The archaeological site of El Mirador is located in the southern slope of the Sierra de Atapuerca. The work developed at the site is providing a substantial set of data from the Upper Palaeolithic and Early Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age. Throughout at least about 4000 years of occupation, the cave was used for various activities, among which, burial, habitation and animal stalling. The practices related with this last use is, at the moment, the main origin of the archaeological deposits, which are mainly composed by burnt animal dung with vegetal residues, potsherds, lithics and faunal remains. In addition, it is characterized by high sedimentation rates that have enabled an individual and clear record of different episodes, providing high resolution chronological data. Due to these particularities, specific excavation methodology and interdisciplinary studies of the archaeological data have been developed in order to understand the genesis of this archaeological sequence and, at the same time, to provide information about the introduction and development of the production economy in the Submeseta Norte region.The Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (N_CGL2009-12703-C03-02/BTE; HAR200801984/HIST) and the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (CGL2012-38434-C0303; HAR2013-41197-P) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (2014SGR900; 2014SGR899) supported this research. Funding for the fieldwork came from the Consejería de Cultura y Turismo of the Junta de Castilla y León and the Atapuerca Foundation. Á. Carrancho research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) with projects CGL2012-32149 and CGL2012-3848

En este trabajo se presentan datos inéditos acerca de tres asentamientos al aire libre situados en el llano prelitoral del Penedès (Barcelona) con ocupaciones del Neolítico inicial: el hábitat de Les Guixeres de Vilobí y las agrupaciones de silos-fosas de La Serreta y el Mas d’en Boixos. Se estudian sus materiales cerámicos y 5 fechas radiocarbónicas inéditas en el marco de la discusión sobre el Neolítico antiguo del nordeste de la Península Ibérica y de la neolitización del Mediterráneo occidental. Se propone que esta zona fue clave y con cierta densidad poblacional durante las primeras fases neolíticas y comparable a enclaves emblemáticos como el cercano valle del Llobregat (Garraf-llano de Barcelona y Vallès) o la zona alicantina. La antigüedad de las fechas obtenidas aporta nuevos datos al debate acerca del primer neolítico en la Península Ibérica.