3 research outputs found
Fire and brief human occupations in Iberia during MIS 4: Evidence from Abric del Pastor (Alcoy, Spain)
There is a relatively low amount of Middle Paleolithic sites in Europe dating to MIS 4. Of the few that
exist, several of them lack evidence for anthropogenic fire, raising the question of how this period
of global cooling may have affected the Neanderthal population. The Iberian Peninsula is a key area
to explore this issue, as it has been considered as a glacial refugium during critical periods of the
Neanderthal timeline and might therefore yield archaeological contexts in which we can explore
possible changes in the behaviour and settlement patterns of Neanderthal groups during MIS 4.
Here we report recent data from Abric del Pastor, a small rock shelter in Alcoy (Alicante, Spain) with
a stratified deposit containing Middle Palaeolithic remains. We present absolute dates that frame
the sequence within MIS 4 and multi-proxy geoarchaeological evidence of in situ anthropogenic fire,
including microscopic evidence of in situ combustion residues and thermally altered sediment. We also
present archaeostratigraphic evidence of recurrent, functionally diverse, brief human occupation of the
rock shelter. Our results suggest that Neanderthals occupied the Central Mediterranean coast of the
Iberian Peninsula during MIS 4, that these Neanderthals were not undergoing climatic stress and they
were habitual fire users.This research was funded by a Leakey Foundation General Grant, Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation
and Universities Projects HAR2008-06117/HIST and HAR2015-68321-P, Junta de Castilla y León-FEDER
Project BU235P18, the LabEx Sciences Archéologiques de Bordeaux (LaScArBx ANR-10-LABX-52) and ERC
Consolidator Grant ERC-CoG-2014. Archaeological excavations at Abric del Pastor are supported by the
Archaeological Museum of Alcoy and the Government of Valencia Cultural Heritage Department
The ACER pollen and charcoal database: A global resource to document vegetation and fire response to abrupt climate changes during the last glacial period
This is the final version of the article. Available from Copernicus Publications via the DOI in this record.Quaternary records provide an opportunity to examine the nature of the vegetation and fire responses to rapid past climate changes comparable in velocity and magnitude to those expected in the 21st-century. The best documented examples of rapid climate change in the past are the warming events associated with the Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) cycles during the last glacial period, which were sufficiently large to have had a potential feedback through changes in albedo and greenhouse gas emissions on climate. Previous reconstructions of vegetation and fire changes during the D-O cycles used independently constructed age models, making it difficult to compare the changes between different sites and regions. Here, we present the ACER (Abrupt Climate Changes and Environmental Responses) global database, which includes 93 pollen records from the last glacial period (73-15ka) with a temporal resolution better than 1000years, 32 of which also provide charcoal records. A harmonized and consistent chronology based on radiometric dating (14C, 234U/230Th, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), 40Ar/39Ar-dated tephra layers) has been constructed for 86 of these records, although in some cases additional information was derived using common control points based on event stratigraphy. The ACER database compiles metadata including geospatial and dating information, pollen and charcoal counts, and pollen percentages of the characteristic biomes and is archived in Microsoft Access™ at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.870867.The members of the ACER project wish to thank the QUEST-DESIRE (UK and France) bilateral project, the INQUA International Focus Group ACER and the
INTIMATE-COST action for funding a suite of workshops to compile the ACER pollen and charcoal database and the workshop on ACER chronology that allow setting the basis for harmonizing the chronologies. Josué M.
Polanco-Martinez was funded by a Basque Government postdoctoral
fellowship (POS_2015_1_0006) and Sandy P. Harrison by the ERC Advanced Grant GC2.0: unlocking the past for a clearer future
Changing environments during the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition in the eastern Cantabrian Region (Spain): direct evidence from stable isotope studies on ungulate bones
Environmental change has been proposed as a factor that contributed to the extinction of the Neanderthals in Europe during MIS3. Currently, the different local environmental conditions experienced at the time when Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) met Neanderthals are not well known. In the Western Pyrenees, particularly, in the eastern end of the Cantabrian coast of the Iberian Peninsula, extensive evidence of Neanderthal and subsequent AMH activity exists, making it an ideal area in which to explore the palaeoenvironments experienced and resources exploited by both human species during the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition. Red deer and horse were analysed using bone collagen stable isotope analysis to reconstruct environmental conditions across the transition. A shift in the ecological niche of horses after the Mousterian demonstrates a change in environment, towards more open vegetation, linked to wider climatic change. In the Mousterian, Aurignacian and Gravettian, high inter-individual nitrogen ranges were observed in both herbivores. This could indicate that these individuals were procured from areas isotopically different in nitrogen. Differences in sulphur values between sites suggest some variability in the hunting locations exploited, reflecting the human use of different parts of the landscape. An alternative and complementary explanation proposed is that there were climatic fluctuations within the time of formation of these archaeological levels, as observed in pollen, marine and ice cores.This research was funded by the European Commission through a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant (FP7-
PEOPLE-2012-CIG-322112), by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (HAR2012-33956 and
Ramon y Cajal-2011-00695), the University of Cantabria and Campus International to ABMA. Radiocarbon
dating at ORAU was funded by MINECO-HAR2012-33956 project. J.J was supported initially by the FP7-
PEOPLE-2012-CIG-322112 and later by a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-2014-656122).
Laboratory work, associated research expenses and isotopic analysis were kindly funded by the Max Planck
Society to M.R