Neolithic livestock practices in high mountain areas: A multi-proxy study of pastoral enclosures of Molleres II (Eastern Pyrenees)

Pescini, Valentina; Carbonell, A.; Colominas, Lídia; Égüez, Natàlia; Mayoral, Alfredo; Palet, Josep Maria

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2023.04.008

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…To our knowledge, studies reporting lipid biomarker data from archaeological fumiers are still scarce and mostly focus on sterols and bile acids (Gea et al, 2017;. n-Alkane biomolecular data have been used to address contemporary pastoral activity in eastern Mongolia (Égüez & Makarewicz, 2018;Égüez et al, 2022), North Africa (Égüez et al, 2018), and the Pyrenees (Pescini et al, 2023) providing a valuable reference for herd diet and taphonomic processes associated with sheep and goat dung deposits, albeit not from archaeological fumiers. Archaeo-and rock magnetic data from archaeological fumiers have indicated maximum burning temperatures of 400-500°C in carbonaceous facies and 600-700°C in ash layers (Burguet-Coca et al, 2022;Carrancho et al, 2012Carrancho et al, , 2016.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconstructing formation processes at the Canary Islands indigenous site of Belmaco Cave (La Palma, Spain) through a multiproxy geoarchaeological approach

et al. 2023

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The indigenous populations of La Palma (Canary Islands), who arrived on the island from Northwest Africa ca. 2000 years B.P., were predominantly pastoralists. Yet, many aspects of their subsistence economy such as the procurement, management, and use of wild plant resources remain largely unknown. To explore this, we studied the 600–1100‐year‐old archaeological site of Belmaco Cave, which comprises a stratified sedimentary deposit representative of a fumier. Here, we present a high‐resolution, multiproxy geoarchaeological study combining soil micromorphology, lipid biomarker analysis, X‐ray diffraction, μ‐X‐ray diffraction, μ‐X‐ray fluorescence, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and μ‐Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, to characterize formation processes and explore plant sources. Recurrent goat/sheep habitation and maintenance activities are represented by interstratified layers of unburned dung, charcoal‐rich sediment, and dung ash. Lipid biomarker data show a herd diet mainly composed of herbaceous plants, which is key to understanding the mobility of indigenous shepherds. Our results also revealed an unusual suite of authigenic minerals including hazenite, aragonite, and sylvite, possibly formed through diagenetic processes involving interaction between ash, dung, urine, volcanogenic components, and bacterial activity, coupled with arid and alkaline conditions. Our study shows the potential of a multiproxy approach to a fumier deposit in a volcanogenic sedimentary context.

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