Raw material discernment and technological aspects of the Barranco León and Fuente Nueva 3 stone assemblages (Orce southern Spain)

Adaptive Flexibility of Oldowan Hominins: Secondary Use of Flakes at Bizat Ruhama, Israel

“…The development of such a system reflects high adaptive flexibility and creativity and indicates that Oldowan hominins employed more complex operational schemes than has previously been suggested. In Oldowan sites, flakes were usually obtained directly from raw material nodules [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [11], [41], [46], [47], [49], [60], whereas flakes that were used as cores for removal of small flakes are extremely rare [1], [30], [47], [52], [60], [61]. Retouched artifacts are also rare in the Oldowan, and in recent studies of the assemblages from Olduvai Beds I and II by de la Torre and Mora [30] some of the items previously identified as retouched tools have been reclassified as natural pieces.…”

Human occupation of Iberia prior to the Jaramillo magnetochron (>1.07 Myr)

“…The time lag between Asia and Europe is likely to be ecological or topographic, but perhaps not latitudinal as Nihewan is at the same latitude as Atapuerca (Dennell, 2013). In the case of the Iberian Peninsula, the first hominin population is documented at 1.3 Myr at Fuente Nueva 3 and Barranco Le on D (Orce) and at 1.2 Myr at Sima del Elefante (Atapuerca) Toro-Moyano et al, 2009, 2011Barsky et al, 2010;Oll e et al, 2013). In the rest of Europe, the oldest hominin occupation before this subchron could well include other pre-Jaramillo sites such as L ezignan la C ebe (1.6e1.5 Myr), Untermassfeld (1.1 Myr), Pont de Lavaud (1.1 Myr), and sites such as Pirro Nord (1.7e1.3 Myr), Kozarnika cave (1.6e1.4 Myr) and Bogatyri/Sinyaya Balka and Rodniki (1.2e1.1 Myr) (Despri ee et al, 2006;Arzarello et al, 2007Arzarello et al, , 2009Arzarello et al, , 2012Crochet et al, 2009;Landeck, 2010;Shchelinsky et al, 2010;Sirakov et al, 2010;Garcia et al, 2013b).…”

“…Deposit outcrops exposed in the upper members of the Baza Formation bordering the paleo-lake Baza reach up to almost 100 m in thickness. The archaeological material from Barranco Le on D and Fuente Nueva 3 includes the oldest Iberian Mode 1 lithic assemblage associated with herbivore remains, some of which were consumed by hominins, and a fossil hominin tooth at Barranco Le on D, which was found in an open-air context in silty limestone lacustrine deposits (Toro-Moyano et al, 2009, 2011Barsky et al, 2010). Fuente Nueva 3 comprises successive beds of calcareous and fine silty sandy deposits with some fragments of freshwater mollusc shells.…”

“…However, the human occupations detected at the Spanish sites of Fuente Nueva 3 and Barranco Le on D (Orce) and Sima del Elefante TE9 (Atapuerca) have been associated with a chronology prior to the Jaramillo subchron (1.07e0.99 Myr; Carbonell et al, 2008;Toro-Moyano et al, 2009, 2011Barsky et al, 2010;Oll e et al, 2013). Moreover, the archaeological sequence shown by the oldest archaeological Spanish sites has suggested that this occupation was continuous throughout the late Early Pleistocene , persisting from before the Jaramillo to the Matuyama-Brunhes boundary (0.78 Myr) (Fig.…”

Limestone percussion tools from the late Early Pleistocene sites of Barranco León and Fuente Nueva 3 (Orce, Spain)

“…The limestone assemblages comprise whole and broken cobbles or blocks, cores and some large shaped tools. The correlation between raw material type and tool function is clear: flint was preferred for small flake production and limestone for heavy-duty percussive activities [47]. While the bulk of the limestone was expediently knapped, the flint cores and flakes yield relatively lengthy reduction sequences.…”