Dinámicas productivas de los conjuntos líticos tallados y modelización crono-cultural de palimpsestos de la cuenca inferior del río Ebro en la Prehistoria Reciente (12.000-1200 cal. BC)

Abstract

The study of Recent Prehistory in the Ebro River basin has provided valuable information about different population dynamics from the early Holocene (c. 10,000 cal. BC) to the establishment of Neolithic groups and their consolidation (5600-2200 cal. BC). Within this broad temporal framework, the introduction of new technological forms is evident, influenced by climate change and the accessibility of exploitable resources. These factors compelled human groups to adapt survival strategies, manage materials differently, alter mobility patterns, and select optimal sites for both productive and exploitative activities. It is within this context and the development of social complexity that the following work is framed. The lower Ebro basin faces various challenges of different kinds, including discontinuity in research on Recent Prehistory, preventing the chrono-cultural linkage of dynamic changes. The records of the occupation types present in different chrono-cultural phases are unequal, notably contrasting cave occupations with those in the river valley. Other challenges include issues related to the functionality of currently known sites, hindering a balanced view between living and mortuary spaces, and chrono-cultural gaps creating disparities in recording and understanding. A key problem and one of the main threads of this PhD thesis is the abundance of artefact evidence on the surface throughout the lower river valley. These surface artefacts, generally referred to as "palimpsests", are often marginalized by the archaeological community due to recording issues and lack of rigor in their study, as well as challenges in integrating them with results from stratified contexts. Within this framework, we seek to address these issues through the analysis of lithic artifacts, which endure and change through different productive dynamics between the Epipaleolithic and the Bronze Age, together with the application of new automatic Bayesian statistical methods. The main objective of the thesis is to apply lithic analysis to palimpsests, identify objects most sensitive to productive changes, and utilize Automatic Bayesian Procedures with dated contexts in the Mediterranean region, obtaining probability distributions in each established temporal range. Thus, the studies of palimpsests have been conducted in two small regions with a high concentration of artifacts: the river terraces around the current municipalities of Aldover-Xerta (Baix Ebre), treated as the Southern Zone of concentrations; and those from around the current villages of Vinebre, Flix, and la Torre de l'Espanyol (Ribera d'Ebre), covering the Northern Zone of the lower Ebro basin. Additionally, a comprehensive study of the contextualized lithic industry from Cova del Vidre (Roquetes, Baix Ebre) has been included, as well as a new chronological sequential analysis linking all chrono-cultural phases of its stratigraphy with the obtained lithic characterization. This has succeeded in reinforcing the quality of available data in the study region, integrating the different occupation phases in Cova del Vidre into lithic productive dynamics in the Iberian Peninsula, and incorporating it into a future empirical base in Bayesian modeling.