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Orce: Early Pleistocene Archaeological Sites

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Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

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Introduction

Orce is the name of a town in SE Spain (province of Granada) rich in early Pleistocene archaeological sites. Venta Micena (VM), Barranco León-5 (BL-5), and Fuente Nueva-3 (FN-3) are the localities of special interest because the archaeological and biological evidence shows human occupation between 1.3 and 1.2 Ma. BL-5 and FN-3 have supplied a large collection of Oldowan tools associated to vertebrate fauna (Fig. 1). In addition, a half human molar was recovered from BL-5 (Fig. 2). Venta Micena does not show lithic tools, but anthropic action on bones has been described associated to three fragmentary human remains and fauna (Gibert et al. 2006).

Orce: Early Pleistocene Archaeological Sites, Fig. 1
figure 1514 figure 1514

Tools from BL and from FN-3. View of Oldowan tools (unretouched flakes) from Barranco León and Fuente Nueva-3. Those tools were unburied during field season of 1995; all them are made from local flint although from different sources

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department Geochemistry, Petrology and Geological Survey, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Luis Gibert

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  1. Luis Gibert
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Correspondence to Luis Gibert .

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  1. Department of Archaeology, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Claire Smith

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Gibert, L. (2014). Orce: Early Pleistocene Archaeological Sites. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_2278

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_2278

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