Short-Term Neanderthal occupations and carnivores in the Northeast of Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

Short-term human occupations could occur in very distinct places and be related to very different behaviours. The low number of items left by the human groups in these sites, usually, generates discrete assemblages, which often are difficult to disentangle. In the European Middle Palaeolithic, short-term human occupations in caves and rock-shelters, frequented by carnivores as hibernation places, dens or refuges, are common. From an archaeological perspective, the resulting assemblages are a mixture of anthropogenic and carnivore items (palimpsests) in which the intensity of human occupation(s) is usually measured by the quantity of recovered lithic artefacts, hearths or modified bones. The detailed study of these sites is pivotal to understand the development of the human communities in a landscape, their movements across the territory, the diversity of activities performed and the relationships stablished within the other biological entities (mainly carnivores). This paper aims to present data on four Middle Palaeolithic sites in the Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula characterized by short-term occupations in carnivore contexts. The results indicate a complex scenario in terms of settlement patterns and movements of Neanderthals in mountainous environments ranging from occasional visits to carnivore dens for hunting or active scavenging to full-scale, planned occupations during the course of seasonal foraging activities.