Chronological and palaeoenvironmental context of human occupations at the Buendía rockshelter (Central Spain) during the Late Upper Pleistocene in inland Iberia

Abstract

This paper introduces the sequence of the Buendía rockshelter (Central Spain), a multi‐layered site with abundant lithic assemblages attributed to the Magdalenian. We present 18 new radiocarbon dates that firmly position the whole stratigraphy between 15 and 13 14C ka BP (18–16 cal ka BP), making the Buendía rockshelter an excellent palaeoenvironmental and archaeological archive for a very specific time span of the late Upper Pleistocene. Available proxies include pollen, phytoliths, charcoal, molluscs, macromammals and other evidence of human occupation of the rockshelter, which enable the portrayal of a detailed picture of Buendía landscapes during the Lateglacial. These were generally characterized by an open landscape with sparse arboreal vegetation, in which pollen shows a dominance of Compositae in the herbaceous taxa and of Pinus among the arboreal taxa. Charcoal analysis also points to an abundance of Pinus sylvestris type, and phytoliths indicate the relevance of Poaceae. Marine and freshwater molluscs were mostly brought into the site by humans, thus highlighting long‐distance transport networks among Magdalenian hunter‐gatherers between the coast and inland Iberia. Climatic oscillations are observed across the stratigraphic sequence, and discussed in light of the archaeological evidence for the human occupation of inland Iberia.