Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Straus, Lawrence Guy

Titel

The Late Upper Paleolithic-Mesolithic-Neolithic Transitions in Cantabrian Spain

Ist Teil von

• Journal of Anthropological Research, 2009-07, Vol.65 (2), p.287-298

Ort / Verlag

Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico

Erscheinungsjahr

2009

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Although broad-spectrum subsistence began during the Solutrean (ca. 20,000 ¹⁴C BP) in Cantabrian Spain, and there was much continuity in technology and settlement between the Magdalenian and Azilian, there were dramatic changes in human use of the postglacial landscapes of this Atlantic region after ca. 9,000 ¹⁴C BP. Interrupting a Terminal Paleolithic trend toward increased utilization of the montane interior of the region, the Mesolithic was mainly a coastal phenomenon. Although the Magdalenian-Azilian transition did include disappearance of cave art, the marked adaptive break came after the traditional end of the Pleistocene, with concentration of Mesolithic sites along the Holocene shore and emphasis on marine resource exploitation. An exception was the interior Basque Country, where there was significant human occupation of the upper Ebro Basin. While Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of that Ebro region were quick to incorporate Neolithic cultigens, domesticated animals, and ceramics into their lifeways—by at least 6,500 ¹⁴C BP—their coastal Cantabrian neighbors continued to exist as fisher-gatherer-hunters until as recently as ca. 5,700 ¹⁴C BP, when the interior was again much used by people.