The use of quartz during the Lower Palaeolithic in northeastern Iberia

This article analyses the use of quartz as a raw material during the Lower Palaeolithic in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula. We studied the use of quartz at 9 sites with chronologies ranging from the end of the Early Pleistocene to the end of the Middle Pleistocene. Quartz was used in all assemblages studied, and was always collected close to the sites, most of all in the form of pebbles from river basins. There was a differential selection of raw materials, including quartz, according to the technical strategy that humans wanted to implement. Despite the apparent simplicity of operational schemes carried out using quartz, we found factors that point to a remarkable conceptual complexity in the handling of this rock, as for example knowledge of the characteristics and mechanical possibilities of quartz, and the adaptation of operational schemes to the properties of this raw material.