María José Iriarte-Chiapusso

A Middle Palaeolithic wooden digging stick from Aranbaltza III, Spain

Aranbaltza is an archaeological complex formed by at least three open-air sites. Between 2014 and 2015 a test excavation carried out in Aranbaltza III revealed the presence of a sand and clay sedimentary sequence formed in floodplain environments, within which six sedimentary units have been identified. This sequence was formed between 137–50 ka, and includes several archaeological horizons, attesting to the long-term presence of Neanderthal communities in this area. One of these horizons, corresponding with Unit 4, yielded two wooden tools. One of these tools is a beveled pointed tool that was shaped through a complex operational sequence involving branch shaping, bark peeling, twig removal, shaping, polishing, thermal exposition and chopping. A use-wear analysis of the tool shows it to have traces related with digging soil so it has been interpreted as representing a digging stick. This is the first time such a tool has been identified in a European Late Middle Palaeolithic context; it also represents one of the first well-preserved Middle Palaeolithic wooden tool found in southern Europe. This artefact represents one of the few examples available of wooden tool preservation for the European Palaeolithic, allowing us to further explore the role wooden technologies played in Neanderthal communities.

The Late Pleistocene avifauna from Artazu VII (Basque Country, northern Iberian Peninsula)

ABSTRACT This study is a contribution to the knowledge of ancient avifauna in the Iberian Peninsula. 1,786 bird bones have been recovered from Artazu VII (Arrasate, northern Iberian Peninsula), with 239 remains identified to Order/Family and 519 to Genus/Species level, belonging to, at least, 12 taxa: Buteo lagopus, Aquila chrysaetos, Perdix perdix, Coturnix coturnix, Alectoris sp., Lyrurus tetrix, Crex crex, Bubo cf. bubo, Corvus monedula, Pica pica, Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax and Pyrrhocorax graculus. The best represented taxa are corvids, followed by L. tetrix. The most significant finding is the presence of B. lagopus, which represents the second fossil record in the Iberian Peninsula. The morphometric analyses performed for C. coturnix and L. tetrix contribute to the knowledge of those taxa measurements, due to the Artazu VII assemblage being one of the best samples of these taxa in the Iberian Peninsula for the late Pleistocene. All the measurements of B. lagopus and C. coturnix have been analysed statistically. A brief taphonomic study has been carried out to identify the bird accumulation agent. Finally, a palaeoenvironmental analysis is based on the bird assemblage and ecology, and this new information is compared to palaeoenvironmental data inferred from vertebrates at Artazu VII in previous studies.