In recent years, raw material characterization studies along with developments in strontium isotope analyses and DNA studies have provided new evidence for the mobility of people and objects in late prehistoric Europe. A detailed appraisal of the raw materials available from domestic to remote in each territory is crucial to understanding the mobility of these communities, mainly in the 3rd millennium BC societies, based on a “Complex of resources” system, inserted in a “network of relationships” already inscribed in tradition.
However, it is only recently that the first petroarchaeological studies have begun in the SW of the peninsula, on Chalcolithic sites in Extremadura, Portugal, led by PI.
The results have made it possible to identify the routes and methods of circulation of the siliceous rocks, to define the respective areas of direct supply, in which the presence of regional raw materials and extra-regional circulation has also been detected, particularly in the blades. It should be noted that these artefacts, systematically present in Chalcolithic sites, have not been the subject of holistic studies that address the origin of raw materials, technology, morphology and function. In fact, it is the large blades that potentially provide more clues about: 1) the long-distance circulation and exchange networks, if supported by prior knowledge of the direct supply territory at the intersection with the “technological territory”; 2) the cultural significance of this imported “package”, by combining the variables of quantity, size, production technique and origin of the raw material.
However, the current literature on flint provenance in Western Iberia lacks the exploration of two important aspects: 1) an adequate set of samples as geological reference; 2) the impossibility of applying destructive analytical techniques to these archaeological materials.
To fill these two major gaps in provenance studies in general, and flint blades in particular, the MOBlades project has brought together a multidisciplinary team with a strong background in Geoarchaeology, with the aim of carrying out a wide sampling, from the Lusitanian Basin (central-western Portugal) to the Subbetic Zone (south-western Spain), that could be correlated with the raw material of blades from complementary sites: Vila Nova de São Pedro (Portuguese Estremadura) and Perdigões (Alentejo), combining the classical petrographic approach with innovative non-destructive analytical techniques for mineralogical and geochemical determination (by Micro-Raman Spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence). The information derived from these data, together with the techno-typological analysis of the blades from Perdigões and Vila Nova de São Pedro in the context of their respective supply territories, will make it possible to uncover the cultural status of these objects and the reasons for their exchange in extra-regional networks.
The MOBlades aims, firstly, to improve the correlation between geological and archaeological siliceous raw materials, based on the use of the same petroarchaeological protocol with the geochemical analysis component, and to create a detailed geoarchaeological database of siliceous raw materials, which is crucial for the success of any provenance study. The second objective is to identify and validate the flint types from the blades as lithological indicators of circulation, the cultural value of which is intrinsic to the archaeological contexts of Perdigões and Vila Nova de São Pedro, thus become essential case studies for understanding human mobility in the Late Prehistory of the SW Peninsula.
It is expected that the evaluation of the correlation between the “geological” and “archaeological” flint by techno-typological groups from both archaeological sites will make an irrefutable contribution to the understanding of human mobility within the framework of exchange networks in the 3rd millennium BC. Finally, it is hoped that the results will be discussed at scientific meetings and disseminated to a wide public, particularly in the rooms of the Carmo Archaeological Museum. In the end, the geological data collected in this project will be available in a database, linked to the European cartographic platform Cartosilex. The geological samples, as well as the debitage products resulting from the experiments, will be integrated into ARQUEOLit, an open-access litotheque and technoteque, under construction at UNIARQ.