Call it home: Mesolithic dwellings in the Ebro Basin (NE Spain)

Abstract

This paper summarises our knowledge of Mesolithic space management-which concerns the choice of the living place itself and the recognisable dwelling structuresin the Middle Ebro Basin, where more than fifteen accurately dated Mesolithic sites have been found and excavated in the last several decades. In the last forty years, the Ebro Basin has emerged as the most important area for the study of the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic period in the Iberian Peninsula. Dozens of recently excavated sites with hundreds of accurate radiocarbon dates offer a good panorama of the transition from traditional hunting-gathering strategies to the gradual incorporation of Neolithic innovations. Nevertheless, much remains unknown in wide areas across the basin due to poor conservation or mere research defaults, so there is still much work to do. For brevity and research tradition, this paper will be restricted to the Middle Ebro Basin. The vast majority of documented Mesolithic sites throughout the basin occupy the frequent limestone, sandstone or conglomeratic rockshelters that proliferate in the ranges flanking the north and the lower flat areas in the south. There, natural "roofed" refuges are scarce, and prehistoric groups inhabited open-air campsites. Archaeological surveys are difficult to conduct in these flat terrains due to high-scale Holocene erosive processes, which hamper our knowledge of the actual dwelling strategies in Mesolithic times. Across the basin, only one open-air site is known about compared to more than forty rockshelters. Of these, most share common elements: they are small, open to the rising sun and appear next to rivers or ravines, guaranteeing access to fresh water and control of potential game. Some show evidence of human presence from the Magdalenian times; others were in use in the Neolithic period and beyond. A common feature is the final prehistoric usage of funerary sites during the Chalcolithic period. Many sites are in close vicinity to one another, but due to the imprecision of our data, it is impossible to know with certainty whether different groups occupied them at the same time. Most habitual structures found in them are hearths, usually circled (or even paved) with local cobbles or slabs, but some space arrangements (rudimentary walls, postholes…) have been occasionally documented.

The end of the Ice Age in southern Europe: Iberian images in the Palaeolithic to Post-Palaeolithic transition

“…The population at outdoor sites (Araújo 2003;Fernández López de Pablo et al 2011;Angevin 2012;Schwendler 2012;Dumarçay & Caron 2010;Peeters & Momber 2014;Canals et al 2014;Naudinot et al 2014;Sterling 2015;Vialou 2015;Jones 2016;Bergadà et al 2018), as well as the number of graphic representations with territorial impact (Bahn 1982;Conkey 1990;Mangado et al 2010;Gárate Maidagán et al 2015;Ruiz-Redondo 2016;Fuentes 2017;Man-Estier & Paillet 2019;Fuentes et al 2019), increased during the Magdalenian. Funerary sequences that, at some sites, reach the 8 th millennium BP should also be considered in this context (Gibaja et al 2012(Gibaja et al , 2015Fernández López de Pablo et al 2013;Grünberg 2016;Peyroteo 2016;Bicho et al 2016;Orschiedt 2018;Bueno Ramírez et al 2018;Domingo et al 2018;Sparacello et al 2018;Zagorska et al 2018). Archaeological research supports these records' potential and extends our image of early Holocene hunter sites to cover the whole of Iberia (Bueno Ramírez et al 2007a, 2016bRodanés Vincente & Picazo Millán 2009;Arias et al 2009;Vidal & Prada 2010;Aubry et al 2010;Bicho et al 2010Bicho et al , 2011…”

Mobility across the pre-Pyrenean mountain ranges during the Chalcolithic through strontium isotopes in human enamel: La Cueva de los Cristales (Sarsa de Surta, Huesca, Spain)

“…Utrilla and Mazo, 2014;Utrilla and Laborda, 2018;Martínez-Moreno et al, 2010), Mesolithic (e.g. Utrilla et al, 2009;Utrilla and Mazo, 2014;Domingo et al, 2018;Berdejo et al, 2018) and Early Neolithic (e.g. Utrilla and Laborda, 2018;Mazzucco et al, 2013;Lancelotti et al, 2014;Rojo et al, 2015).…”

Mesolithic dwelling structures: from methodological approaches to archaeological interpretation

“…The paper by Domingo et al (2018) summarizes the current evidence on Mesolithic dwelling structures in the Middle Ebro River Basin (North Spain). In contrast to most of the papers included in this special issue, which focus in one site, here the authors review the features documented from sixteen sites located in rockshelters, and one single open air site.…”