Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10316/79883
Title: New data on the chronology of the Vale do Forno sedimentary sequence (Lower Tejo River terrace staircase) and its relevance as a fluvial archive of the Middle Pleistocene in western Iberia
Authors: Cunha, Pedro P. 
Martins, António A. 
Buylaert, Jan-Pieter 
Murray, Andrew S. 
Raposo, Luis 
Mozzi, Paolo 
Stokes, Martin 
Keywords: Palaeolithic; Acheulean; Middle Pleistocene; Geomorphology; Luminescence dating; Fluvial terraces; River Tejo; Iberia
Issue Date: 2017
Publisher: Elsevier
Project: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/3599-PPCDT/128857/PT/Fault Activity and Seismicity Triggered by Ocean Loading in West Iberia 
This study had the support of (FCT), through the Strategic Project UID/MAR/04292/2013 
Serial title, monograph or event: Quaternary Science Reviews
Volume: 166
Abstract: The Vale do Forno archaeological sites (Alpiarça, central Portugal) document the earliest human occupation in the Lower Tejo River, well established in geomorphological and environmental terms, within the Middle Pleistocene. In a staircase of six fluvial terraces, the Palaeolithic sites were found on the T4 terrace (þ24 m, above river bed) which is made of a basal Lower Gravels unit (LG) and an overlying Upper Sands unit (US). Geomorphological mapping, coupled with lithostratigraphy, sedimentology and luminescence dating (quartz-OSL and K-feldspar post-IRIR290) were used in this study. The oldest artefacts found in the LG unit show crude bifacial forms that can be attributed to the Acheulian. In contrast, the US unit has archaeological sites stratigraphically documenting successive phases of an evolved Acheulian. Luminescence dating and correlation with the Marine Isotopic Stages suggest that the LG unit has a probable age of ca. 335 to 325 ka and the US unit an age of ca. 325 to 155 ka. This is in contrast to previous interpretations ascribing this terrace (and lithic industries) to the Last Interglacial and early phases of the Last Glacial. The VF3 site (Milhar os), containing Micoquian (Final Acheulian) industries (with fine and elaborated bifaces), found in a stratigraphic level located between the T4 terrace deposits and a colluvium associated with Late Pleistocene aeolian sands, is younger than 155 ka but much older than 32 ka.
URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10316/79883
ISSN: 0277-3791
DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.11.001
Rights: openAccess
Appears in Collections:I&D MARE - Artigos em Revistas Internacionais

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