Looking at the Camp: Paleolithic Depiction of a Hunter-Gatherer Campsite

García-Diez, Marcos; Vaquero, Manuel

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0143002

Cited by 26 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…If we assume that a unique cave lion skin is represented, the fur could also have had a function related to covering the floor or the structure due to its spatial distribution. Other functionalities beyond clothing, such as hut structural elements like covertures, have been interpreted previously for other Upper Paleolithic sites, based on ethnographic analogies [75–81]. …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Under the Skin of a Lion: Unique Evidence of Upper Paleolithic Exploitation and Use of Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea) from the Lower Gallery of La Garma (Spain)

Cueto

Camarós

Castaños³

et al. 2016

PLoS ONE

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Pleistocene skinning and exploitation of carnivore furs have been previously inferred from archaeological evidence. Nevertheless, the evidence of skinning and fur processing tends to be weak and the interpretations are not strongly sustained by the archaeological record. In the present paper, we analyze unique evidence of patterned anthropic modification and skeletal representation of fossil remains of cave lion (Panthera spelaea) from the Lower Gallery of La Garma (Cantabria, Spain). This site is one of the few that provides Pleistocene examples of lion exploitation by humans. Our archaeozoological study suggests that lion-specialized pelt exploitation and use might have been related to ritual activities during the Middle Magdalenian period (ca. 14800 cal BC). Moreover, the specimens also represent the southernmost European and the latest evidence of cave lion exploitation in Iberia. Therefore, the study seeks to provide alternative explanations for lion extinction in Eurasia and argues for a role of hunting as a factor to take into account.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Under the Skin of a Lion: Unique Evidence of Upper Paleolithic Exploitation and Use of Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea) from the Lower Gallery of La Garma (Spain)

Cueto

Camarós

Castaños³

et al. 2016

PLoS ONE

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“…As previously mentioned, sixteen out of the seventeen Mesolithic sites known so far in the Middle Ebro Basin are rockshelters of different lithologies (mainly sandstones but also limestone and conglomerate): only Cabezo de la Cruz is a true open-air campsite, far from rocky outcrops. Nevertheless, we cannot discount the possibility that prehistoric groups had built open-air habitats next to the protection offered by the rockshelter cover, as proposed for the Magdalenian occupation at Molí del Salt (García-Diez and Vaquero, 2015), where the main campsite could have been located next to the rocky outcrop. However, as far as we know, the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers frequently looked for a certain natural roofed protection.…”

Section: The Sites: Macro-and Microspatial Featuresmentioning

confidence: 92%

Call it home: Mesolithic dwellings in the Ebro Basin (NE Spain)

Domingo

Alcolea

Bea

et al. 2018

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports

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This paper summarises our knowledge of Mesolithic space management-which concerns the choice of the living place itself and the recognisable dwelling structuresin the Middle Ebro Basin, where more than fifteen accurately dated Mesolithic sites have been found and excavated in the last several decades. In the last forty years, the Ebro Basin has emerged as the most important area for the study of the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic period in the Iberian Peninsula. Dozens of recently excavated sites with hundreds of accurate radiocarbon dates offer a good panorama of the transition from traditional hunting-gathering strategies to the gradual incorporation of Neolithic innovations. Nevertheless, much remains unknown in wide areas across the basin due to poor conservation or mere research defaults, so there is still much work to do. For brevity and research tradition, this paper will be restricted to the Middle Ebro Basin. The vast majority of documented Mesolithic sites throughout the basin occupy the frequent limestone, sandstone or conglomeratic rockshelters that proliferate in the ranges flanking the north and the lower flat areas in the south. There, natural "roofed" refuges are scarce, and prehistoric groups inhabited open-air campsites. Archaeological surveys are difficult to conduct in these flat terrains due to high-scale Holocene erosive processes, which hamper our knowledge of the actual dwelling strategies in Mesolithic times. Across the basin, only one open-air site is known about compared to more than forty rockshelters. Of these, most share common elements: they are small, open to the rising sun and appear next to rivers or ravines, guaranteeing access to fresh water and control of potential game. Some show evidence of human presence from the Magdalenian times; others were in use in the Neolithic period and beyond. A common feature is the final prehistoric usage of funerary sites during the Chalcolithic period. Many sites are in close vicinity to one another, but due to the imprecision of our data, it is impossible to know with certainty whether different groups occupied them at the same time. Most habitual structures found in them are hearths, usually circled (or even paved) with local cobbles or slabs, but some space arrangements (rudimentary walls, postholes…) have been occasionally documented.

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“…3. Open-air campsites, which sometimes are an expansion of the living space next to the rockshelters (Arias et al, 2015;García-Diez and Vaquero, 2015), but also occur as isolated settlements, are totally unconnected with the presence of parietal protection. The known deposits are in flat zones, near to riverbeds, like the Cabezo de la Cruz campsite (type 3 in Table 2, Figure 7) (Rodanés and Picazo, 2013) and the Cascajos and Paternanbidea villages (García Gazolaz, 1999Sesma, 2007).…”

Section: Geomorphological Processes and Representative Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

The silence of the layers: Archaeological site visibility in the Pleistocene-Holocene transition at the Ebro Basin

Ruiz

Domingo

Sebastián

et al. 2018

Quaternary Science Reviews

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The Ebro Basin constitutes one of the most representative territories in SW Europe for the study of prehistoric societies during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. The correlation of palaeoenvironmental and geomorphological proxies obtained from sedimentary records with chronologically well-constrained reference archaeological sites has allowed defining this time frame precisely, such that three main pilot areas haven been broadly depicted: the Alavese region, the Pre-Pyrenees and the Bajo Aragón. Overall, the human imprint in the Ebro Basin was rare during the Upper Palaeolithic, but more visible from the Upper Magdalenian (14500 to 13500 cal BP) to Neolithic times (up to 5500 cal BP). Local environmental resources were continuously managed by the prehistoric communities in the different areas of study. In fact, the Ebro Basin acted during those millennia as a whole, developing the same cultural trends, industrial techniques and settlement patterns in parallel throughout the territory. However, some gaps exist in the 14 C frequency curve (SCDPD curve). This is partially related to prehistoric sites in particular lithologies and geological structures that could have partly been lost by erosional processes, especially during the Early Holocene. In addition, this gap also parallels the reconstructed climate trend for the Pre-Pyrenean and the Bajo Aragón areas, which are defined by high frequencies of xerophilous flora until ca. 9500 cal BP, suggesting that continental climate features could have hampered the presence of well-established human communities in inland regions. The interdisciplinary research (archaeology, geomorphology and palaeoclimatology) discussed in this paper offers clues to understand the existence of fills and gaps in the archaeological record of the Ebro Basin, and can be applied in other territories with similar geographic and climate patterns.

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Looking at the Camp: Paleolithic Depiction of a Hunter-Gatherer Campsite

Cited by 26 publications

References 26 publications

Under the Skin of a Lion: Unique Evidence of Upper Paleolithic Exploitation and Use of Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea) from the Lower Gallery of La Garma (Spain)

Under the Skin of a Lion: Unique Evidence of Upper Paleolithic Exploitation and Use of Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea) from the Lower Gallery of La Garma (Spain)

Call it home: Mesolithic dwellings in the Ebro Basin (NE Spain)

The silence of the layers: Archaeological site visibility in the Pleistocene-Holocene transition at the Ebro Basin

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