The Palaeolithic cave of Kalamakia (Mani Peninsula), Greece: new insights on the palaeoenvironment using microvertebrates and mesowear analysis of ruminant teeth

Abstract

In the present study, results from the examination of mammalian teeth from the cave of Kalamakia with modern techniques, as well as a qualitative overview of the microvertebrate and lithic material, are presented together with a revision of previous related work done for the site, in order to assess the palaeoenvironmental conditions in the area and the role they played in the Neanderthal's repeated occupation of the cave. Geometric morphometrics analyses performed on the first lower molars of Microtus spp. individuals revealed persistent populations of the subgenus Terricola, in which the presence of Microtus thomasi and Microtus subterraneus are continuous through the stratigraphic units. Mesowear analyses performed on ruminant teeth showed no significant variation in toothwear through time, except for relatively elevated levels of dietary abrasion for the more recent samples. The study of the lithics revealed that Neanderthals visited the cave in alternating short and more permanent episodes of occupation, with the human occupants exhibiting special concern for raw material economy, while exploiting poor raw materials for the construction of their tools. The overview of the microvertebrate remains showed a growing trend towards the upper stratigraphic units, where taxa typical of temperate climate, open woodland and shrubland become more dominant. These results, along with observations derived from previous studies, suggest that temperate climate and open environment were the factors that mainly contributed to making the cave of Kalamakia attractive as a habitation site to the humans of the area.

The Late and the Latest Pleistocene Chiroptera (Mammalia) from Loutra Almopias Cave a (Pella, Macedonia, Greece)

“…Fossils of M. blythii are known from Sarakenos Cave (Boeotia) (Pereswiet-Soltan, 2016), Charkadio Cave (Tilos) (Symeonidis et al ., 1973), Kalamakia Cave (Lakonia) (Kolendrianou et al ., 2020) and Petralona Cave (Chalkidiki) (Horáček and Poulianos, 1988).…”

“…Fossils of Pipistrellus sp. are known from Petralona Cave (Chalkidiki) (Horáček and Poulianos, 1988) and Kalamakia Cave (Lakonia) (Kolendrianou et al ., 2020).…”

“…The calculation of the diversity indices (Table 5) shows that LAC is very similar to Magura, Bulgaria (Popov, 2018), Comarnic Cave, Romania (Povară, 2019), Marlera I, Croatia (Lenardić et al ., 2018), Grotta dell'Orso, Italy (Bon et al ., 1991) and Caverna degli Orsi, Italy (Berto and Rubinato, 2013) and LAC Ia is very similar to Magura, Comarnic Cave, Marlera I, Črni Kal 3, Slovenia (Aguilar et al ., 1998), Grotta dell'Orso and Caverna degli Orsi. On the contrary, there is no similarity between the bat faunas of both LAC A assemblages, Kalamakia Cave, Greece (Kolendrianou et al ., 2020) and Bacho Kiro, Bulgaria (Popov, 2018). The similarity between LAC and LAC Ia to Vindija Cave, Croatia (Lenardić, 2009) is also relatively strong (Table 5).…”

Palaeolithic archaeology: a review of recent research

“…In southern Greece, the study of microvertebrates combined with tooth-wear analysis of ruminant teeth has provided new insights into the palaeoenvironment of the Kalamakia Cave in Mani (ID4480), indicating that the cave was periodically occupied during relatively temperate climatic conditions; an environmental setting with open woodland and Mediterranean shrub forest offered a productive habitat and ample hunting opportunities, thereby making the site attractive for repeated occupation (Kolendrianou et al 2020). The faunal assemblage at Kalamakia consists predominantly of fallow deer, followed by ibex and wild boar (Darlas and Psathi 2016); the large number of tortoise bones at the site can be explained by the fact that these small, slow-moving animals offer caloric yields similar to those of faster animals, such as hares or birds, but with much lower capture costs (Starkovich 2014).…”

The missing Myopus: plugging the gaps in Late Pleistocene small mammal identification in western Europe with geometric morphometrics

“…This study uses geometric morphometrics, which has never been applied on these two genera, despite its efficiency in identifying similar species in modern and fossil record (e.g. McGuire, 2011;Cucchi et al, 2014;Hulme-Beaman et al, 2018;Stoetzel et al, 2017;Navarro et al, 2018;Kolendrianou et al, 2020). Several modern populations were considered, both to establish differences in their dental morphologies and to evaluate the reliability of traditional criteria previously used to separate the two genera.…”