Bay of Biscay

In 1943, RAF Bomber Command and the United States Eighth Air Force virtually destroyed the French Biscay Port towns of Lorient and St. Nazaire through a concerted day and night campaign, devastating them with heavy area bombing raids comparable to attacks on German cities. Unlike Allied raids on Germany, the unfortunate French civilians who resided in these towns were not the target, rather the facilities being used by the Nazi occupiers. The Allied bombing of France does not feature heavily in British popular memory of the war, and as such the ethical and military considerations around it are largely absent from modern discourse. This dissertation clealry establishes the relevant chain of command, and shows how the decision to destroy Lorient by Area Bombing was taken personally by Winston Churchill, urged on by the Lords of the Admiralty, and against the recommendations of the Chiefs of the Air Staff (Charles Portal and Archibald Sinclair) and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden.

Tesis doctoral. La tesis aborda tres cuestiones principales: (1) el origen y el desarrollo de la agricultura en Euskal Herria, (2) la importancia de la recolección en la subsistencia humana prehistórica y (3) la antropización del medio como consecuencia de las actividades productoras. El punto de partida son los nuevos datos ofrecidos por el análisis de los macrorrestos vegetales (carbones, semillas y frutos) de 16 yacimientos arqueológicos del norte peninsular que abarcan desde c. 6600 a.C. cal. hasta la época romana. @@ Las interpretaciones dominantes en la arqueología vasca, a pesar de contar con escasos datos directos, han asumido que la ganadería precedió a la agricultura en Euskal Herria y que la adopción o el desarrollo de la agricultura cerealista fue tardía, particularmente en la vertiente atlántica. Las actividades de recolección y la importancia del componente vegetal en la dieta humana han sido frecuentemente infravaloradas a favor de los recursos de origen animal. El principal problema que subyace en estas interpretaciones ha sido la falta de datos directos. Esta ausencia es de origen esencialmente metodológico ya que las excavaciones no suelen incluir programas específicos de muestreo que ayuden a recuperar macrorrestos botánicos derivados de las actividades agrícolas o de la recolección de vegetales. @@ El resto más antiguo de agricultura identificado en las muestras procede del yacimiento de Kobaederra (Kortezubi, Bizkaia) donde se ha recuperado cebada datada c. 4360-3990 cal. a.C. Además, hemos identificado otros granos de cereal neolítico en Lumentxa (Lekeitio, Bizkaia). Por la inexistencia de muestreos, por el momento no contamos con datos de cronología neolítica para la zona situada al sur de la franja costera. Atendiendo a la información arqueozoológica y a la cronología de las primeras prácticas de producción de alimentos en los territorios inmediatos, creemos que el País Vasco pudo adoptar la agricultura al menos desde el periodo 5000-4500 a.C. cal. aunque esto es algo que la investigación futura tendrá que explorar. @@ Teniendo en cuenta diferentes argumentos -presencia de cereales vestidos como la ezkandia (Triticum dicoccum), condiciones ecológicas húmedas y de montaña, baja intensidad de las técnicas agrícolas, ausencia de piezas de hoz-, planteamos la posibilidad de que durante el Neolítico en la zona costera la cosecha del cereal se realizara con métodos diferentes a la hoz: arrancado de las espigas a mano o con útiles como las mesorias asturianas. Tanto en yacimientos de agricultores como en los de cazadores-recolectores hemos identificado un conjunto importante de plantas recolectadas: avellanas, bellotas, pomos y fragmentos de tejido parenquimático. @@ La agricultura se adoptó en un contexto de expansión de los bosques caducifolios, principalmente los robledales. Los primeros indicios claros de impacto antrópico en el Pirineo occidental se observan a partir de c. 5300 a.C. La expansión de las prácticas agrícolas y ganaderas durante el Calcolítico y hasta la Edad del Hierro dio lugar a profundas transformaciones en el paisaje vegetal del País Vasco atlántico, esencialmente tres: (1) la intensificación de los procesos deforestadores; (2) la extensión de comunidades nuevas como los hayedos; y (3) la transformación de algunas de las comunidades existentes. Existen indicios de que la producción de alimentos vegetales se intensifica y diversifica en la época romana. En Irún hemos identificado un gran número de restos procedentes de la arboricultura: uva, ciruela, guinda, melocotón, higo y aceituna. Algunos, como la aceituna, son necesariamente importados, consecuencia de actividades comerciales. Otros podrían responder al cultivo local de árboles introducidos durante este periodo.

Plant macro-remains analyses show that cereal agriculture is present from at least mid- 5th millennium cal BC by the coast of the Basque Country. During the Neolithic barley (Hordeum vulgare) and emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum) are the only cereals identified so far. In the Bronze Age, the cave of Arenaza suggests that free-threshing wheats (Triticum aestivum/durum) had become the main crop of the region and millet (Setaria italica) is present. During the Iron Age the hillfort of Intxur shows a complex and diverse agriculture with spelt (Triticum spelta) being a very important crop.

El yacimiento de Mandañu ha sido localizado durante una campaña de prospección arqueológica al aire libre en la comarca de Uribe Kosta. Se compone de un conjunto de 237 restos líticos, asignables en su mayoría al Neolítico Final-Calcolítico. El estudio de los sistemas de talla permite identificar una producción laminar de calidad destinada a la producción de soportes muy regulares que frecuentemente se localizan en yacimientos funerarios y de habitación de este periodo.
Mandañu's site has been located during a campaign of archaeological surface prospecting in Uribe Kosta's region. It contains a set of 237 lithic remains, most of them may be assigned to the Final Neolithic-Calcolithic. The technological analysis have allowed the identification of a high quality blade production system destined to the obtention of very regular supports that frequently are located in funeral deposits and habitats of this period.

The main conclusions of this work are that this indigenous populations along the coast of the Bay of Biscay adopted farming. According to pollen data, the first crops were present from at least ca. 5200–4700 cal BC and macro-remains (caryopses of wheat and barley) have only been identified in contexts dated from ca. 4700 BC. Thus, there is a time lag between the first agriculture in the region compared with that in the other Iberian regions (Catalonia, Valencia, northern Meseta and Andaluc ́ıa), where radiocarbon dates carried out on cereals are as early as ca. 5600–5100 cal BC. This gap may, however, only be due to the lack of archaeological information for the fourth millennium cal BC in the Basque-Cantabrian region. I do not think it is a question of ‘resistance’ to the adoption of farming, as has been documented in other European coastal territories. In fact, the high values of domestic fauna in Arenaza, Kobaederra and El Mir ́on from 5100–4500 cal BC suggest that there may have been an earlier transitional phase.

This work recognises five species of Paradiopatra from southwestern Europe, represented in the Bay of Biscay, the Atlantic coasts of Iberia and the western Mediterranean Sea. One species, Paradiopatra florencioi sp. nov., is newly described from the Cantabrian slope, northern Spain. We are presenting detailed diagnoses of all species and report ontogenetic changes of P. bihanica and P. hispanica. Scanning electron microscopy elucidated previously known Meth-ylene Blue or Green staining patterns of the ventral glandular pads as cuticular pores. A dichotomous key to all species is included.

Preliminary results from the excavation of the cave site Kobaederra are presented. For the moment, the stratigraphy -more than two meters deep- goes from the early Neolithic (ca. 4500 cal B.C.) to the Bronze Age. The most interesting information relates to prehistoric agriculture. The analysis of bothanical macro-remains shows that barley (Hordeum vulgare) was present at the oldest occupation and emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum) and millet (Panicum/Setaria) in the upper level.

We summarize the available data about neolithic agriculture from the european atlantic façade, discussing some common assumptions for this area: continuity between the Mesolithic and the Neolithic, limited importance of the first crops and high mobility. The first crops reach atlantic Europe in the Vth millenium cal BC. Atlantic agriculture is, particularly in the North, related to its european foci but it also presents peculiar features such as the cultivation of crops adapted to wetter conditions (hulled wheats like emmer and barley) and the selection of agrarian practices like the harvesting of cereals without sickles. There seems to exist a long period in which wild foods play an important role in human subsistence. However, the lower visibility of cereals when compared to other foods needs to be taken into account. The type of sites that have been sampled –almost exclusively caves in southern areas- may be biasing the general picture.

The polychaetous annelid Diopatra biscayensis Fauchald et al., 2012 was recently described from the Atlantic coast of France. It has been the subject of a plethora of publications dealing with its importance in the field of ecology: from its role as an ecosystem engineer, being an indicative species of climate change in western Europe to questions of whether it was native or introduced to the old continent, spawning theories about its hypothetical routes of introduction and spreading. We have redescribed D. biscayensis, traced its biogeographical history in the Bay of Biscay through examination of old museum holdings and studied its ecology and reproductive biology throughout a one year period from a northern Spain estuary, showing for the first time that the species is a protandric simultaneous hermaphrodite. The annual spawning season is from early August to late September, when large numbers of oocytes of 260 mm diameter were deposited in gelatinous egg masses attached to the parental tubes. Early trochophores developed in the jelly mass by 4e6 h, 3-chaetiger metatrochophores after 48 h, and the jelly mass had totally disintegrated by 72 h, releasing the lecithotrophic larvae. Our studies have clarified the morphology and reproductive pattern of D. biscayensis, documented that the species has inhabited the European waters for more than a century and we hope that these findings will serve as a basis to robust ecological studies and hypotheses concerning this and the related species.

El yacimiento en cueva de Pico Ramos (Muskiz, Bizkaia) presenta dos niveles arqueológicos: un nivel de ocupación fechado a principios del 5º milenio cal. BC y otro sepulcral suprayacente de mediados del 4º milenio cal BC. En este artículo se estudia la función del utillaje lítico de los útiles de ambos niveles. En el nivel más antiguo se ha documentado la existencia de elementos de proyectil, trabajos de carnicería y labores someras de reparación de utillaje. En el nivel Calcolítico destaca la presencia de puntas de flecha, algunas láminas empleadas para el corte de la piel y otras usadas para el corte de cereales.

Seismic interpretation of the MARCONI deep seismic survey enables recognition of the upper crustal structure of the eastern part of the Bay of Biscay and the main features of its Alpine geodynamic evolution. The new data denotes that two domains with different Pyrenean and north foreland structures exist in the Bay of Biscay. In the eastern or Basque‐Parentis Domain, the North Pyrenean front is located close to the Spanish coast, and the northern foreland of the Pyrenees is con- stituted by a continental crust thinned by a north dip- ping fault that induced the formation of the Early Cretaceous Parentis Basin. In the western or Cantab- rian Domain, the North Pyrenean front is shifted to the north and deforms a narrower and deeper foreland basin which lies on the top of a transitional crust formed from the exhumation of lithospheric mantle along a south dipping extensional low‐angle fault during the Early Cretaceous. The transition between these two domains corresponds to a soft transfer zone linking the shifted North Pyrenean fronts and a north‐ to WNW‐directed thrust that places the continental crust of the Landes Plateau over the transitional crust of the Bay of Biscay abyssal plain. Comparison between this structure and regional data enables char- acterization of the extensional rift system developed between Iberia and Eurasia during the Late Jurassic and Cretaceous and recognizes that this rift system controlled not only the location and features of the Pyrenean thrust sheets but also the overall structure of this orogen.

Seasonality might have been a key factor for early farming societies. If the people occupying Pico Ramos or Herriko Barra had incipient farming practices, maybe with poor results, the months before the harvesting of cereals would be the most critical time, the lean period when they might rely on wild products. This is of course the time when red deer was hunted and brought back to sites like Herriko Barra and molluscs were
gathered and consumed in the cave at Pico Ramos We might also question how the landscape was used. In the large cave sites domestic animals dominate, but whenever cereal macro-remains are present, they only offer a few remains of clean grain with no weeds or chaff. This suggests that agricultural activities most probably took place somewhere else and that caves from the Neolithic are likely to have been used for
particular activities (Bouby 2003) such as storage places, areas for keeping animals, or ritual space.

The European anchovy, Engraulis encrasicolus, in the Bay of Biscay suffered a collapse in census population size (N c) starting in 2002, from which it did not recover until 2010. The slow recovery raised concern over sustainability, potential reduction in adaptive potential, and vulnerability to local extirpation. Long- and short-term effective population size (N e), N e/N c ratio, and other genetic parameters were estimated to evaluate demographic signals of population decline. A total of 349 neutral single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were screened in 330 anchovy individuals from the Bay of Biscay distributed across a 20-year period. We show that N c fluctuations have not significantly affected short-term N e, and therefore, genetic diversity has remained stable throughout the recent collapse. This study illustrates that N e estimates should be incorporated into management plans. Our results on short-term N e suggested that the anchovy in the Bay of Biscay has not faced any recent severe threat of losing evolutionary potential due to genetic drift. However, differences between short- and long-term N e estimates suggested that the Bay of Biscay anchovy population may be currently much smaller than in the historical past.

Este trabajo presenta datos sobre el cultivo de cereales en la Euskal Herria atlántica durante este siglo analizándose las diferentes prácticas y tareas agrícolas. Los datos etnográficos obtenidos constituyen un elemento importante para justificar la existencia de una agricultura cerealista en esta zona en época prehistórica.

Se distinguen los siguientes conjuntos: 1. Conjuntos botánicos de posible origen antrópico en cotas superiores con elementos indicadores de presencia de coníferas y carbón de madera. En el Sondeo ER-1 este episodio se ha datado por 14C c. s. XVI-XVIII pero hay elementos más modernos 2. Conjuntos botánicos de origen natural: se trata de tallos, tejidos de epidermis, raíces, musgos, semillas, floema o cortezas de árboles. Algunas de estas muestras tienen un gran interés paleoambiental por la alta frecuencia y diversidad de los materiales.

AMS dating of cereals in Iberia is starting to provide a better chronological framework for the origins of agriculture. The first dates cluster in the central and second part of the 6th millenium BC, although they are later for the northern Atlantic coast. This delay in the north might be a result of current research although some have proposed a resistance to the adoption of agriculture in an Ertebølle-like scenario.

The human groups that lived on the Basque coast during the beginning of the 4th millenium BC developed broad spectrum subsistence strategies where plant foods could have played a major role. It is not known when agricultural practices started although it is suggested that they were previous or parallel to megalithism.

En la excavación efectuada y hasta la base que hemos alcanzado en los cuadros AF55 y AG55 hemos podido documentar nuevas unidades estratigráficas que se añaden al contexto arqueológico anteriormente excavado para ayudarnos a comprender la secuencia cronológica de esta cavidad.

The European anchovy, Engraulis encrasicolus, in the Bay of Biscay suffered a collapse in census population size (N c) starting in 2002, from which it did not recover until 2010. The slow recovery raised concern over sustainability, potential reduction in adaptive potential, and vulnerability to local extirpation. Long- and short-term effective population size (N e), N e/N c ratio, and other genetic parameters were estimated to evaluate demographic signals of population decline. A total of 349 neutral single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were screened in 330 anchovy individuals from the Bay of Biscay distributed across a 20-year period. We show that N c fluctuations have not significantly affected short-term N e, and therefore, genetic diversity has remained stable throughout the recent collapse. This study illustrates that N e estimates should be incorporated into management plans. Our results on short-term N e suggested that the anchovy in the Bay of Biscay has not faced any rec...

We present the result of the analises of plant macroremains (charcoal, fruits and seeds) from the archaeological excavation carried out at Santa Maria La Real (Zarautz). One group of samples is dated to the roman age and the others are medieval. The earliest ones include a bigger diversity of crops (hulled wheats such as Triticum dicoccum and Triticum spelta, free-threshing wheats, barley and Italian millet). The most recent ones include wheat and Italian millet. In both cases Setaria italica (Italian millet) is the most abundant crop. A minimum number of 15 arboreal species are represented in the charcoal analysis. Deciduous oaks sum more than half the fragments followed by alder.