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Climate, environment and human behaviour in the Middle Palaeolithic of Abrigo de la Quebrada (Valencia, Spain): The evidence from charred plant and m…
2019
Abstract The Abrigo de la Quebrada rock shelter was occupied by Neanderthal groups during the early Upper Pleistocene, yielding evidence for their subsistence practices and local resource exploitation. This paper focuses on the plant macroremains and the micromammals, which provide information about occupation patterns, the surrounding landscape, the use of resources, and the environment. Mountain pine forests and permanent grass formations containing humid zones and open spaces that would have harboured an eurythermal microfauna were the dominant landscape type. Cold-climate pines provided most of the firewood. The data are consistent with a recurrent, seasonal occupation pattern, in which…
Pleistocene paleoenvironmental reconstructions and mammalian evolution in South-East Asia: focus on fossil faunas from Thailand.
2006
16 pages; International audience; Mammalian faunal studies have provided various clues for a better reconstruction of hominid Quaternary paleoenvironments. Inthis work, two methods were used: (1) the cenogram method, based on a graphical representation of the mammalian communitystructure, and (2) the species richness of murine rodents to estimate climatic parameters. These methods were applied to Middle andLate Pleistocene mammalian faunas of South-East Asia, from South China to Indonesia. Special emphasis was laid on a fauna fromnorth-east Thailand dated back to approximately 170,000 years (i.e. a glacial period). This Thai fauna seems characteristic of aslightly open forested environment …
Identifying fossil rabbit warrens: Insights from a taphonomical analysis of a modern warren
2016
14 pages; International audience; The European rabbit is a small burrowing mammal that is particularly abundant in Western Europe since the Pleistocene and introduced around the world over the last few centuries. Rabbit bones are regularly recovered from archaeological and palaeontological sites; however, demonstrating their contemporaneity with associated material is often difficult. Additionally, determining the origin of rabbit remains in fossil sites is equally problematic due to the lack of reference collections for natural accumulations. In order to address these issues, we excavated a modern rabbit warren in southwestern France using modern archaeological field methods and techniques…
Revisiting the Epipalaeolithic-Neolithic Transition in the Extreme NW of Africa : The Latest Results of the Chronological Sequence of the Cave of Kaf…
2021
[EN] This study focuses on the chronostratigraphic sequence of the Cave of Kaf Taht el-Ghar (Dar Ben Karrich, Tétouan, Morocco) excavated in 2012 in the framework of the AGRIWESTMED research project. The broad sequence reveals a series of occupations ranging from the Pleistocene (Moroccan Aterian) to recent historical times. Our research identifies a rich Early Neolithic phase (sixth millennium cal BC) containing the earliest pottery and domesticated animal and plant remains in the western Maghreb. However, this Early Neolithic level is not an immediate successor of the last traces of the Epipalaeolithic hunter-gatherer occupation, which started at the end of the Younger Dryas (10,900–9700 …
The Anthropogenic Use of Firewood During the European Middle Pleistocene: Charcoal Evidence from Levels XIII and XI of Bolomor Cave, Eastern Iberia (…
2017
Human control of fire is a widely debated issue in the field of Palaeolithic archaeology, since it involved significant technological innovations for human subsistence. Although fire evidence has been the subject of intense debate regarding its natural or anthropogenic nature, most authors agree that combustion structures represent the most direct evidence of human control of fire. Wood charcoal fragments from these contexts represent the fuel remains that result from humans' collection of firewood, which means they can reveal significant behavioural and palaeoenvironmental information relevant to our understanding of Middle Palaeolithic societies. In this work, we present anthracological d…
Through diachronic discontinuities and regionalization: The contribution of the analysis of the lithic industries from Grotta della Serratura (Strata…
2019
Abstract Within the evolutionary dynamics of post-Gravettian techno-complexes, one can observe an intense regionalization phenomenon, both on a European scale, with the creation of two main provinces, and within the Italian peninsula. To date, typological studies have led to the recognition of several Italian Epigravettian facies, identifying trends, similarities, and differences in the lithic complexes. An important contribution was made by the technological method which in recent years has allowed us to identify the evolutionary processes of the lithic industries in numerous deposits of northern Italy. It is the intent of this reporting to add information which contributes to the debate o…
New data about the landscape of the first occupation of Mallorca: Coval Simó (Escorca, Mallorca)
2020
The Coval Simó shelter provides some of the oldest evidence for settlement on the island of Mallorca and the Balearic archipelago. It also has the peculiarity of being a habitat in a mountain area, so that the human groups that settled there had to adapt their agricultural and farming system to this environment. The plant remains (wood charcoal and seeds) recovered in the occupation levels allow us to address these issues, since they are the result of the different activities developed in this cavity: fuel for domestic activities, food for livestock, etc. The results of this study show that between the III and II millennium cal BC, an agricultural system based on livestock and cereal farmi…
A tale of two gorges: Late Quaternary site formation and surface dynamics in the Mula basin (Murcia, Spain)
2018
Abstract We present a case-study in Palaeolithic archaeology focusing on formation processes at cave- and rock-shelter-sites in a Mediterranean context and on the correlation between site deposits, Quaternary surface sediments and the morphology of the surrounding land. We study three sites located in the basin of River Mula (Murcia, Spain): the cave-site of Cueva Anton and the rock-shelters of Finca Dona Martina and Abrigo de la Boja, in the Rambla Perea valley. They are examined through an integrated geoarchaeological approach that takes into account geomorphological, stratigraphic and soil micromorphological data. The three sites are found within a short distance and cover similar time s…
A low seasonality scenario in the Mediterranean Sea during the Calabrian (Early Pleistocene) inferred from fossil Arctica islandica shells
2017
Understanding past seasonal temperature variability in the ocean is essential to evaluate the effects of future climate change on marine ecosystems. Here, we estimate seasonal water temperature amplitudes from stable oxygen isotope (δ18Oshell) values of fossil shells of Arctica islandica (assuming δ18Owater= + 0.9 ± 0.1â° V-SMOW). Specimens were collected from three Pleistocene successions (Emilian and Sicilian substages of the Calabrian) in Central and Southern Italy (i.e., Rome, Lecce and Sicily). Biostratigraphic analyses from Rome Quarry deposits indicate an age between 1.6 and 1.2 Ma, whereas Sicily and Lecce successions are slightly more recent (between 1.1 and 0.62 Ma). Prior to …
Griesbachian and Dienerian (Early Triassic) ammonoid faunas from Northwestern Guangxi and Southern Guizhou (South China).
2008
30 pages; International audience; Intensive sampling of the Luolou (northwestern Guangxi) and the Daye (southern Guizhou) Formations in South China leads to the recognition of a regional Griesbachian and Dienerian ammonoid succession for this key palaeobiogeographical area. The new biostratigraphical sequence comprises the upper Griesbachian ‘Ophiceras beds' and the lower Dienerian ‘Proptychites candidus beds', which are separated from the uppermost Dienerian ‘Clypites beds' by an unfossiliferous interval. These faunas contain some taxa with wide geographic distribution (e.g. Ambites, Pleurambites, Pleurogyronites, Proptychites candidus), thus facilitating correlation with faunal succession…