Lithic refitting and movement connections: the NW area of level TD10-1 at the Gran Dolina site (Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain) Esther López-Ortega a, b, * , Xosé Pedro Rodríguez a, b , Manuel Vaquero a, b a Àrea de Prehistòria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Avinguda Catalunya 35, 43002 Tarragona, Spain b Institut de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES), Escorxador s/n, 43003 Tarragona, Spain article info Article history: Received 18 April 2011 Received in revised form 11 July 2011 Accepted 13 July 2011 Keywords: Lithic refit Activity areas Spatial connection Individual movement Middle Pleistocene Atapuerca abstract The first lithic refit studies were carried out at the end of 19th century, but the method was not considered an area of real interest to archaeology until quite recently. Today, lithic refitting is applied in a multitude of areas of enquiry including lithic technology, intra-site and inter-site spatial distribution, archaeostratigraphy and formation processes. In this paper, we present a refit study of the lithic materials recovered in the base of the NW sector of level TD10 at the site of Gran Dolina (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain). We aim to provide information about spatial distribution through identifying activity areas and the internal connections between those areas. Our work resulted in various refits whose connections reveal the movements of the pieces and/or knappers that once occupied the site. Our results also show the importance of studying the set of materials as a whole and the bias involved in analyzing only a small sample. The refits, connections and directions of movement allow us to infer areas in which an activity took place, but these results must be confirmed in future works covering the entire lithic assemblage of TD10. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction At the end of the 19th century, F.C.J. Spurrell fit together, like a puzzle, various flakes found at a site to the core from which they were sequentially extracted. This first work opened the door to new refit studies, which attempt to reconstruct knapping sequences in order to show the type of the exploitation that the prehistoric knapper employed. Thus, the first and most numerous reconstructions date to Upper Pleistocene and, especially, Upper Palaeolithic assemblages (Almeida, 2007; Bleed, 2002; Bodu et al., 1990; Cahen et al., 1979, 1980; De Bie, 2007; Eickhoff, 1990; Villa, 1982, among others). But more ancient sites have not enjoyed the same attention. Few Lower and Middle Pleistocene assemblages have been studied through the use of refits. Sometimes the biased nature of the excavated surface or the high temporal exposure to postdepositional processes has altered the layout of these assemblages, making refit studies less attractive. Only a few sites such as Lokalalei (Delagnes and Roche, 2005), Monte Poggiolo (Peretto, 2006; Peretto and Ferrari, 1995), Beeches Pit (Hallos et al., 2004; Preece et al., 2007), Boxgrove (Bergman et al., 1990; Pope and Roberts, 2005; Roberts et al., 1997) and Omo Kibish (Sisk and Shea, 2008) are partially known for their refit studies. This paper presents a refit study of a selection of lithic materials from the base of NW sector of level TD10-1 at Gran Dolina (Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos). The most recent dating was done using the thermo-luminescence method (Berger et al., 2008), and places the materials at a chronology of between 240  44 and 244  26 ka. However, dating by means of the ESR/U-Th method places level TD10-1 at between 337  29 ka and 379  57 ka (Falguères et al., 2001). This lithic refit study of a Middle Pleistocene assemblage is presented as one of the first approaches of this kind on the Iberian Peninsula. Only Villa, at the Áridos site, has conducted refit work with lithic assemblages dating from before Homo neanderthalensis (Villa, 1990). In keeping with this background, the aims of this study are: 1/ to propose a method by which all the steps required to extract the maximum quantity of information from the objects and refits are structured; 2/ to determine activity areas within the studied sample by dis- tinguishing significant associations of elements that belong to the same Raw Material Unit; * Corresponding author. Area de Prehistoria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Avinguda Catalunya 35, 43002 Tarragona, Spain. E-mail address: esther.lopezort@gmail.com (E. López-Ortega). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jas 0305-4403/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2011.07.011 Journal of Archaeological Science 38 (2011) 3112e3121