Presente-pasado. Definición y usos de una categoría historiográfica en historia de la ciencia: El arte prehistórico como paradigma.

In this paper we will investigate the potential for the application of the concept of “present-past” in the study of the history of archaeology. We suggest that this category provides archaeologists with a useful model in order to understand (A) the role of our present concepts and ideas in the definition of the past and (B) the impact of archaeological finds on modern Western societies. Taking the example of the cave of Altamira into account, we will analyse first the importance of assumptions deeply embedded in Western culture in the definition of Palaeolithic art at the end of nineteenth century. Secondly, we will show the influence (economic, cultural, political) that Palaeolithic art exerts on our modern societies. Through this examination, we will show the way in which the concept of “present-past” can be used in history of science.En este artículo exploramos las potencialidades de la categoría historiográfica “presente-pasado” en historia de la arqueología. Dicha categoría debe ser considerada como un instrumento que permita a los historiadores comprender (A) la importancia del presente en la definición del pasado y (B) el impacto que la arqueología ejerce sobre nuestras modernas sociedades occidentales. Tomando como ejemplo la cueva de Altamira, analizaremos en primer lugar la importancia que nuestras modernas categorías ejercieron sobre la definición del arte paleolítico a finales del siglo XIX. En segundo lugar, mostraremos la influencia (económica, cultural, política) que el arte paleolítico ejerce sobre nuestras modernas sociedades contemporáneas. De este modo, esperamos demostrar las potencialidades de la categoría “presente-pasado” en historia de la ciencia

Taphonomy as a methodological framework for understanding surface funerary deposits: the human burial at the cave of El Espinoso (Ribadedeva, Asturias)

RESUMEN: Durante la Edad del Bronce en el norte de la Península Ibérica algunos grupos humanos inhumaban a sus congéneres sobre la superficie del suelo de cuevas de difícil acceso. Esta tradición cultural, muy arraigada en el País Vasco y en Cantabria, se extiende hasta la región oriental de Asturias. Este trabajo se centra en el estudio tafonómico de los restos humanos encontrados en 1993 en la cueva de El Espinoso (Ribadedeva, Asturias). La cueva fue utilizada como lugar de inhumación de un número mínimo de veinte individuos, de ambos sexos y diferentes edades. Este yacimiento constituye el único enterramiento múltiple en cueva de la Edad del Bronce documentado hasta ahora en Asturias, sumándose así a otros yacimientos de la Prehistoria Reciente de esta región, como son El Toral III, La Llana y Fuentenegroso y consolidando esta tradición funeraria a lo largo de dos mil años en el Oriente de Asturias. La tafonomía ha ofrecido un marco teórico y metodológico preciso para estudiar este tipo de yacimientos en superficie, afectados por complejos procesos post-deposicionales.ABSTRACT: During the Bronze Age the human groups of Cantabria buried their dead on the surface of narrow caves. This cultural tradition, common to the Basque Country and Cantabria, extends to eastern Asturias. This work focuses on the taphonomical study of the human remains found in 1993 in the cave of El Espinoso, located in Ribadedeva (Asturias). The cavity was used as a burial place for a minimum of twenty individuals of both sexes and different ages. This site constitutes the only collective burial cave currently known from the Bronze Age in Asturias (other later prehistoric burial caves in the region ?El Toral III, La Llana, Fuentenegroso, etc.? have single burials). A funerary tradition of cave burial lasted over two thousand years in eastern Asturias. The taphonomical analysis provides a theoritical and methodological framework adequate to the study this type of superficial deposits, affected by complex post-depositional processes.Este estudio se ha realizado a partir del Trabajo Fin de Máster del primero de los autores. La investigación ha sido apoyada por el Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Cantabria y financiada por el Proyecto “Tracing Climatic Abrupt Change Events and Their Social Impact during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene (15–7 ky calBP) (HAR2013-46802-P)” financiado por el Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España

Paleoclimatic inference of the mid-Holocene record of monk seal (Monachus monachus) in the Cantabrian Coast

The mid-Holocene has been widely used to test the performance of the numerical models that are commonly employed to estimate the future evolution of world climate. This period, as the pollen record shows, was characterized by higher temperatures than present in northern and Central Europe, while cooler conditions occurred in the south of the continent. This pattern is challenging numeric algorithms that widely fail to replicate the paleoclimate data of southern Europe. Here we report the discovery of a fragmented bone of a temperate water phocid (Monachus monachus) dated to 5540 ± 40 BP that was hunted and consumed on the Cantabrian Coast during that period. This find implies a hitherto unnoted phase of warm conditions associated with strengthened advention of subtropical waters to the region. As a consequence, the possibility that the oceanographic regime from that time in the Bay of Biscay was similar to the current one is reinforced, a fact that could modify our view of mid-Holocene climate in the Iberian Peninsula and have important implications in climate change studies

Fractionation and fluxes of metals and radionuclides during the recycling process of phosphogypsum wastes applied to mineral CO2 sequestration

The industry of phosphoric acid produces a calcium-rich by-product known as phosphogypsum, which is usually stored in large stacks of millions of tons. Up to now, no commercial application has been widely implemented for its reuse because of the significant presence of potentially toxic contaminants. This work confirmed that up to 96% of the calcium of phosphogypsum could be recycled for CO2 mineral sequestration by a simple two-step process: alkaline dissolution and aqueous carbonation, under ambient pressure and temperature. This CO2 sequestration process based on recycling phosphogypsum wastes would help to mitigate greenhouse gasses emissions. Yet this work goes beyond the validation of the sequestration procedure; it tracks the contaminants, such as trace metals or radionuclides, during the recycling process in the phosphogypsum. Thus, most of the contaminants were transferred from raw phosphogypsum to portlandite, obtained by dissolution of the phosphogypsum in soda, and from portlandite to calcite during aqueous carbonation. These findings provide valuable information for managing phosphogypsum wastes and designing potential technological applications of the by-products of this environmentally-friendly proposal.Junta de Andalucía P10-RNM-6300, P12- RNM-226

Palaeogenomics of Upper Palaeolithic to Neolithic European hunter-gatherers

Modern humans have populated Europe for more than 45,000 years1,2. Our knowledge of the genetic relatedness and structure of ancient hunter-gatherers is however limited, owing to the scarceness and poor molecular preservation of human remains from that period3. Here we analyse 356 ancient hunter-gatherer genomes, including new genomic data for 116 individuals from 14 countries in western and central Eurasia, spanning between 35,000 and 5,000 years ago. We identify a genetic ancestry profile in individuals associated with Upper Palaeolithic Gravettian assemblages from western Europe that is distinct from contemporaneous groups related to this archaeological culture in central and southern Europe4, but resembles that of preceding individuals associated with the Aurignacian culture. This ancestry profile survived during the Last Glacial Maximum (25,000 to 19,000 years ago) in human populations from southwestern Europe associated with the Solutrean culture, and with the following Magdalenian culture that re-expanded northeastward after the Last Glacial Maximum. Conversely, we reveal a genetic turnover in southern Europe suggesting a local replacement of human groups around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, accompanied by a north-to-south dispersal of populations associated with the Epigravettian culture. From at least 14,000 years ago, an ancestry related to this culture spread from the south across the rest of Europe, largely replacing the Magdalenian-associated gene pool. After a period of limited admixture that spanned the beginning of the Mesolithic, we find genetic interactions between western and eastern European hunter-gatherers, who were also characterized by marked differences in phenotypically relevant variants.This project has received funding by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements no. 803147-RESOLUTION (to S.T.), no. 771234-PALEoRIDER (to W.H.), no. 864358 (to K.M.), no. 724703 and no. 101019659 (to K.H.). K.H. is also supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG FOR 2237). E.A. has received funding from the Van de Kamp fonds. PACEA co-authors of this research benefited from the scientific framework of the University of Bordeaux’s IdEx Investments for the Future programme/GPR Human Past. A.G.-O. is supported by a Ramón y Cajal fellowship (RYC-2017-22558). L. Sineo, M.L. and D.C. have received funding from the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR) PRIN 2017 grants 20177PJ9XF and 20174BTC4R_002. H. Rougier received support from the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences of CSUN and the CSUN Competition for RSCA Awards. C.L.S. and T. Saupe received support from the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (project no. 2014-2020.4.01.16-0030) and C.L.S. received support from the Estonian Research Council grant PUT (PRG243). S. Shnaider received support from the Russian Science Foundation (no. 19-78 10053)

Temporal and spatial variability of prehistoric aquatic resource procurement: a case study from Mesolithic Northern Iberia

Prehistoric shell middens hold valuable evidence of past human–environment interactions. In this study, we used carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) stable isotopes of Mytilus galloprovincialis shells excavated from El Perro, La Fragua and La Chora, three Mesolithic middens in Cantabria, Northern Spain, to examine hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies in terms of seasonality and collection areas. Furthermore, we used shell δ18O to reconstruct water temperature during the early Holocene. Stable isotopes reveal a shellfish harvesting diversification trend represented by the gradual establishment of the upper estuaries as new procurement areas and an increase of harvesting mobility in both coastal and in-land sites. These innovations in subsistence strategies during the Mesolithic coincided with major changes in the surrounding environment as attested by the water temperature reconstructions based on δ18O and backed by several global and regional records. Overall, our results show that shell δ13C and δ18O stable isotopes have an underexplored potential as provenance proxies which stimulates their application to the archaeological record to further understand prehistoric human resource procurement and diet.This research was performed as part of the projects HAR2016-75605-R and HAR2017-86262-P, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, MINECO

The arrival of millets to the Atlantic coast of northern Iberia

Despite being one of the most important crops in the recent prehistory of Eurasia, the arrival and exploitation of millets in the westernmost part of Europe are still largely underexplored. Here and for the first time, we report multipronged biomolecular evidence of millet consumption along the Atlantic façade of northern Iberia through a combination of radiocarbon dating, stable isotopes, and dental calculus analyses on the human individuals found in the burial site of El Espinoso cave (Asturias, Spain). The high-resolution chronological framework established for individuals placed the burials between 1235 and 1099 cal. BC. The discovery of high ?13C values on their bone collagen and the identification of polyhedral starch grains within their dental plaque underline the relevance of C4 plants in their diet and highlights the timing of the systematic consumption of millets in the Late Bronze Age. Our data support previous regional archaeobotanical evidence and establish a more precise chronology of the dispersal of millets into northern Iberia during the Bronze Age, becoming an essential crop until the arrival of maize from America after AD 1492. This study emphasizes the importance of multidisciplinary methods to ascertain the origin and development of agricultural practices during recent prehistory.This study is part of B.G.R.’s Doctoral dissertation, supervised by A.B.M.A. and M.R.G.M. This research is funded by the research projects of the Spanish Economy, Industry and Competitiveness Ministry HAR2016-75605-R to M.R.G.M. and HAR2017- 84997-P to A.B.M.A. Part of this research, including the stable isotope analyses, was funded by the ERC Consolidator Grant (SUBSILIENCE ref. 818299), awarded to A.B.M.A. Analysis of dental calculus was carried out in the framework of the ERC Starting Grant (HIDDEN FOODS ref. 639286), awarded to E.C. The authors would like to thank C. García de Castro and B. López for giving information and allowing the sampling of Los Cinchos cave. We are grateful to L. Agudo Perez for her invaluable help during the collagen extraction protocols. The authors wish to acknowledge Dr Lawrence G. Straus (University of New Mexico) for editing the English version of this manuscript. Finally, we also thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that improved the manuscript

La Cueva del Mirón (Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria): excavaciones 1996-1999

The four excavation campaigns carried out to date in El Miron Cave, with a complete stratigraphic sequence from the early Bronze Age through the Solutrean, have demonstrated the importance of this site to the understanding of human societies in the montane interior of the Cantabrian Region during much of its prehistory. The excavation methods that have been applied especially document in detail residential areas pertaining to the Chalcolithic, Neolithic, and early-mid Magdalenian periods within this large cave. They also have provided large quantities of paleoenvironmental and cultural data that are currently under analysis. Numerous examples of parietal engravings have been discovered and, in some cases, stratigraphically dated to the Magdalenian. The forty radiocarbon dates obtained so far already constitute the largest series for any Cantabrian site and include a number of important dates for the beginning of the regional Neolithic sequence at c. 5800 BP (uncal.). Results of geophysical survey indicate the existence of a sedimentary infilling in the cave vestibule that could include archeological deposits well below the 19,000 year-old Solutrean layers reached so far.Las cuatro campañas de excavación desarrolladas en la Cueva del Mirón, con una estratigrafía continua que abarca por ahora desde el Bronce inicial hasta el Solutrense, han puesto de manifiesto la importancia de este yacimiento para el conocimiento de las sociedades humanas de las áreas interiores de la Región Cantábrica a lo largo de buena parte de la Prehistoria. Los procedimientos de excavación aplicados han permitido documentar en detalle espacios domésticos del Calcolítico, el Neolítico y el Paleolítico Superior final y recoger gran cantidad de testimonios industriales y ambientales, junto con muestras de arte parietal paleolítico. Las cuarenta dataciones radiocarbónicas obtenidas hasta el momento la convierten en la secuencia más completa del Cantábrico, incluyendo una interesante serie de fechas para los momentos iniciales del Neolítico regional. Los datos de la prospección geofísica señalan una potencia sedimentaria que asegura la posible continuación en profundidad de los depósitos arqueológicos

Cores, Core-Scrapers, and Bladelet Production during the Lower Magdalenian Occupations of El Mirón Cave, Cantabrian Spain

Among the defining characteristics of the Cantabrian (Spain) Lower Magdalenian (19.2–17.5 cal kya), along with portable art works, are so-called “nucleiform endscrapers.” These small cores often display one or more regularized edges that could indicate a secondary function as scrapers. Although this has been demonstrated microscopically to be the case at some sites, it is generally not true in a large sample from Level 17, a massive Lower Magdalenian horizon in El Mirón Cave on the edge of the Cantabrian Cordillera. This study synthesizes lithic typology, technology, and microwear analysis of the Level 17 lithic sample. The results indicate that understanding the absolute versus relative abundance of core endscrapers is important to classifications of Lower Magdalenian lithic assemblages, particularly in terms of inter-site tool comparisons, understanding the relative abundance of tools in relation to debitage products, and the key role of bladelet production