Manuel R González Morales

During the Bronze Age in the Cantabrian region (northern Spain) the human groups buried their dead in the surface of narrow caves. This work focuses, for the first time, in the archaeological, anthropological and taphonomical study of the unpublished human remains found in 1993 in El Espinoso Cave, located in Ribadedeva (Asturias). The site constitutes the only collective burial known from the Bronze Age in Asturias. The taphonomical results show the high fragmentation of the remains due to concretions and water activities and a difference between high and low-density bones representation. Additionally, short bones (patella, calcaneus and talus) were used for the sex and stature determination by applying a new methodological approach. Résumé Durant l'Âge du Bronze, à la région cantabrique (Nord de l'Espagne) les groupes humaines enterraient leurs défunts dans la surface des grottes étroites. Ce travail traite pour première fois des études archéologiques, anthropologiques et taphonomiques des restes humaines trouvés en 1993 à la grotte d'El Espinoso, à Ribadedeva (Asturies). Ce site constitue la seule tombe de caractère collective connue de l'Âge du Bronze des Asturies. L'analyse taphonomique indique une fragmentation élevée des restes à cause de le concrétion et la dissolution et une différence entre la représentation de haute ou basse densité osseuse. D'un autre côté, des nouvelles méthodologies sont utilisées pour la détermination du sexe et la stature des individus à partir d'os courtes comme la rotule, le calcanéum et le talus.

The great diversity of small mammals in the Upper Pleistocene and Holocene deposits of El Mirón Cave, with a total of 26 species belonging to 6 mammalian orders (Erinaceomorpha, Soricomorpha, Chiroptera, Carnivora, Rodentia and Lagomorpha), makes this an important sequence for the study of the development of small mammal associations during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition; what it allows us to know the evolution of the climate and the landscape in the Cantabrian Region. At the end of the Quaternary, the last extinction of Pleistocene microfauna is registered, like the one of the vole Pliomys lenki, related to present day Dinaromys, the Balkan Snow (or Martino’s vole). Also local extinction are documented like the disappearance from Spain of cold-climate mammals characteristic of the steppe-tundra ecozones of Northern Europe and Siberia namely Microtus oeconomus and M. gregalis. The extinctions can be explained by the climatic changes that occurred at the end of the Quaternary, without discarding the competition with species inmigrants, of similar ecology. Late in the Holocene, human activity –especially deforestation and cereal agriculture– is reflected at El Mirón in a decline in species diversity among the small mammals.

Emmer wheat (Triticum diccocum) has been positively identified from the stratigraphically oldest ceramic- and domesticated livestock-bearing level of El Miro´ n Cave in the Cantabrian Cordillera. The grain is AMS 14C-dated to 5550G40 BP. This date is congruent with six others from the same layer, higher within which were found other grains of wheat, including einkorn as well as emmer. Although wild ungulates (mainly red deer) were still hunted, abundant ovicaprines, together with small numbers of cattle and pigs, appear in this level-for the first time in the 40,000-year record at El Miro´ n. Potsherds (undecorated, but of very good quality) also appear abruptly and abundantly. However, the associated lithic assemblage contains specific tool types also found in late Mesolithic contexts in Cantabrian Spain. In addition to the full suite of Neolithic indicators at El Miro´ n, as confirmed by less unambiguous early agro-pastoral evidence from other sites in the Vasco-Cantabrian region, there are megalithic monuments both in the vicinity of the cave and throughout the region that are similarly dated. All these data tend to suggest that Neolithic adaptationsdalready present about a millennium earlier not only along the Mediterranean coast, but also much closer, to the southeast of the Cordilleradwere quickly adopted as ‘‘a package’’ by Cantabrian Mesolithic foragers, possibly as a consequence of social contacts with Neolithic groups in southern France and/or the upper Ebro basin of north-central Spain.

Among the defining characteristics of the Cantabrian (Spain) Lower Magdalenian (19.2–17.5 cal kya), along with portable art works, are so-called “nucleiform endscrapers.” These small cores often display one or more regularized edges that could indicate a secondary function as scrapers. Although this has been demonstrated microscopically to be the case at some sites, it is generally not true in a large sample from Level 17, a massive Lower Magdalenian horizon in El Mirón Cave on the edge of the Cantabrian Cordillera. This study synthesizes lithic typology, technology, and microwear analysis of the Level 17 lithic sample. The results indicate that understanding the absolute versus relative abundance of core endscrapers is important to classifications of Lower Magdalenian lithic assemblages, particularly in terms of inter-site tool comparisons, understanding the relative abundance of tools in relation to debitage products, and the key role of bladelet production.

Hunter-gatherer groups' organizational strategies were influenced by how key resources were structured on landscapes, including lithic toolstones with fixed outcrop locations. Lithic artifacts, which were created via reductive sequences, can inform landscape-level behavioral reconstructions because tool- stone decreased in quantity through use as it was transported further from its source and its reduction stages can be determined using diagnostic lithic debris (e.g. primary cortical pieces, renewal flakes, and cores). By comparing lithic raw materials and their reduction stages at four Lower Cantabrian Magdalenian--sites Altamira, El Juyo, El Miron, and El Rascaño--this paper reconstructs lithic provisioning and hunter-gatherer mobility in the center of the Vasco-Cantabrian region during the Last Glacial period. This study proposes that the Lower Magdalenian groups who occupied these sites shared a regional economic territory that extended from Cantabria into western Navarra and conveyed toolstones between sites as part of mobile toolkits. Local raw material conveyance demonstrates that shifting environmental zones was an important factor in these hunter-gatherers' mobility strategies in Cantabria.

This paper describes aspects of human adaptations to late Last Glacial environments in Cantabrian Spain based on excavations
in El Mirón Cave in the Cantabrian Cordillera, and on analyses of data from other sites in the Asón basin of Cantabria, as
well as from several recent excavations of Magdalenian (20-13k cal. BP) sites throughout this narrow, high-relief, coastal region

Este artículo describe el arte parietal descubierto en
la Cueva de El Mirón (Cantabria, España) en el curso de
las excavaciones dirigidas en el yacimiento por MGM y
LGS desde 1996. El arte consiste en grabados, la mayoría
de ellos aparentemente no fi gurativos en su estado
actual, pero hay una imagen de un caballo y otra de un
posible bisonte. Todos los grabados se localizan en el
fondo del gran vestíbulo, a plena luz, en íntima relación
con los depósitos de origen humano. El caballo y los
grabados lineales asociados a él en las paredes de la
cueva pueden atribuirse al Magdaleniense inferior o medio
sobre la base de su estilo y de la altura practicable
sobre las superfi cies de ocupación de estos períodos.
Datables con mayor precisión son dos grupos de grabados
lineales sobre un gran bloque que pueden asignarse
al Magdaleniense inferior cantábrico, un período bien
caracterizado por sus obras de arte mueble, como los
omóplatos grabados, en El Mirón y en otros varios yacimientos
regionales. El bloque cayó de la pared de la
cueva, con su cara exterior yaciendo sobre el nivel 110,
datado por radiocarbono en 16.130 ± 250 y 16.520 ± 40
BP. A partir de entonces se grabó su cara originalmente
interior. A continuación, el bloque y sus grabados fueron
progresivamente recubiertos por sedimentos del Magdaleniense
medio, superior y fi nal datados entre ca. 14.500-
12.000 BP. En suma, el arte descubierto y estudiado hasta la fecha en El Mirón puede atribuirse al Magdaleniense
inferior y medio, aunque el yacimiento estuvo
habitado por los humanos al menos desde el Paleolítico
medio hasta época medieval. El artículo concluye situando
el arte parietal de El Mirón en el contexto de las otras
numerosas (pero peor datadas) manifestaciones de arte
rupestre de la cuenca del río Asón, en la Cantabria Oriental,
que incluyen sitios tan notables como Venta de la
Perra, Covalanas, La Haza y Cullalvera.

This article describes the rock art discovered in El
Mirón Cave (Cantabria, Spain) during the course of
excavations directed by LGS and MGM since 1996. The
art consists of engravings: most are apparently non-representational
in their currest condition, but there is one
image of a horse and another of a possible bison. The
engravings are all located at the rear of the large, sunlit
vestibule of the cave, in intimate relationship with human
habitation deposits. The horse and associated linear engravings
on the cave wall can be attributed to the earlymiddle
Magdalenian on the basis of style and practicable
height above occupation surfaces of those periods. More
precisely datable, two series of linear engravings on a
large block can be assigned to the Lower Cantabrian
Magdalenian, a period well-endowed with works of portable
art, such as engraved scapulae, both at El Mirón
and in many other regional sites. The block fell from the
cave wall, its outer surface landing on Level 110, which
is 14C-dated to 16,130 ± 250 and 16,520 ± 40 BP. Then
the fl at inner surface of the block was engraved. Next,
the block and the engravings were progressively covered
over by sediments pertaining to Middle, Upper and Terminal
Magdalenian levels 14C-dated between ca. 14,500-
12,000 BP. In sum, the art discovered to date in El Mirón
can be attributed to the early and middle Magdalenian
period, although the site itself was inhabited by humans from at least late Middle Paleolithic through Medieval
times. This article concludes by placing the Mirón parietal
art within the context of the numerous other (but
less-well dated) cave art manifestations in the river Asón
basin of eastern Cantabria, including such notable sites
as Venta de la Perra, Covalanas, La Haza and Cullalvera.