Seeing the Leaves and Not Missing the Forest: A Portuguese Perspective of the Solutrean

In a 1964 synthesis, Roche concluded that the Upper Palaeolithic of Portugal remained largely unknown, the presence of the Solutrean being the only fact that could be unambiguously ascertained. Subsequent work has radically changed this situation and, where the Solutrean is concerned, has established that its culture-stratigraphy sequence accords well with the traditional subdivision systematised for France by Smith, which was based on the successive appearance of different index fossils. Where lithic point typology suggests a break, this is confirmed independently by accompanying changes in the basic technology of blade production. In some cases, the existence of a given unit of the subdivision can only be inferred from the identification of the corresponding index fossils in palimpsest contexts. The identification of such contexts as being mixed post-depositionally, and not as documenting a true coexistence of point types, which would falsify the overall sequence, is made easy by the fact that, in Portugal, most Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) sites are open air and feature few (if not single) occupation levels. This fact has advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, the fairly complete reduction sequences enable the reconstruction of total lithic production systems, and the enveloping geology well illustrates the impact of the period’s environmental instability. On the other hand, issues of change through time have to be addressed largely through stratigraphic correlation and radiocarbon dating, and are often complicated by the representativity problems raised by special-purpose, logistical sites. These issues are of broader archaeological interest, as are the implications of the Solutrean’s chronostratigraphic sequence for the palaeoanthropological interpretation of patterns of technological change. Where the LGM of south-western Europe is concerned, such implications are, namely, that the distribution and abundance of sites is conditioned by taphonomy more than by demography, and that considerations of social geography are of greater explanatory power to understand the emergence and development of the Solutrean than more traditional origins questions.