Nouvelles données sur le Magdalénien inférieur de la Région Cantabrique : le Niveau F de la grotte de El Cierro (Ribadesella, Asturies, Espagne)

Determination of lithic raw materials in Cantabrian Spain during Greenland Stadial 2: The Magdalenian of Tito Bustillo Cave (Ribadesella, Asturias)

“…The use of flint based on a management of materials from of diverse sources, as seen in Tito Bustillo Cave (Fig. 11), is able to confirm the preliminary conclusions reached at other Lower and Middle Magdalenian sites in the same geographic area in Cantabrian Spain, such as Las Caldas -Chamber II (Corchón et al, 2009) and the proximate caves of El Cierro ( Álvarez-Fernández et al, 2016) and Cova Rosa ( Álvarez-Fernández et al, 2020). In those two cases, the procurement of mainly local resources was complemented by a wide array of other raw materials, generally of much better knapping quality than the local resources and acquired in the Vasco-Cantabrian basin and the Western Pyrenees.…”

“…Moure Romanillo's research can also be compared with the situation observed in El Cierro (Level F), a cave in the lower Sella valley about 3 km from Tito Bustillo, but ca. 500 years older ( Álvarez-Fernández et al, 2016). Flint is the predominant raw material (70.3 %) and quartzite makes up a little less than a third of the assemblage (28.5 %).…”

“…In the central sector, fewer studies have been carried out on archaeological lithic raw materials, even though in that geographic area the study of La Riera Cave (Asturias) was a pioneer in its approach to the classification of lithic resources into types based on their petrographic description and analysis (Straus et al, 1986). Other sites in Asturias where raw materials analysis, also focused on the identification of the different flint types, have been applied to Middle Magdalenian at Las Caldas -Chamber II (Levels IX, VIII and VII) (Corchón et al, 2009), and to Lower Magdalenian at El Cierro (Level F) ( Álvarez-Fernández et al, 2016) and Cova Rosa (Layer 4 = CR2) ( Álvarez-Fernández et al, 2020( Álvarez-Fernández et al, , 2021, although in those cases with quite limited samples (Fig. 1).…”

“…The situation regarding functional studies is similar. This type of research has been applied to very few Lower Magdalenian sites in Cantabrian Spain: the nucleiform endscrapers from Level F in El Cierro Cave ( Álvarez-Fernández et al, 2016), Levels 4 and 5 in El Rascaño Cave (Domingo et al, 2012), Level 17 in the Outer Vestibule or "Cabin" at El Mirón (Straus et al, 2016), and finally the chipped lithic remains in Level IV in the cave of Praileaitz I (Clemente- Conte et al, 2017).…”