Tecnologia Lítica Solutrense do Abrigo de Vale Boi (Vila do Bispo)

The present dissertation comes to light in the framework of a broader program of characterization of the Paleolithic site of Vale Boi. As one of the few contexts with Solutrean occupations known in the region between the well known sites of the Spanish Levant and of the Portuguese Estremadura, Vale Boi is, therefore, a crucial element in understanding the shifts and continuities that occur in the economic, social, and technological systems of the communities that inhabited the extreme of Southwestern Iberia from c. 21 000 to 17 000 BP. The study focus on the analysis of lithic technological attributes of artefacts from the Upper Solutrean levels of the rock shelter area of Vale Boi. The main goal was to obtain a general knowledge of the patterns of exploitation of the different raw-materials, as well as the characterization of the choices taken in lithic reduction sequences. The sample selected for the analysis includes materials collected in field seasons from 2005 to 2008, and come from an area of 21 m2 where three different geological layers have, so far, been identified. Over 20 000 artefacts were analyzed revealing the presence of at least three different moments of occupation, marked by a relatively strong diachronic continuity in terms of the technological aspects of the assemblages. These patterns reveal, on the other hand, a positive cultural origin for its lithic technology, where the adaptation, through time, of some new typological elements (like the microlithic shouldered points) found no major obstacles. It is therefore legitimate to accept the permanency in the Vale Boi rock shelter, during the final phase of the Solutrean, of the same populations that were gradually assimilating, in a context of an intensification of contacts between communities, the different characters of every moment of the Atlantic and Mediterranean Upper Solutrean