El fuego en la Prehistoria. Una aproximación arqueo-experimental al registro piroarqueológico a través de la microarqueología

Abstract

The goal of this Doctoral Thesis is the investigation of fire in various prehistoric archaeological contexts of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as its approach through experimental contexts. The archaeological contexts included in this thesis are Cova Gran de Santa Linya (Les Avellanes-Santa Linya, Lleida) and El Mirador (Atapuerca, Burgos) with a chronology that ranges from the Middle Paleolithic to the Bronze Age. From these archaeological sites, we have analyzed the preserved pyroarchaeological record formed by flat and pit hearths from the Paleolithic sequences studied and by episodes of dung combustion in the case of records belonging to the Late Prehistory. At the same time, we have developed experimental programs linked to the different contexts analyzed to provide a referential framework to the archaeological results and the observed phenomena. These experiments have allowed to strengthen the interpretations on the archaeological assemblages. The methodology used is based on the application of microarchaeological techniques, mainly the analysis of phytoliths to characterize the botanical record and the Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to characterize combustion through the study of minerals. Besides, for the recent contexts, spherulite assemblages, animal pen markers, have also been analyzed, and other mineralogical techniques such as XRD or the use of elemental microanalysis have been applied using ESEM. This Doctoral Thesis shows that the microarchaeological disciplines used are valid for investigating prehistoric style-life from a transversal perspective and taking as reference the pyroarchaeological record that these groups generated.

Date of Award	17 Dec 2020
Original language	Spanish
Awarding Institution	Rovira i Virgili University (URV)
Supervisor	Rafael Mora Torcal (Co-director), Dan Cabanes Cruelles (Co-director) & Ethel Allué Martí (Co-director)