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Multidisciplinary evidence of an isolated Neanderthal occupation in Abric del Pastor (Alcoi, Iberian Peninsula)

Testing Neanderthal behavioural hypotheses requires a spatial–temporal resolution to the level of a human single occupation episode. Yet, most of the behavioural data on Neanderthals has been obtained from coarsely dated, time-averaged contexts affected by the archaeological palimpsest effect and a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Sossa-Ríos, Santiago, Mayor, Alejandro, Hernández, Cristo M., Bencomo, Mariel, Pérez, Leopoldo, Galván, Bertila, Mallol, Carolina, Vaquero, Manuel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9508120/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36151242
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20200-z
Descripción
Sumario:Testing Neanderthal behavioural hypotheses requires a spatial–temporal resolution to the level of a human single occupation episode. Yet, most of the behavioural data on Neanderthals has been obtained from coarsely dated, time-averaged contexts affected by the archaeological palimpsest effect and a diversity of postdepositional processes. This implies that time-resolved Neanderthal behaviour remains largely unknown. In this study, we performed archaeostratigraphic analysis on stratigraphic units ive, ivf, ivg, va, vb and vc from Abric del Pastor (Alcoi, Iberian Peninsula). Further, we isolated the archaeological remains associated with the resulting archaeostratigraphic unit and applied raw material, technological, use-wear, archaeozoological and spatial analyses. Our results show a low-density accumulation of remains from flintknapping, flint tool-use and animal processing around a hearth. These data provide a time-resolved human dimension to previous high-resolution environmental and pyrotechnological data on the same hearth, representing the first comprehensive characterisation of a Neanderthal single occupation episode. Our integrated, multidisciplinary method also contributes to advance our understanding of archaeological record formation processes.