Paleoecología neandertal durante el Paleolítico medio en el norte y este de la Península Ibérica. Análisis combinado de desgaste dental y cementocronología

Identifier:  TDX:3156

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX3156

Authors:  Sánchez Hernández, Carlos

Abstract:
The correlation of human ecology and the environmental conditions in which they developed their survival activities has been the subject of intense study in recent decades. Of special interest is the Late Pleistocene, characterized by strong environmental fluctuations, especially during MIS 3 (60-30 ka BP). During this period, the Neanderthal groups that inhabited Europe were characterized by showing a high behavioral variability. This raises the question about the extent to which these fluctuations can affect decision making in the development of their livelihood strategies. Since environmental characteristics are also subject to regional (e.g. geographic location), and even local (e.g. orography and altitude) conditions, the present research aims to contribute to this issue by characterizing the duration and seasonality of Neanderthal occupations in two bioclimatic regions clearly differentiated of the Iberian Peninsula: Cantabrian (Covalejos) and Mediterranean (Arbreda, Teixoneres, Abric Romaní and El Salt). The main objective is to verify the type of response of these groups to differentiated environmental contexts, while the resolution of the methodological integration of three high-resolution proxies is tested. The achievement of the proposed objectives requires the reconstruction of the diet of the main preys of the human groups (i.e. red deer, horse, wild ass and auroch). The dietary reconstruction would allow knowing the duration and the seasonality of the human occupations along the annual cycle since these animals are sensitive to the environmental changes of their habitats. Therefore, we analyze the ungulate molars and premolars through dental wear (meso- and micro-wear) and dental cementochronology. The mesowear identifies the annual diet, and reflects the dietary changes of the preys in a long-term scale (months as consequence of habitat changes. The microwear on the other hand, reflects the diet days before the death of each prey allowing identifying the type of resources they consumed and generating a very precise image of the specific characteristics of the habitat. The cementochronology in turn, allows determining the season of the year in which the Neanderthals have killed their prey, while placing in a temporal frame the dietary characteristics of both their preys, and their survival str