Quaternary, Human Adaptations and Territory Management

Crossing these two dimensions leads to project, which allow for converging several themes in a single territory (e.g. the Tagus basin) and several comparative studies of a specific them in different territories (e.g. rock art complexes in relation to socioeconomic changes). The thematic lines are artefacts technologies (lithics, ceramics, metals and organic, with a strong use of experimental archaeology), monuments technologies (prehistoric architectures and beyond), landscape studies (including raw materials economy, paleoenvironmental reconstruction and logistics assessment, also in underwater contexts), rock art (namely in contexts of sociocultural and economic transitions), cultural heritage (fostering the technology dimension of cultural heritage in its relation to geological materials and as expression of adaptive behaviour) and integrated landscape management. Main territory based projects will continue to have the Tagus basin as core focus (intensifying studies on the mountain areas), complemented with projects in Europe (Spanish Extremadura and assessing themes in wider geographic scales, e.g. on the presence of deer representations in rock art), Africa (primarily Angola and Western Africa), Southern America (primarily in 3 regions of Brazil, but also Colombia and beyond) and Asia (with China). This approach will continue to lead to theoretical and methodological innovations (e.g. on taphonomy), aiming at continuing to improve on models on landscape management, analytical techniques and the theoretical understanding on how the merge of geosciences and humanities may contribute to the debates on sustainability. All these will be articulated with Master and PhD projects, leading to publications and also influencing international policies on sustainability. The projects are also articulated with the CIPSH-UNESCO main programmes on Global History of Humankind”.