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75 summary During the past decade, new research has been conducted on several shell midden sites in western Algarve (southern Portugal), dated from the Preboreal to the early Atlantic climatic periods (ca. 10,400–7400 cal BP or 9400– 5400 cal BC). New sites (four shell middens at Barranco das Quebradas and one at Rocha das Gaivotas) provided new data on Mesolithic occupation patterns: geographic location, radiocarbon dates, size, archaeological context, and materials. This study uses these characteristics to infer the function and duration of the occupations. Data on shellfish, namely on the abundance of species and processing techniques, helps us define diet choices and their changes through time. The Mesolithic shell middens in western Algarve are located either atop sea cliffs or in nearby small valleys. The overwhelming majority of shell remains—and the reduced number of any other kind of fauna or lithic materials—define these as specialized, temporary locations . From this we can conclude that these human groups had high mobility indexes and traveled to the coast in order to collect local marine resources and, later on, flint raw material. The preferred animals were mussels , limpets, common topshells, and, at a later period, gooseneck barnacles. There is no evidence of overexploitation of any species during the Mesolithic, and the change of relative abundances should indicate adaptation to local availability of resources. We hypothesize that other Mesolithic sites, with residential features, may be located in more interior areas. Such camps were probably situated either northward along the coast, where more permanent settlements with broad-spectrum subsistence have been identified, or in the estuaries of the Algarvean rivers, where they are presently buried under alluvial sediments. Early Neolithic sites still include important deposits of shell remains. However, most of these sites do not display the density of real shell middens, while others are reoccupations of old Mesolithic middens with thin and scattered shell deposits when compared to the previous periods. Non-faunal material, such as lithics and ceramics, are more abundant than in the Mesolithic times, and access to flint sources seem to be one of the main purposes of the occupations. The middens cease formation altogether after ca. 6900 cal BP (5000 cal BC), during a younger stage of the Early Neolithic. At this time, there is growing evidence of agriculture and domestication of some animal species and a noticeable change in subsistence strategies. introduction This study compares diet and landscape use across space and time in western Algarve, from 10,400 to 6400 cal BP (8500–5400 cal BC), a period that corresponds to the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic settlements in the area. All archaeological sites occupied within these dates have shell deposits, which range from thin scatterings to thick layers with a high density of specimens. Among these, the most significant are the shell middens of Praia do Castelejo (Silva and Soares 1997), Armação Nova (Soares and Silva 2003), and, the focus of this chapter, Barranco das Quebradas (a complex of four preserved archaeological sites) and Rocha das Gaivotas (Figure 6.1). CHAPTER SIX Shell Middens in Western Algarve (Southern Portugal) during the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic Functionality, Subsistence, and Material Culture Maria João Valente, Rebecca Dean, and António Faustino Carvalho 76 Maria João Valente, Rebecca Dean, and António Faustino Carvalho Shell midden research has a long tradition in Portugal, going back to the 19th-century discovery of the Late Mesolithic concheiros of Muge (Ribeiro 1884). These middens, which date from the early Atlantic period (ca. 8300–7250 cal BP or 6300–5300 cal BC), were recognized as analogous to the Danish køkkenmødding. They are located in central Portugal, at the bottom of a large estuary in the confluence of the Muge and Tagus Rivers, and occupied an ecotonal position, accessing aquatic and wetland resources (mollusks , crustaceans, fish, birds) as well as forest game (red deer, wild boar, and auroch). Since their discovery, the best preserved sites have been widely researched, with a special focus on the more than 300 human skeletons found there. They have provided valuable data for physical anthropology , demography, funerary rituals, and diet reconstruction (Roksandic and Jackes, chap. 9 in this volume; Jackes et al., chap. 10 in this volume). Given the diversity of animal remains, human burials, dwelling structures, and lithic industry, Muge shell middens have been generally characterized as base camps with semipermanent occupation , where the residents engaged in intense collection of local resources (e.g...

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