Paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the early Neolithic to middle Bronze Age Peña Larga rock shelter (Álava, Spain) from the small mammal record

Abstract

The Peña Larga site, a rock shelter on the southern slopes of the Cantabrian cordillera (north Spain), is an archeological deposit covering nearly 4000 years, from the early Neolithic to the middle Bronze Age (Atlantic/Subboreal chronozones). It was used both as a household and as a stable, with a hiatus in the Chalcolithic when it was used as a collective sepulcher. Nearly twenty-eight thousand small vertebrate elements were recovered from its seven stratigraphic units, of which 2553 items were identified to the genus and/or species levels. The assemblage is composed of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Of these, small mammals were used for paleoenvironmental reconstruction since they are very sensitive to climatic conditions, the sample sizes are large, and their preservation is good. Their distributions over time, measured in terms of relative abundance, serve as reliable proxies of habitat and climate change. The reconstruction of Peña Larga's past environments based on small mammals roughly coincides with the pollen and the amphibian/reptile records on the local scale, and with that of an ice core from Central Greenland on the global scale. This makes it a valuable tool for comparative purposes both in the regional and continental scales.

Los micromamíferos (Eulipotyphla, Chiroptera, Rodentia y Lagomorpha) del yacimiento del Pleistoceno Superior de la cueva de El Castillo (Cantabria, España)

“…coronatus-araneus o bien S. araneuscoronatus (denominaciones que implícitamente indican la dificultad de distinguir morfológicamente ambas especies) en muchos yacimientos del Pleistoceno Superior y Holoceno como Gorham (Gibraltar) (López-García et al, 2011b), El Portalón (Atapuerca, Burgos) , Unidad Faunística 7 de Atapuerca (Burgos) (Cuenca-Bescós et al, 2010a), El Mirón (Cantabria) (Cuenca-Bescós et al, 2008), Laminak II (Vizcaya) (Pemán, 1994), Askondo (Vizcaya) (Garcia-Ibaibarriaga et al, 2015a), Arlanpe (Vizcaya) (Garcia-Ibaibarriaga et al, 2013a), Arenaza I (Vizcaya) (Ordiales et al, 2015), Lezetxiki II (Guipúzcoa) (GarciaIbaibarriaga et al, 2015b), Aizkoltxo (Guipúzcoa) (Murelaga et al, 2008), Kiputz (Guipúzcoa) (Garcia-Ibaibarriaga et al, 2013b), Aratzu VII (Guipúzcoa) (Suárez-Bilbao et al, 2016), Peña Larga (Álava) (Rofes et al, 2013), La Arbreda (Gerona) (López-García et al, 2015), Cova del Gegant y Abric Romani (Barcelona) (López-García, 2008;.…”

The first farmers in Cantabrian Spain: Contribution of numerical chronology to understand an historical process

“…Openair dwellings must have been a reality, but unlike caves, the survival and discovery of these sites is much more difficult (see an appraisal of the situation in the neighbouring Ebro valley in Alday et al, 2012). Neolithic societies lived in an environment and landscape very similar to present conditions, with coastal zones, inland valleys and mountain areas, as the environmental changes associated with the start of the Holocene were fully consolidated by the fifth millennium cal BC (see for example Rofes et al, 2013).…”

Combining Small-Vertebrate, Marine and Stable-Isotope Data to Reconstruct Past Environments

“…2 ). Digestion sub-products of birds of prey (i.e., rejection pellets) and small carnivores are the main sources for small-vertebrate deposition in archaeological sites 5 , being caves and rock shelters particularly propitious places for those animals to nest at the entrances, or to build burrows inside, respectively 3 6 7 . Unlike large mammal remains (many of them product of human selection), small-vertebrate accumulations reasonably well reflect local biocenosis, despite unavoidable filters due to specific predators 5 .…”

“…Unlike large mammal remains (many of them product of human selection), small-vertebrate accumulations reasonably well reflect local biocenosis, despite unavoidable filters due to specific predators 5 . Moreover, small vertebrates are particularly sensitive to climatic and habitat changes, and their shifts along time in terms of taxa and number of specimens can be successfully used for the reconstruction of past environments 3 6 7 8 9 10 11 .…”