Excavation of the Mesolithic site PBM “Paridera Ballarín Marcial”
The last phases of the European hunter-gatherers represent a research topic of great interest. During the early and middle Holocene, between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago, these populations experienced important socio-economic changes, adapting to new environmental conditions, and developing new forms of mobility and subsistence. Unfortunately, the campsites of the last hunter-gatherer groups are often difficult to be located and our knowledge of their way-of-life, especially for the last phases of the so-called “Mesolithic” period, is still scarce. For this reason, in 2020, the University of Pisa, together with the Government of Aragon, began the excavation of an open-air camp, radiocarbonically dated between 8200 and 7900 years ago, located in the Monegros region (Huesca, Spain), in the Ebro River valley. The site, discovered in the 1980s thanks to surface surveys carried out by the archaeologist Javier Rei Lanaspa, risked of being destroyed due to erosive process of both natural and human origin.
During three excavation campaigns, we have brought to light a campsite of brief duration, positioned on a rocky slope, with a lithic atelier area surrounded by various pit combustion structures and hearth areas. The archaeological materials recovered, flint from the nearby formations of the Sierra de Alcubierre, consist of small cores flaked by pressure techniques to produce bladelets and triangular and trapezoidal geometric points, according to the canons of the so-called “Geometric Mesolithic” which characterizes the last phases of life of the Mediterranean hunter-gatherer groups before the arrival of the Neolithic and the first farming populations from the East.
Contact: Niccolò Mazzucco
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