Lithic refitting and intrasite artifact transport: a view from the Middle Paleolithic
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Lithic refitting and intrasite artifact transport: a view from the Middle Paleolithic Manuel Vaquero 1,2 & Francesca Romagnoli 3 & Amèlia Bargalló 4 & M. Gema Chacón 1,2,5 & Bruno Gómez de Soler 1,2 & Andrea Picin 6 & Eudald Carbonell 1,2 Received: 13 July 2018 / Accepted: 19 March 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract The intrasite mobility of lithic artifacts is one of the most relevant issues that can be approached from the spatial study of refitting. In many sites, researchers have determined that some artifacts were abandoned at a considerable distance from the place where they were produced. Once natural causes of a post-depositional nature are ruled out, the most likely hypothesis to explain these movements is intentional displacement by humans. However, the interpretation of such intentional movements is particularly difficult, since the intrasite mobility of lithic artifacts can be related to at least four different factors: (a) refuse disposal strategies, (b) functional complementarity between different activity areas, (c) social relations between different domestic units, and (d) recycling. Each of these factors has different implications concerning questions as important as the spatial organization within campsites or contemporaneity between activity areas. To address this issue, it is necessary to have a representative sample of transport episodes and to analyze aspects such as the connection length, the directionality of the movements, the type of artifacts transported, and the activities carried out both in the place of origin and in the place of destination. As an example, in this work, we analyze the longdistance displacements identified in different Middle Paleolithic levels from the Abric Romaní (Capellades, Spain). Keywords Refitting . Intrasite movement . Middle Paleolithic . Recycling . Abric Romaní
Introduction * Manuel Vaquero [email protected] 1
Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES), Zona Educacional 4, Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3), 43007 Tarragona, Spain
2
Àrea de Prehistòria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Avinguda de Catalunya 35, 43002 Tarragona, Spain
3
Departamento de Prehistoria y Arqueología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria de Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain
4
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, Gordon Square 31-34, London, Great Britain WC1H 0PY, UK
5
UMR7194 – HNHP (CNRS – MNHN –UPVD – Sorbonne Universités), 1 rue René Panhard, 75013, Paris – Musée de l’Homme, 17 Place du Trocadéro, 75016 Paris, France
6
Department of Human Evolution, Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
Refitting is a far-reaching method the results of which can contribute useful information to a wide array of archeological topics. Among these, those related to spatial analysis have played a primary role, especially since the time when researchers became interested in the spatial dimension of archeological site
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