F. Bernaldo de Quirós

The origin of ethics

The evidence of ethics attitudes are quite difficult to be identified in the archaeological record. One of the first attitudes we can assume from the archeological record are those related with the recognition of death and how this recognition change the attitudes related with the deposition of humans corpses when death. The presence of graves or burials are firstly related with the Middle Palaeolithic in Eurasia. Its presence and distribution present many questions not so easy to solve. With the Upper Palaeolithic, the presence of items like decoration elements and those related broadly with “offerings”, give us the opportunity to understand the role of the individuals in the society.

Economical strategies in the Upper Palaeolithic in the Cantabrian region

The aim of this paper is to survey the economic approach in relation to animal use during Upper Palaeolithic times in Northern Spain. The animals present in the archaeological record can be separated into main groups, like those present by natural reasons and those introduced by human groups. Also in the anthropic aported animals, some of them are related to food procurements and others to economic reasons. Animals like deer, bovids, equids and so on, were mainly related to nutrition, while some others like mustelids, canids or felines were more related to the obtention of furs or other non-alimentary uses. The analysis of the “main-six” (red deer, roe deer, big bovids, horse, ibex and wild boar) showed that all of them were used throughout the Upper Palaeolithic without many changes in time.