0000000000194974
AUTHOR
C. Michael Barton
Risk and resilience in the late glacial: A case study from the western Mediterranean
Abstract The period spanning the Last Glacial Maximum through early Holocene encompasses dramatic and rapid environmental changes that offered both increased risk and new opportunities to human populations of the Mediterranean zone. The regional effects of global climate change varied spatially with latitude, topography, and distance from a shifting coastline; and human adaptations to these changes played out at these regional scales. To better understand the spatial and temporal dynamics of climate change and human social-ecological-technological systems (or SETS) during the transition from full glacial to interglacial, we carried out a meta-analysis of archaeological and paleoenvironmenta…
Paperless survey? New methodological approaches to archaeological fieldwork, the case of Navarrés (València)
El trabajo que presentamos se ha desarrollado en el marco del proyecto NSF “The Emergence of Coupled Natural and Human Landscapes in the Western Mediterranean” en el área comprendida por la actual comarca de La Canal de Navarres, situada al suroeste de la provincia de Valencia. Este espacio se convierte en una de las áreas elegidas para un programa de recogida de datos centrado en la prospección sistemática “off site “. En las jornadas “Dando sentido a la prospección arqueológica” nos centraremos en los aspectos metodológicos que hemos desarrollado para llevar a cabo el trabajo de campo. Esta ha sido la primera vez que hemos realizado una prospección arqueológica, en una zona completamente …
Wandering through the Mesolithic. An archaeostatistical approach to explore the mobility patterns in eastern Iberia
Abstract Tracing hunter-gatherer's mobility has been a recurring topic both in anthropological and archaeological literature. Following Binford's approach (1980), ethnographic comparisons have been brought out in order to better understand mobility patterns among Palaeolithic and Mesolithic groups, and how they relate with their environment, thus formulating a system where a main difference in mobility structure is pronounced on the distinction between residential and logistical camps. After some efforts made in order to relate the lithic record with such model (Clark and Barton, 2017), in this work we explore how lithic industry can be a reliable proxy for understanding the mobility patter…
Surviving the Holocene: Human Ecological Responses to the Current Interglacial in Southern Valencia, Spain
For hunter-gatherer groups, the dramatic changes in climate at the end of the last glacial cycle necessitated rearrangement of land use, including shifts in mobility strategies, settlement location, and resource use. We examine these behavioral changes using lithic attribute data as well as spatial distributions of artifacts and features. Using data from intensive survey and excavation, we trace human ecological response through the onset of the current interglacial in central Mediterranean Spain, comparatively far from the margins of the north-temperate ice sheets.
In glacial environments beyond glacial terrains: Human eco-dynamics in late Pleistocene Mediterranean Iberia
The Iberian Peninsula south of the Ebro River enjoyed one of the mildest climates of Pleistocene Europe, but still experienced significant and rapid environmental shifts caused by global climate regimes. We examine the interplay between technological, social, and land-use dynamics as culturally mediated responses to climate change outside the periglacial zone. We combine information from excavated sites across eastern and southeastern Spain with systematic survey data from an intensive study area within this larger region to examine Upper Paleolithic behavioral adaptations to the environmental shifts of the late Pleistocene (late MIS-3 through MIS-2). We define indexes that serve as proxies…
Landscape Socioecology in the Serpis Valley (10,000–4000 BP)
En este trabajo se discute nuestro enfoque de la modelización del paisaje para la cuenca del Serpis medio (costa mediterránea central de la Península Ibérica) durante el Holoceno. La secuencia arqueológica de estos valles está marcada por la aparición inicial del paquete neolítico alrededor del año 5700 a.C. Examinamos cómo los paisajes responden al modo de vida agrícola, tanto a corto como a largo plazo. Conceptos como el cambio, la adaptación y también la resiliencia proporcionan marcos conceptuales para comprender mejor la forma en que los seres humanos interactúan con su entorno. También ayudan a explicar cómo fenómenos como la introducción inicial de la horticultura simple de cereales …
Examen de las dinámicas socio-ecológicas en el valle medio del Xuquer (Valencia) desde el Paleolítico Medio hasta el Calcolítico
En paisajes intensamente modificados por terrazas agrícolas y otros usos modernos del suelo, el patrón espacial y temporal del poblamiento prehistórico puede ser difícil de detectar usando métodos de prospección arqueológica tradicionales orientados a la localización de yacimientos part iculares. El abancalamiento del territorio para su explotación agrícola es norma común en el área de trabajo, por lo que es necesario examinar el paisaje en su conjunto, en lugar de intentar localiza r zonas concretas de actividad ant rópica prehistórica. Para superar estos desafíos, se ha empleado una estrategia estratificada, seleccionando aleato ria me nte las parcelas a prospectar, para examinar las diná…
Experimental socioecology: Integrative science for anthropocene landscape dynamics
Abstract The emergence of coupled natural and human landscapes marked a transformative interval in the human past that set our species on the road to the urbanized, industrial world in which we live. This emergence enabled technologies and social institutions responsible for human-natural couplings in domains beyond rural, agricultural settings. The Mediterranean Landscape Dynamics Project (MedLand) is studying the interacting social and biophysical processes associated with these novel socioecological systems and their long-term consequences using a new form of 'experimental socioecology' made possible by recent advances in computation. We briefly describe the MedLand modeling laboratory, …
Resiliencia y cambio durante el Holoceno en La Canal de Navarrés (Valencia): recientes trabajos de prospección
Presentamos en este trabajo una evaluación inicial de los trabajos de prospección sistemática llevados a cabo en la comarca de La Canal de Navarrés (Valencia) desde el año 2014 en el marco del proyecto NSF "The Emergence of Coupled Natural and Human Landscapes in the Western Mediterranean". El programa desarrollado ha seguido un protocolo previamente establecido por nuestro equipo de trabajo con la novedad de la incorporación de nuevas tecnologías en el trabajo de campo (dispositivos electrónicos) cuyo objetivo ha sido agilizar el procesado de la información posterior en el laboratorio mediante el uso de un entorno GIS. Los resultados obtenidos confirman la presencia de materiales en difere…
A Bayesian Approach for Timing the Neolithization in Mediterranean Iberia
AbstractIn this paper, we compile recent14C dates related to the Neolithic transition in Mediterranean Iberia and present a Bayesian chronological approach for testing thedual model, a mixed model proposed to explain the spread of farming and husbandry processes in eastern Iberia. The dual model postulates the coexistence of agricultural pioneers and indigenous Mesolithic foraging groups in the Middle Holocene. We test this general model with more regional models of four geographical areas (Northeast, Upper, and Middle Ebro Valley, and Eastern and South/Southeastern regions) and present a filtered summed probability of all14C dates known in the region in order to compare socioecological dyn…
Modeling initial Neolithic dispersal. The first agricultural groups in West Mediterranean
Abstract In previous research, the SE-NW time-trend in the age of the earliest Neolithic sites across Europe has been treated as a signal of a global-scale process that brought farming/herding economies to the continent. Residual variation from this global time-trend is generally treated as ‘noise’. A Complex Adaptive Systems perspective views this empirical record differently. The apparent time-trend is treated as an emergent consequence of the interactions of individuals and groups of different scale. Here, we examine the dynamics of agricultural dispersals, using the rich body evidence available from the Iberian Peninsula as a case study. We integrate two complementary approaches: (1) cr…
A Taphonomic Perspective on Neolithic Beginnings: Theory, Interpretation, and Empirical Data in the Western Mediterranean
The fills of caves and rockshelters generally comprise complex depositional palimpsests, making fine scale chronological resolution extremely difficult. Nevertheless, these settings remain very important in archaeology because they often preserve long records of cultural change. This is true for the initial appearance of food producing economies in the western Mediterranean. The chronologically ambiguous nature of cave and shelter deposits is one of the reasons for the continued debate over the processes responsible for the beginning of the Neolithic in this region. We employ taphonomic studies of the archeofaunal record from Mesolithic and early Neolithic cave and shelter sites in Mediterr…
Prospecciones sistemáticas en la Depressió de L’Alcoi (Alacant): analizando las colecciones superficiales
En el siguiente texto se presentan los resultados procedentes de las prospec- ciones llevadas a cabo en el valle medio del río Serpis (Alacant, España) durante la últimas década del siglo XX. Éstas siguen la estrategia donde la organización de las colecciones no sigue el concepto de yacimiento. Por otra parte se presentan las ventajas de la utilización de los Sistemas de Posicionamiento Global (GPS) y los Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG) como mecanismo básico no sólo para el tratamiento de las colecciones arqueológi- cas sino también para la actualización de los datos documentados durante las prospeccio- nes llevadas a cabo durante los años 80 y principios de los 90. …
Patch-based survey methods for studying prehistoric human land-use in agriculturally modified landscapes: A case study from the Canal de Navarrés, eastern Spain
Abstract In landscapes whose surface has been modified by terracing and other agricultural land-use, the spatial and temporal patterning of prehistoric settlement can be difficult to detect using traditional, site-orientated archaeological survey methods, especially for small-scale societies. In these contexts, methods that can reveal occupational patterns at landscape scales, without the need to pinpoint specific sites of human occupation, can be especially useful. We employ a stratified, randomly selected patch-based survey strategy to examine socio-ecological dynamics from the Middle Paleolithic through Bell Beaker (Chalcolithic) periods within the Canal de Navarres, eastern Spain. We di…
Land-use dynamics and socioeconomic change: An example from the Polop Alto valley
AbstractThe Polop Alto valley, in eastern Spain, serves as the focus of a study of long-term temporal and spatial dynamics in human land use. The data discussed here derive from intensive, pedestrian, non-site survey. We employ the concept of artifact taphonomy to assess the various natural and cultural processes responsible for accumulation and distribution patterns of artifacts. Our results suggest that the most significant land-use changes in the Polop Alto took place at the end of the Pleistocene and accompanying the late Neolithic, while much less notable changes in land-use patterns are associated with the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition and the initial use of domestic plants and …
Radiocarbon dates, climatic events, and social dynamics during the Early Neolithic in Mediterranean Iberia
Abstract Our goal in this paper is to examine the socioecological dynamics of the Early Neolithic period in Iberia in order to test the usefulness of temporal probability curves built from dated sites as a relative proxy for exploring possible links between trends in population patterns and climatic fluctuations. We compare the information for the entire Iberian Peninsula with four Mediterranean regions, investigating the climate–population relationships that emerge when we zoom into particular regions. We evaluate climatic and other possible causes of similarities in the shapes of temporal probability curves across the Peninsula, associated with demographic changes in the Early Neolithic s…
Alternative Stories of Agricultural Origins: The Neolithic Spread in the Iberian Peninsula
The spread of agriculture from the Near East to Europe has long been a subject of intense archaeological study and debate in light of the social and economic changes that occurred and were set in motion as a result of this transition. Despite the attention paid to this important process, a consensus is far from being reached. Perhaps for these reasons, new methods and theoretical approaches have often been applied to the questions surrounding the spread of agriculture first. Recently, computational modeling has emerged as a promising technique for the study of the origins of agriculture. Our approach employs an agent-based computational model of agricultural spread for the Iberian Peninsula…
The origins of agriculture in Iberia: a computational model
Here we discuss the importance of using the rich and growing database of high-precision, audited radiocarbon dates for high-resolution bottom-up modelling to focus on problems concerning the spread of the Neolithic in the Iberia. We also compare the spread of the Late Mesolithic (so-called Geometric) and the Early Neolithic using our modelling environment. Our results suggest that the source of radiocarbon data used to evaluate alternative hypotheses plays an important role in the results and open up new lines of research for the future.
Dynamic landscapes, artifact taphonomy, and landuse modeling in the western Mediterranean
The Polop Alto valley, in eastern Spain, is characteristic of many Mediterranean landscapes. It has been sporadically reoccupied over the course of at least 80 kyr. Its landforms have undergone various geomorphic processes resulting from late Quaternary environmental fluctuations. During the Holocene, the valley has been modified by millennia of extensive land clearance, cultivation, and terracing. As a result, the evidence for human activity and landuse is a cumulative, but discontiguous palimpsest of the most durable behavioral residues—primarily stone and ceramic artifacts—whose distributions have been affected by diverse natural and cultural formation processes. Human occupation of the …
Long-Term Socioecology and Contingent Landscapes
Long-term social and natural processes reciprocally interact in spatially and temporally dynamic socioecosystems. We describe an integrated program of patch-based survey and subsurface testing aimed at studying long-term socioecology, focusing especially on the transition from foraging to farming in Mediterranean Spain. Measures of landuse ubiquity, intensity, dispersion, and persistence trace late-Pleistocene through mid-Holocene socioecological trajectories in four upland valleys. Although farming replaced foraging in all four valleys, the timing and nature of this transition varied because of cumulative interactions between social and natural processes. These processes continue to struct…