Stones in Motion: Cost units to understand flint procurement strategies during the Upper Palaeolithic in the south-western Pyrenees using GIS

Abstract

Studies on lithic resource management-mainly flint-by prehistoric groups south of the western Pyrenees have significantly increased during the past decades. These studies usually focus on identifying outcrops and characterising the different varieties found at archaeological sites. However, the understanding of mobility and territorial management patterns based on raw materials is still very limited and has only been tackled in terms of lineal distance. This paper proposes a methodological approach for the territorial analysis of flint distribution with the three following aims: 1) to determine the expansion ranges of each variety of flint from its outcrop; 2) to spatially relate these outcrops with archaeological sites; and 3) to improve our knowledge on the catchment strategies of Upper Palaeolithic groups. The methodological tool chosen to fulfil these objectives is the Geographic Information System (GIS), because it allows to relate spatially the flint outcrops and flint varieties identified at archaeological sites based on: 1) isocost maps showing the cost of expansion for each variety of flint across the territory built on topography; 2) the quantification of the cost of expansion using Cost Units (CU); and 3) the relationship between the percentage of each variety of flint at each archaeological site and the cost of accessing its outcrop. In order to demonstrate that cost is a powerful way to relate spatially raw material distribution and archaeological sites with outcrops, we contrasted its results with the ones obtained by more classic means (Euclidean distance and distance across the most optimal route). It was therefore shown that cost is better at explaining the spatial relationship between flint outcrops and archaeological sites, which, in turn, provides new data on catchment strategies, mobility patterns and territorial management of Upper Palaeolithic groups.

Filling the void: a new Palaeolithic cave art site at Danbolinzulo in the Basque Country

“…There was continuous settlement during the Upper Palaeolithic, with the exception of the Early Solutrean (c. 25 kya)-a period of sparse population throughout the Cantabrian area. The Basque Country is also thought to have been the main route of communication between Iberia and the rest of the continent (Arrizabalaga 2007;Prieto et al 2016). Regarding cave art, the region could, however, then be characterised as representing a 'void' during the Upper Palaeolithic: its apparent dearth seeming very significant, particularly in the pre-Magdalenian.…”

Quartzite procurement in conglomerates and deposits: Geoarchaeological characterization of potential catchment areas in the central part of the Cantabrian Region, Spain

“…From these, we have selected locations of massive strata of highly siliceous rocks, conglomerate formations, and secondary deposits. Finally, and to determine the most favorable areas of transit and the cost of moving from the archaeological sites to each potential catchment areas, we generated cost maps and calculated the cost distance from each site to the nearest geological stratum or geological deposit, following the proposals of Prieto et al (2016) and Sánchez et al (2016).…”

“…These studies, based on flint sourcing, also provide information connected with flint procurement strategies and mobility circuits. Moreover, together with other proxies of analysis such as Geographic Information System (GIS), technological characterization of the lithics, or use‐wear analysis, flint sourcing provides interesting data about prehistoric territoriality and technological management of resources (e.g., Arrizabalaga et al, 2014; Herrero‐Alonso et al, 2020; Prieto et al, 2016; Turq et al, 2013, 2017).…”

Upper Palaeolithic lithic raw material sourcing in Central and Northern Portugal as an aid to reconstructing hunter-gatherer societies

“…Despite discussions on the advantages and disadvantages of the use of different algorithms (Herzog 2010), we believe that least-cost paths are a better approximation of distance travelled than simple linear distances (Aubry et al 2012;Prieto et al 2016). In the present work we have used the National Park Service Travel Time Cost Surface Model (TTCSM), a script created to define least-cost paths for hikers (Frakes et al 2014), transforming cost paths into time.…”