Leopoldo J. Pérez Luis

By studying combustion structures, which conceal information about anthropogenic activity, we might learn about their makers. This is especially important for remote time periods like the Middle Paleolithic, whose archaeological record comprises numerous combustion structures. The majority of these are simple, flat, open hearths, although a small number of features situated in pit-like depressions have been recorded. Given that hearths built on a flat surface can result in pit-like color alteration of the underlying sediment, accurate identification of pit hearths is a crucial step prior to behavioral interpretation. Here we present a comprehensive study of a possible pit hearth from the Middle Paleolithic site of El Salt, Spain, using a microcontextual approach combining micromorphology, lipid biomarker analysis, archaeomagnetism and zooarchaeology. This pit hearth involves a true depression containing a thick plant ash deposit. It reached very high temperatures, possibly multiple burning events and long combustion times. Morphologically distinct combustion structures in a single archaeological context may indicate different functions and thus a diverse fire technology, pointing to Neanderthal behavioral variability.

There is a relatively low amount of Middle Paleolithic sites in Europe dating to MIS 4. Of the few that exist, several of them lack evidence for anthropogenic fire, raising the question of how this period of global cooling may have affected the Neanderthal population. The Iberian Peninsula is a key area to explore this issue, as it has been considered as a glacial refugium during critical periods of the Neanderthal timeline and might therefore yield archaeological contexts in which we can explore possible changes in the behaviour and settlement patterns of Neanderthal groups during MIS 4. Here we report recent data from Abric del Pastor, a small rock shelter in Alcoy (Alicante, Spain) with a stratified deposit containing Middle Palaeolithic remains. We present absolute dates that frame the sequence within MIS 4 and multi-proxy geoarchaeological evidence of in situ anthropogenic fire, including microscopic evidence of in situ combustion residues and thermally altered sediment. We also present archaeostratigraphic evidence of recurrent, functionally diverse, brief human occupation of the rock shelter. Our results suggest that Neanderthals occupied the Central Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula during MIS 4, that these Neanderthals were not undergoing climatic stress and they were habitual fire users.

This paper presents a multiproxy palaeoenvironmental study from Abric del Pastor (Alcoy, Spain), a rock shelter which has yielded evidence for Middle Palaeolithic human occupation. The sedimentary sequence has been analysed for lipid biomarker n-alkane abundances (ACL, CPI), compound specific leaf wax d 2 H and d 13 C, and bulk organic geochemistry (TOC, %N, %S), providing a record of past climate and local vegetation dynamics. Site formation processes have been reconstructed through the application of soil micromorphology. Analyses of anthracological, microvertebrate and macrofaunal assemblages from selected subunits are also presented here. Our data indicates that a variable climate marked by predominantly cold conditions persisted through most of the sequence and that Neanderthal occupations in stratigraphic unit IVd, assigned to MIS 4 or late MIS 5, occurred in a landscape setting characterised by a mosaic of biotopes. The presence of key resources inside the ravine where the site is located suggests that the occupation of the rock shelter may have been strategically motivated by a subsistence and mobility strategy which focused on zones of localised ecological resilience, such as intra-mountainous valleys or ravines, during periods of global or regional environmental downturn.

Middle Palaeolithic sites frequently present bones with a double function, linked to subsistence and technology, and which are generally referred to as “retouchers” or “bone retouchers”. These have been identified in several European sites from the Middle Pleistocene to Holocene, but different explanations of their origin and functionality have been cited. Although bone retouchers were made using various animal parts, they were usually produced from diaphyseal fragments of medium to large hoofed mammals. We present a small assemblage of six bone retouchers recovered from Stratigraphic Unit Xa (52.3 ± 4.6 ka), in the Middle Palaeolithic site of El Salt (Alicante, Spain), and compare our data with previous studies from several sites in south‐western France, northern Italy, and north‐eastern Spain. These tools were generated using diaphyseal fragments from red deer, horses and other large mammals previously exploited by humans for meat and marrow. Our findings add to existing knowledge on the behaviour and faunal resource management of the last Neanderthal groups on the western Iberian Peninsula before they disappeared from the region around 45‐40 ka.

Durante los últimos años, la aplicación de analíticas de alta resolución temporal en contextos de palimpsesto ha experimentado un importante crecimiento. Prueba de ello son los diferentes recursos metodológicos que se han desarrollado con el objetivo de establecer unidades de análisis con mayor resolución temporal a través de la arqueoestratigrafía, la micromorfología, los remontajes, etc. A modo de ejemplo, en esta comunicación expondremos parte de los resultados y metodología empleada a partir del registro faunístico en dos reconocidos yacimientos del Paleolítico medio peninsular: el Abric Romaní (Capellades, Barcelona) y El Salt (Alcoi, Alicante). Con ello se busca dar a conocer el valor de dicho material a la hora de temporalizar los conjuntos arqueológicos.

The palaeoecological studies about macro-mammals has been the started point to understand the ancient relationship among environment and different life organisms in a concrete context. In archaeological sites, although the bone assemblages have a biased origin, the combination of palaecological data with zooarchaeo-logical and taphonomical studies permit us generate a better explanation about the subsistence and management of territories by ancient humans. In this work we carry out this approximation to study different bone assemblages of the archaeological sites of Abric del Pastor and El Salt (Alcoi, Alacant), all generated mainly by human activities during the Upper Pleistocene. The principal results indicate that bone assemblage are composed by taxa located in a high diversity of environments (mountains, forest, scrub, meadow and fluvio lacustrine areas), characteristic of Mediterranean macroclimate, termotype termo-mesomediterranean (MAT 18-20 ºC, MAP 403-457 mm). The diverse environments were exploited at cinegetic level by Neanderthals, with different transport and processing strategies, more focus in the use of tortoises in Abric del Pastor (MIS 4/5) and more diversity and recurrent use of Spanish ibex, deer and horse in El Salt (MIS 3). INTRODUCCIÓN Conocer la forma en que los organismos actuales y pasados han interactuado con el medio físico que les rodea y con otros organismos, es decir su (paleo) ecología, ha sido una preocupación constante en los estudios de Paleonto-Interaccions entre felins i humans. III Jornades d'arqueozoologia. Museu de Prehistòria de València (2017): 327-353.

Although the occurrence of burned bones in the archeological record has been widely investigated, very few studies have focused on the distinction of temporality in burned bones assemblages, which would be useful in helping to identify human activity areas, as well as distinguishing combustion residues from those resulting from other activities. In this work, we present the results of an experiment designed to characterize direct/indirect thermal alteration of rabbit bones, based on macroscopic and microscopic surface features. These results are then compared with an archeological burned bone assemblage associated with various Middle Paleolithic combustion structures from El Salt Stratigraphic Unit X (Alicante, Spain). In the experimental assemblage, we observed that rabbit bones tossed into a fire were strongly altered, while bones thrown on the cooled ashes and lying on the surface beneath the fire or slightly buried, were not. We observed a strong thermal surface alteration of fresh bone (color changes, high degrees of fragmentation, cracks and structural changes on the cortical surface), while dry bone showed only color changes. Taking this data into account when analyzing the archeological assemblage, we observed surface features corresponding to thermally altered fresh bone and others more like thermally altered dry bone. Crucially , the archaeological specimens are associated with black layers of combustion structures and exhibit signs of trampling. The results suggest that fresh bones were trampled into human occupation surfaces and were subsequently unintentionally or indirectly burned due to their position beneath hearths, along with other dry bones present there. Our study shows that investigating ways to distinguish temporality in burned bones may be a good tool for isolating different depositional events and thus contributing to archeological palimpsest dissection.

Certain aspects of the formation processes of simple, flat archaeological combustion structures such as those present in the Middle Palaeolithic record remain unexplained. Such kind of combustion structures are commonly affected by postdepositional agents and often, their only distinct, well preserved component is a thin black lens on the ground. Hence, understanding the nature of this black lens is essential towards archaeological interpretation. From an interdisciplinary microstratigraphic approach, we present a case study in which for an entire experimental series of flat combustion structures the black layer represents the fire-altered top soil on which the fire was made. Parallel analysis of archaeological Middle Palaeolithic combustion structures from the site of El Salt (Alicante, Spain) reveal similar patterns, leading to significant implications for archaeological interpretation. In the light of these results, special attention must be paid to the formation processes of flat Middle Palaeolithic combustion features, as black layers and the material contained in them are not necessarily linked with combustion but with preceding activities or events. In such cases, black layers represent intact remnants of occupation surfaces, concealing significant behavioral and paleoenvironmental information relevant to the reconstruction of Middle Palaeolithic societies.

This work is a synthesis about the distribution of the Mediterranean tortoise (Testudo hermanni Gmelin 1789) in the Valencian area (Eastern Iberian Peninsula) during the Middle Palaeolithic. Furthermore, we have compiled available published data related to the origin of tortoise accumulations in the archaeological sites. Also, we present new information about tortoise consumption by Neanderthals from the preliminary study of Abric del Pastor bone sets.

Rabbit remains (Oryctolagus cuniculus) are very abundant in faunal assemblages of the Pleistocene and initial Holocene archaeological sites of Mediterranean Iberia. We present a review of available data on human consumption of this leporid from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Mesolithic in the central area of Mediterranean Iberia. We review the rabbit assemblages and the taphonomic studies developed to define its importance in human diet.
In this geographical area, consumption of these preys are recorded from the Middle Palaeolithic, but is in the Upper Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic when this resource is incorporated into human diet prominently. Taphonomic studies indicate that anatomically modern humans consumed this resource, coming to represent up to 95% of NISP in some assemblages of the Late Palaeolithic. Its exploitation has been linked to a different management model territory in terms of mobility than that of the Neanderthals.

The use and control of the fire is a very significant element in the history of the humans. It entails a series of socio-cultural and biological changes which have been object of many researches. Due to the implications of the use of the fire for the human life, the study of burnt archaeological materials has been considered even a specific discipline inside the Archaeology: Pyroarchaeology. The data obtained from those materials give us information about the technology of the human groups, the purpose of using the fire, the spatial patterns of the archaeological sites, temporalization, etc.
In recent times the variety of analyses and points of views on the study of burnt archaeological materials has increased notably. Ethnographic approximations, experimental recreations, and an enormous amount of analyses such as micromorphology of soils, archaeomagnetic studies, FTIR, etc., have allowed obtaining more diverse information and a larger amount of data. It can be highlighted the role of the experimental recreations, which let us know the signals of the fire under controlled conditions and compare it with the archaeological evidences.
In this session we want to debate about the thermoaltered archaeological record and the use and control of fire in the Prehistory. Taking the problematics exposed in the communications/posters into account, we want to generate a final discussion in which the most concerning issues about the burnt archaeological record will be debated: identification of burnt materials, practices related to the burnt materials, the use and control of fire by the Pleistocene hominins, the use of fire linked to the agricultural and hygienic practices in the recent Prehistory, development of experimental projects, application of new analyses in the study of paleotemperatures and temporality, etc.

This work analyses the diachronic evolution of dental and postcranial size in Pleistocene dhole (genus Cuon) populations from the Iberian Peninsula. Based on these data we consider two questions: is there a direct relationship between the decrease in tooth size and body size? Or is the process of tooth size evolution related to specific adaptations in feeding behaviours? In this regard, in addition to changes in the dimensions of the teeth, we consider the dental morphology to verify whether they display features related to the development of hypercarnivorous adaptations. Finally, we propose a taxonomic classification of Pleistocene dhole populations in the Iberian Peninsula based on the dental morphometric features of three mandibles from the Mediterranean and Cantabrian regions