First evidence of an extensive Acheulean large cutting tool accumulation in Europe from Porto Maior (Galicia, Spain)

Abstract

We describe a European Acheulean site characterised by an extensive accumulation of large cutting tools (LCT). This type of Lower Paleolithic assemblage, with dense LCT accumulations, has only been found on the African continent and in the Near East until now. The identification of a site with large accumulations of LCTs favours the hypothesis of an African origin for the Acheulean of Southwest Europe. The lithic tool-bearing deposits date back to 293–205 thousand years ago. Our chronological findings confirm temporal overlap between sites with clear “African” Acheulean affinities and Early Middle Paleolithic sites found elsewhere in the region. These complex technological patterns could be consistent with the potential coexistence of different human species in south-western Europe during the Middle Pleistocene.

ESR and ESR/U-series chronology of the Middle Pleistocene site of Tourville-la-Rivière (Normandy, France) - A multi-laboratory approach

“…A multiple centre approach seems therefore indispensable when dating this type of fluvio-estuarine sediment, even when the sedimentological characteristics of the sediments seem initially quite suitable for an ESR study (as it was the case for the Tourville D1 and I units). Similar observations have been recently made on fluvial deposits from Spain (Duval et al, 2017;Méndez-Quintas et al, 2018), Italy (Pereira et al, 2015(Pereira et al, , 2018Voinchet et al, this issue) or France (Duval et al, submitted).…”

“…Previous cross-comparison studies showed good agreement with results derived from other numerical dating methods such as Luminescence, U-series and 40 Ar (e.g. Duval et al, 2017;Méndez-Quintas et al, 2018;Pereira et al, 2018). Unfortunately, given the very limited number of laboratories and researchers specialized in the ESR dating applications mentioned above, inter-laboratory comparison studies remain very rare.…”

Extinction of eastern Sahul megafauna coincides with sustained environmental deterioration

“…Equivalent dose (D e ) values were determined for single quartz grains using the single aliquot regenerative dose (SAR) procedure 85 and only accepted for dating purposes if they satisfied a series of quality assurance criteria 86 . Single-grain D e measurements were made using the experimental apparatus described by Dumero et al 87 and Méndez-Quintas et al 88 after manually loading quartz grains into standard single-grain aluminium discs drilled with an array of 300 × 300-μm holes.…”

La industria lítica del yacimiento Achelense de Arbo (Pontevedra). Variables del Paleolítico Inferior de Galicia en el contexto peninsular

“…En este sentido tanto el yacimiento de Arbo como el de Porto Maior, con referencias cronológicas sólidas que los sitúan hacia los mis 8 y 6 respectivamente, constituyen ejemplos temporalmente avanzados del tecnocomplejo achelense, pero con paralelos en el contexto peninsular (Sánchez Cervera et al, 2015). La coexistencia de conjuntos achelenses y Paleolítico Medio antiguo dibuja un escenario cultural y posiblemente paleoantropológico mucho más complejo del que se desprendía de la tradicional visión gradualista sobre el proceso de cambio entre el Paleolítico Inferior y Medio, casi exclusiva en la investigación europea desde principios del s. xx (Chazan, 2009;Santonja et al, 2016).…”