), there is no clear evidence of a continuity at these sites across the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic. Howev-er, as shown above, several Mesolithic sites have provided Neolithic pottery and other indications of the presence of early farmers. This is an intriguing fact if, as it appears to have been the case, a discontinuity in human settlement is confirmed. Why did the Neolithic groups return, centuries later, to the places where the last hunter-gatherers had once lived and buried their dead? This is an interesting question for further research in this area.

As we have recently highlighted (Arias et al. 2015), the evidence gathered by our project tends to suggest that a par-allelism between the Sado sites and the classic shell middens of the Tagus estuary may be more apparent than real. Crucial aspects, such as the morphology of the sites, or their relation-ship with the environment, and particularly with the estua-rine areas, appear to have been quite different. It is possible that, to a large extent, the similarity lies in a fact that might not be really crucial despite its obviousness: the accumula-tion of mollusc shells. However, we need to carefully consider

whether more relevant aspects of subsistence, economy, and social organization were really that similar or, to the contra-ry, we are facing different coeval societies in relatively analo-gous environments.

AcknowledgementsThe research on the SADO MESO project is funded by the Spanish Government Plan for R+D (projects HAR2011-29907-C03-00, subprojects 01, 02, and 03, HAR2014-51830-P, and HAR2017-82557-P) and the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) (PTDC/HIS-ARQ/121592/2010). The Direção Geral do Património Cultur-al (DGPC) authorized the project and commissioned some researchers to the team. We are also grateful to the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia in Lisbon, the Câmara Municipal de Alcácer do Sal, and the Fregresia de Torrão. Special thanks are due to the generosity of the owners of Poças de São Bento and Cabeço do Pez, respectively Dr Miguel Portela de Morais (Moragri Sociedade Agrícola, S. A.) and the Lynce de Faria family, who not only authorized our team to conduct work on their property, but also have acted as real Maecenas of the project. And last, but not least, our gratitude goes to the effi-cient and dedicated team of archaeologists and students from the Universities of Lisbon and Cantabria and the DGPC who made the fieldwork possible.

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Foraging Assemblages Volume 1

Edited by Dušan Borić,Dragana Antonović, and Bojana Mihailović

Fora

ging

Ass

embl

ages

Volume

1Volume 1Transitions – Beginnings

Colonization

Landscapes

Settlement

Regional Identities

Volume 2People in Their Environment

Technology

Social Relations, Communication, Mobility

Rites and Symbols

Transitions – Endings

Representing and Narrating the Mesolithic

Foraging Assemblages is the publication of the proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on the Mesolithic in Europe, held in Belgrade in September 2015. The two volumes of these proceedings gather 121 contributions on Mesolithic research in Europe, covering almost every corner of the continent. The book presents a cross-section of recent Mes-olithic research, with geographic foci ranging from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, and from Ireland to Russia and Georgia. The papers in the vol-umes cover diverse topics and are grouped into 11 thematic sections, each with an introduction written by prominent Mesolithic experts. The reader will learn about changes in forager lifeways and the colonization of new territories at the end of the Ice Age and the beginning of the Holocene warming; the use of diverse landscapes and resources; climatic instabili-ties that influenced patterns of settlement and subsistence; the organiza-

tion of settlements and dwelling spaces; the formation of region-al identities expressed through various aspects of material cul-ture and technologies of artefact production, use, and discard; aspects of social relations and mobility; symbolic, ritual, and mortuary practices; diverse ways in which Mesolithic communities of Europe were transformed into or superseded by Neolithic ways of being; and how we have re-searched, represented, and dis-cussed the Mesolithic.