María Soto Quesada

2023-2024

Tomás y Valiente fellow

MIAS-UAM

MobiLithics: Fingerprinting the Exploitation of Stone Resources

María Soto Quesada obtained an Erasmus Mundus Master in Quaternary and Human Evolution (2010) and a European Doctorate in Quaternary and Prehistory at the University Rovira i Virgili (2015). She has been a Post-doctoral Associate at the IPHES-CERCA (2016), and at the University of Calgary (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) associated to the project ‘Stone Tools, Diet and Sociality at Olduvai Gorge (SDS)’ (2017-2019). 

Her research lines are focused on the definition of the procurement strategies, mobility patterns and territorial exploitation of the Palaeolithic groups, through the physical-chemical characterization of rocks and the GIS modelling in key archaeological sites for human evolution. She is a member of 26 international R&D projects, and author of several scientific papers (e.g. J.Arch. Sci, QSR and AAS), and book chapters, and a Guest Lecturer in different Undergraduate and Master Programs.

MobiLithics is a multiscalar project aimed at characterising the subsistence practices among Homo sapiens during its origin in Africa and their later expansion through the European continent. This project will provide high-resolution data through the investigation in two key scenarios, the Middle Stone Age – Later Stone Age Transition in the Aïn Beni Mathar-Guefaït basin (Western Morocco), and the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition in the NE of the Iberian Peninsula.

Spatial modelling, petrographic, geo-chemical and multivariate statistical analyses of the exploited lithic resources during the Upper Pleistocene will determine the procurement strategies and management of raw materials for manufacturing stone tools. These are archaeometric keys for understanding the territorial structure, mobility and occupation patterns, as adaptive responses of our species to changing scenarios on a global scale.

- 2023. Soto, M., Morales, J.I., Aouraghe, H., Sala-Ramos, R., Chacón, M.G. “Mobilithics: Fingerprinting the exploitation of lithic resources during the Upper Pleistocen”. ACTA IMEKO, 12 (3), pp. 1-10.

- 2023. Soto, M., Chacón, M.G., Morales, J.I., Calvo, B., Tarriño, A., Souhir, M., El Hammouti, K., Aouraghe, H., Sala-Ramos, R. Raw material Procurement and Territorial Mobility in the Ain Beni Mathar-Guefait Region (Eastern Morocco). In Sourcing Lithic Arachaeological Assemblage, pp. 121-131.

- 2023. Gómez de Soler, B., Soto, M., Carrancho, A., Gispert, E., Mommsen, H., Morales, J.I., Muñoz, A., Roldán, C. Eixea, A., Chacón, M.G., Soares, M., Vallverdú, J. “A multi-technique approach to characterization: The Sant Martí de Tous chert as a prehistoric resource for the NE of the Iberian Peninsula”. Journal of Archaeological and Antropological Science, 15, 85.

- 2023 Morales JI, Cebrià A, Soto M, Rodríguez-Hidalgo A, Hernando R, Moreno-Ribas E, Lombao D, Rabuñal JR, Martín-Perea DM, García-Tabernero A, Allué E, García-Basanta A, Lizano E, Marquès-Bonet T, Talamo S, Tassoni L, Lalueza-Fox C, Fullola JM and Rosas A. “A new assemblage of late Neanderthal remains from Cova Simanya (NE Iberia)”. Front. Earth Sci. 11:1230707.