José Yravedra Sainz de los Terreros

New Contributions on Subsistence Practices during the Middle-Upper Paleolithic in Northern Spain

Since the 1980s, research on subsistence practices across the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition in northern Spain has focused on a few sites, namely the caves of Castillo, Morin, Pendo and Lezetxiki. However, new studies carried out at these sites have raised some problems in relation to the traditional interpretation of their contexts. When compared to similar data from other sites, these new data may further improve our knowledge of human subsistence for this time period and region. The taphonomic and zooarchaeological analyses presented here, based on material from the caves of Esquilleu, Hornos de la Pena, Morin, Covalejos, Ruso, Cuco, Cofresnedo and Otero, contribute to current debates about subsistence practices across the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition. They also suggest similarities in the meat acquisition strategies of the last Neanderthals and first Homo sapiens.

Neanderthal and Homo sapiens subsistence strategies in the Cantabrian region of northern Spain

The Iberian Peninsula is key for the study of the transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic in Europe, as well as for the replacement of Neanderthals by anatomically modern humans (AMH). On this subject, the most widespread misconception assumed that both human species coexisted during a certain period of time, after which Homo sapiens imposed on Neanderthals who finally got extinct. However, recent proposals based on improved dating methods, discuss this possibility, arguing that the arrival of AMH was marked by the complete absence of Homo neanderthalensis in this territory. In that way, new theories deny the possibility of coexistence and the disappearance of Neanderthals by cultural displacement. Covalejos Cave (Velo, Pielagos, Cantabria), one of the few settlements in the northern Peninsula with Final Mousterian and Early Aurignacian levels, supports this hypothesis. Nevertheless, in this paper, we try to avoid a direct discussion about this question in order to centre our analysis on identifying possible different subsistence strategies between H. neanderthalensis and anatomically modern humans in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Our zooarchaeological and taphonomic studies reflect that Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans exploited the same faunal species, pointing out that there does not seem to be significant differences in their behaviour in Covalejos Cave.

Specialised hunting of Iberian ibex during Neanderthal occupation at El Esquilleu Cave, northern Spain

Traditional views of Neanderthal hunting strategies envisage them preying on herd species such as bison and deer, rather than the sophisticated tracking of solitary animals. Analysis of faunal remains from El Esquilleu Cave in northern Spain, however, demonstrates that during certain periods of the Middle Palaeolithic occupation, Neanderthals focused on the hunting of ibex and chamois, small solitary species that inhabited the mountainous terrain around the site. These results indicate that Neanderthal hunting practices may have had more similarity to those of their Upper Palaeolithic relatives than is usually assumed.