The acheulean technocomplex in the lower Miño basin (NW Iberian Peninsula) as an example of technological continuity through the Middle Pleistocene

Abstract

The river Miño is one of the main Atlantic river basins of Iberia. Despite the good preservation of the Middle Pleistocene sedimentary record in the region, there is very little information available about human occupations during this time range. Nevertheless, a research project focused on this area has recently led to the identification of several Acheulean sites of large flake blank (LFB) type with some LCT of African affinities (e.g., Gándaras of Budiño, Porto Maior or Arbo, among others). These sites are found in fluvial deposits associated with the system terraces between +40 m and +20 m above the current Miño river level. Their chronology range between MIS 9 and 6, and the study of the large lithic materials collections suggests a strong technological continuity over this time range. During this period, two different technical systems (i.e., Acheulean and the Early Middle Paleolithic) are apparently coexisting in South-western Europe. The most frequent raw materials found at this sites are quartzites and quartzes and have a clear differential economic concept in this management. The lithic assemblages are characterised by elementary reduction patterns (monopolar fundamentally), peripheral, bipolar on anvil or discoidal, but without an organised reduction system, in contrast to levallois or quina. The LCTs' chaine operatoires, mainly handaxes and cleaver on flakes, are very important and only in some sites (e.g., Porto Maior). These LCTs are shaped on large flakes, extracted from giant cores or sometimes from pebbles with an appropriate morphology. The information obtained from the Middle Pleistocene archaeological sites of the Miño basin is close to that of other sites in the SW of Europe with similar chronologies, and suggests the coexistence of two different technological behaviours around ca. 300-150 ka: the Acheulean and the Early Middle Paleolithic.