Short-term Neanderthal occupations and carnivores in the North-East of Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

Short-term human occupations can be developed in very distinct places and be related to very diverse functions. The low number of items left by the human groups in these sites usually generates discrete assemblages, which often adds difficulties to the subsequent archaeological interpretations. In the European Middle Paleolithic, are common short-term human occupations in caves and rockshelters frequented by carnivores as well (bears, hyenas, large felids, canids and other small carnivores) as hibernation places, dens or refuges. 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 artifacts, hearts or modified bones. However, the detailed study of these sites can be significantly informative to understand some basic questions about the development of the human communities in a landscape, their movements across the territory, the diversity of activities that they were able to do and, the relationships stablished between them and other biological entities (mainly carnivores). This work aims to present the results on four sites with these characteristics located in the northeast Iberian Peninsula: Llenes and Tritons Caves (Lleida) and Toll and Teixoneres Caves (Barcelona).