Lithic scatters are the most abundant class of evidence relating to Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic activity in southern Britain. Many such scatters, especially those from surface and ploughsoil contexts, have long been characterised as being of low-interpretive value and have been marginalised both in academic studies of the periods and in the wider context of protecting and managing the historic environment. This vast body of evidence makes little contribution to contemporary understandings of the LUP and Mesolithic, which remains largely informed by work which privileges the investigation of well-preserved sites with in situ lithic scatters, especially those with associated faunal remains and palaeoenvironmental evidence. This has serious implications for our ability to characterise and interpret activity in locations and regions where such well preserved and intensively investigated sites are lacking, and in many areas of the country policy makers, fieldworkers and curators are not equipped with the information necessary to make informed decisions concerning the investigation, management and protection of the archaeology of these periods. This thesis explicitly address these issues through a detailed case study of the lithic scatter record from a study area in eastern England. This study is based around a comprehensive database of reported lithic scatters, assembled from a wide range of published and unpublished sources and encompassing all kinds of scatters, from well preserved and exhaustively analysed in-situ scatters to poorly provenanced collections of lithics amassed in the late 19th and early 20th century. This thesis provides the first comprehensive synthesis of the Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of the study area and explicitly assesses the interpretative potential of the lithic scatter record, in terms of how it can be used both to develop narratives of landscape occupation and to inform future work on, and management of, lithic scatters in the study area and beyond.

El objetivo de esta tesis doctoral es el análisis de las preferencias en la selección de los lugares de asentamiento por parte de las sociedades de cazadores-recolectores de la transición Pleistoceno Final - Holoceno (es decir, Magdaleniense y Aziliense) de la mitad oriental de la Cornisa Cantábrica. Más concretamente, se trata de de analizar, calculando una serie de características y variables, la localización de una serie de yacimientos asignados a este periodo, para tratar de identificar un patrón o patrones concretos en el tipo de lugares elegidos por las comunidades humanas para situar sus lugares de hábitat, si pueden diferenciarse distintos tipos de asentamientos en función de su localización, y si existe un cambio en las preferencias en la selección de los lugares de ocupación con respecto a momentos anteriores. Para llevar a cabo estos análisis, se emplea un Sistema de Información Geográfica. / The objective of this thesis is the analysis of preferences in the choice of settlement sites by the hunter-gatherers of Final Pleistocene - Holocene transition (i.e., Magdalenian and Azilian) from eastern Cantabrian coast. More specifically, the location of a number of sites is analyzed by calculating different characteristics and variables, to try to identify a specific pattern or patterns in the type of sites selected by human communities to bring their places of habitat, to differentiate different types of settlements based on their location, and whether a change in preferences in the selection of places of employment with respect to earlier periods. To perform these tests, a Geographic Information System is used to calculate the variables considered.