Unraveling Early Holocene occupation patterns at El Arenal de la Virgen (Alicante, Spain) open-air site: an integrated palimpsest analysis

Palimpsests are ubiquitous in the open-air archaeological record. Yet, integrated intra-site research strategies of palimpsest dissection to infer occupational histories, spatial behavioural patterns and site formation processes remain scarce in the postglacial archaeology. In this work, we apply an integrated protocol of palimpsest analysis to the Mesolithic Unit IV of El Arenal de la Virgen site, radiocarbon dated in two different occupation phases (9.3–9.1 k and 8.6–8.3 k cal BP). While the archaeostratigraphic analysis identified the absence of sterile layers between both phases, the lithic refits confirmed the good preservation of the spatial properties of the assemblage. Using different point pattern analysis and geostatistical techniques, we further investigate the overall distribution pattern, the spatial correlation between lithic remains and occupation features according to different artefact categories, and the variability of spatial autocorrelation in the frequency of burnt microdebris. Our results suggest a behavioural pattern of different, and spatially recurrent, short-term camp occupation episodes. Built on explicit quantitative and reproducible standards, our research approach can be applied to other open-air sites to conduct comparative studies on open-air occupation patterns. This study underscores the importance of considering the palimpsest as an analytical unit and the need for assessing assemblage integrity and site formation processes through multidisciplinary approaches, to better characterise site occupation dynamics.