Estrategias de subsistencia y dinámicas de asentamiento en los Valles de Alcoy durante el Paleolítico medio. Análisis zooarqueológico, tafonómico y paleoecológico de la secuencia arqueológica de El Salt (Alcoy, Alicante)

Identifier:  TDX:3002

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX3002

Authors:  Pérez Luis, Leopoldo Jesús

Abstract:
The aim of this thesis is the behavioral study of the last Neanderthal populations that occupied the Valleys of Alcoy (Alicante, Spain) during the Middle Palaeolithic. To this end, the faunal record recovered from the El Salt archaeological site has been taken as a material base, being studied from an economic perspective centered on human subsistence, through the application of zoarchaeological and taphonomic methods. At the same time, it is compared with the rest of the others evidences in the region and in the whole of the Mediterranean side of the Iberian Peninsula, allowing to obtain a more general view of the ways of life of these groups. The main results show the adaptation capacity and the high control of the environment of the hominids that frequented El Salt, with general hunting practices focused on cervids, goats and equines on which diversity of transport types were practiced. Intensity of processing and consumption, reaffirming the use of the site as a habitation zone and / or collection of biological and lithological resources, within the framework of activities related to shelter, nutrition, provisioning and technological preparation of tools. We have been able to confirm the anthropic origin of a large part of the accumulations of ungulates of El Salt, together with a continuous contribution of leporids due to the role played by other agents (raptors and carnivores), without showing signs of interspecific competition throughout the sequence. Through the paleoecological analysis of the macrovertebrates, we confirmed the existence of a highly heterogeneous ecological environment for the Alcoy Valleys during MIS 3, with the presence of forest, meadow and mountain biotopes that would allow Neanderthal groups to manage a variety of animal, plant and geological resources.