a b s t r a c tThe pre-Magdalenian phase of the Côa River Valley open-air rock art is mostly distributed at the boundary between the rocky valley slopes and the floodplain that correspond to the most favourable geomorphological setting for the preservation of pecked and deeply superposed engravings of the most famous artistic phase of the area. The natural vertical panels of the engraved art located at this geomorphological interface have suffered weathering during two cold events of the Lateglacial. They were buried by several colluvial and alluvial deposits. The reconstruction of the sedimentary and archaeological context of the CôaRiver Valley engraving permits a better assessment of the preservation processes and interpretation of Palaeolithic open-air rock art.

A study of the differential preservation of the famous Côa engravings, in the light of the site of Fariseu, place the distribution of the art in a chronological setting, which is in turn placed within the context of lithic raw material procurement.

International audienceThe use of fire is a well-established human practice, at least from the Late Pleistocene. The variability in fuel type highlights complex practices regarding fire technology throughout this period. This contribution provides the organic signatures from fireplaces and is based on a set of experimental studies using different types of fuel, notably bone and/or wood. Soil layers affected by fire operation were compared with soils unaffected by heating and soils impregnated with unburned bone fat. The carbon content and lipid and bulk organic matter (OM) composition were determined through organic carbon measurement, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), as well as TMAH (tetramethylammonium hydroxide)-assisted pyrolysis (py) coupled to GC–MS