Neolithic diffusion of obsidian in the western Mediterranean: new data from Iberia

Résumé En

We analyse the origin of all obsidian artefacts recovered up to date from Neolithic sites of north-easternIberia, which are the only documented ones in the whole Iberian Peninsula. Despite the antiquity of oneof thefindings, they had never been studied in detail. The recent discovery of the other remains hasallowed us to better clarify its context and specify its absolute chronology. All the archaeological siteswhere obsidian tools have been recovered can be placed somewhere between the end of thefifth mil-lennium and thefirst centuries of the fourth millenniumcalBC, corresponding to the full MiddleNeolithic. The study about its origins shows clearly that it can be linked to the island of Sardinia, namelythe SA source. Its spread can be associated to the time that the Sardinian obsidian reaches maximumintensity in its exploitation and maximum diffusion around the Mediterranean coasts. In this sense, theartefacts recovered in the Iberian sites are the ones located to a farthest distance from their source oforigin, about 1200 km away. The linking of these products to individual burial grave goods, along withother non-native elements of nature, indicates that its value exceeds the strictly utilitarian