Herders and Pioneers: The Role of Pastoralism in the Neolithization of the Amblés Valley (Ávila, Central Iberia)
Author:
Guerra Doce Elisa1, Zapatero Magdaleno María Pilar1, Delibes de Castro Germán1, García Cuesta José Luis2, Fabián García José Francisco3, Riquelme Cantal José Antonio4, López Sáez José Antonio5
Affiliation:
1. Departamento de Prehistoria, Arqueología, Antropología Social y Ciencias y Técnicas Historiográficas, Universidad de Valladolid , Plaza del Campus s/n , 47011 Valladolid , Spain 2. Departamento de Geografía, Universidad de Valladolid , Plaza del Campus s/n , 47011 Valladolid , Spain 3. Servicio Territorial de Cultura de Ávila, Junta de Castilla y León , Plaza Fuente el Sol 1 , 05001 Ávila , Spain 4. Departamento de Historia, Universidad de Córdoba , Plaza del Cardenal Salazar 3 , 14071 Córdoba , Spain 5. Environmental Archaeology Research Group, Institute of History, CSIC , Albasanz 26-28 , 28037 Madrid , Spain
Abstract
Abstract
In recent years, the notion of landscape learning has been the object of increasing attention when discussing the neolithization of Europe. The landscape learning model stresses the necessity of gathering environmental information about a previously unfamiliar region. Therefore, it is particularly relevant in cases where the beginning of a farming economy is better explained in relation to the movements of peoples (colonization), rather than to the adoption of crops and livestock by pre-existing hunters and gatherers (acculturation). Unlike other Iberian regions, where the adoption of agriculture runs parallel to that of animal husbandry, the available data on the neolithization process of the Sierra de Gredos mountain range seem to suggest that raising livestock may have preceded plant cultivation. Based on an interdisciplinary and multi-proxy approach, this paper explores the idea that the adoption of a food-producing economy in the Amblés Valley (Ávila, Central Iberia) may have been connected with pastoralism. In this context, landscape learning provides a model for analyzing how Early Neolithic herders in their seasonal movements were capable of wayfinding by memorizing spatial features that functioned as visual landmarks.
Publisher
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Subject
Education,Archeology,Conservation
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