Musterian occupation at the southern sub-plateau: techno-typological study of El Sotillo (Ciudad Real)

Abstract

 In recent years, research about Paleolithic in the province of Ciudad Real has provided new sites and data over the human groups of the Middle and Upper Pleistocene in the region. The paleolithic site of El Sotillo (Malagón, Ciudad Real) has been known for several decades, although superficially. This type of open-air deposits is very numerous in the province. In this paper we present the results of the techno-typological study of the lithic industry found on the Surface during the 2017 campaign, belonging to Middle Paleolithic chronologies and, in the first instance, to a discoid technological complex in which tools corresponding to the Mousterian charentiense quina type are found. The importance of the site consists in the fact that, after an intense trajectory of prospections and works in the region, we can study in depth this open-air deposit that has Acheulean and Mousterian levels in stratigraphy and whose study will be key to understanding the occupation and exploitation of the environment by hunter-gatherer groups during the Middle and Upper Pleistocene in the Guadiana basin.