| Summary: | During the 10th International Symposium on Knappable Materials (ISKM) held at Barcelona (Spain) in 2015, a field trip along “The Silica Road” was organized. It included the visit to different chert outcrops located along the Montsant Massif (Tarragona, NE Iberian Peninsula), and to the Middle Palaeolithic site of the Abric Romaní (Capellades, Barcelona), as important locations for the Prehistory of the North East of the Iberian Peninsula.
This paper present some keynotes distributed to the symposium attendants. It consists on: 1) a brief geological framework of the Montsant Massif, located at the southern margin of the Catalan Central Depression. It includes the definition of their Palaeozoic to Cenozoic depositional sequence and the localization of some points of interests with panoramic views and source areas where Tertiary chert nodules were available. They represent a significant focus for the raw materials procurement of several Paleolithic occupations since Lower Pleistocene. 2) A general presentation of the Middle Palaeolithic site of the Abric Romaní site, including a brief reference of the three research phases initiated at the beginning of 20th Century, the description of its 50 meters stratigraphic sequence, where 27 archaeological levels have been identified dating since 110 to 39 ka BP, and some of the main traits of the archaeological assemblages recovered.
|
|---|