Paleolitico Superior en la Cueva de
Gorham, Gibraltar. Avance al estudio del registro arqueologico y arte parietal
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El Peñón de
Gibraltar y su Bahía son las zonas que han experimentado una multiplicación más notable
en el conocimiento de registros arqueológicos del Paleolítico Superior. Este hecho ha
tenido lugar tanto en la vertiente de los asentamientos de hábitat, con los yacimientos
de La Fontanilla en Conil, Cuevas de Levante y Cubeta de la Paja en los rebordes de la
antigua laguna de la Janda, Torre Almirante, desembocadura del río Palmones, en la Bahía
de Gibraltar, y Peñón de Gibraltar, con en destacadísimo ejemplo de arte paleolítico
en el Tajo de las Figuras, la Cueva del Moro en Tarifa y la cueva de Gorham en Gibraltar.
Este último
yacimiento es un Santuario Paleolítico, descubierto por nosotros en 1994, se publican las
primeras impresiones en la monografía de AEQUA, Gibraltar During Cuaternary. A partir de
1995 R. Balbín y Primitiva Bueno, realizan un estudio previo con fotogramas y calcos
infrarrojos, obteniendo nuevas impresiones de los conjuntos pictóricos y grabados, con
representaciones de prótomos de caballos, cápridos que corresponde al estilo clásico
definido como Magdaleniense, correspondiente a ocupaciones posiblemente estacionales
relacionadas con actividades especializadas en la costa. En los últimos registros
paleontológicos hemos detectado presencia de macroictiofauna identificable por vértebras
de túnidos de medio y gran tamaño.
En el Nivel
IIIB (horizonte basal), en las campañas de 1997 al 2000, hemos detectado una serie de
elementos decorativos, destacando colgantes realizados sobre caninos a atróficos de
ciervo, perforados e intensamente alisados y pulidos con pieles (según primera impresión
de Yolanda Fernández, tafónoma del Proyecto Gibraltar
Cave´s Project). Igualmaente destacamos una azagaya de sección circular y base biselada
de adscripción posiblemente al Solutrense Superior o primera fase del Magdaleniense.
La industria
lítica se caracteriza por la tecnología laminar en silex y jaspes locales, puntas de
retoque plano, foliaceos, raspadores sobre láminas, buriles y laminillas de dorso, en la
actualidad en fase de estudio y atribuible posiblemente a un nivel de ocupación del
Solutrense superior.
El registro óseo es especialmente denso.
Entre los grandes mamíferos destacan el ciervo (Cervus elaphus, Capra montes (Capra
pyrenayca) generalmente de juveniles. De hervíboros sólo hay un ejemplar de Bos sp y Sus
sp. Carnívoros identificamos Canis lupus, Felis silvestris (gato montes), Vulpes vulpes
(zorro), numerosas piezas dentarias de hiena, igualmente pertenecientes a molares y
caninos juveniles, Felis pardus, etc. Las aves están igualmente representadas todas las
especies europeas migratorias y autóctonas del Sur de la Península Ibérica.
Cueva
Bajondillo (Torremolinos, Málaga) y el tránsito Paleolítico Medio - Superior en la
mitad meridional de la Península Ibérica
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Cueva Bajondillo
constituye, junto a yacimientos como Carigüela, Gorham´s cave o Nerja, uno de los
enclaves arqueológicos de secuencia más amplia del sur de la Península Ibérica que, en
el caso que nos ocupa, representa un tramo temporal que abarca distintos momentos del
Pleistoceno Superior y Holoceno inicial.
La secuencia
crono-cultural de Cueva Bajondillo ha sido dividida, en base a criterios
tecno-tipológicos, en tres grandes segmentos con vestigios propios del Paleolítico Medio
(seis estratos), Paleolítico Superior (Auriñaciense sensu lato, Gravetiense y Solutrense) y Neolítico.
Al objeto de imbricar
esta asignación de orden tecno-cultural en su contexto geológico regional y local, así
como dotar del preciso marco cronoestratigráfico y paleoambiental de la serie
arqueológica, se diseñó un programa de muestreo y análisis de la secuencia
estratigráfica llevado a cabo durante el verano de 2000.
Durante esta campaña se
ha analizado una parte significativa del perfil, que comprendía un lienzo de unos 9 m. de longitud por unos 6 m. de altura máxima,
del cual se ha obtenido un pormenorizado muestreo microestratigráfico,
palinológico… y extraído diversas muestras destinadas a la obtención de fechas de
cronología absoluta (C14/AMS, Th/U y TL) que permitan vertebrar el contexto cronológico
y paleoambiental que representa su secuencia. Novedades que pretendemos dar como primicia
en la reunión y que a buen seguro sirven para perfilar mejor la sustitución tecnológica
Musteriense-Paleolítico Superior Inicial en contexto del ámbito meridional de la
Península Ibérica.
Circunscribiéndonos al
tema de la reunión, podemos avanzar que la localización del yacimiento y su vigencia
diacrónica durante el Paleolítico Medio parece responder de una parte a una
planificación territorial estacional de la cuenca fluvial de unos de los principales
ríos de la vertiente mediterránea andaluza (río Guadalhorce), de otra a las peculiares
condiciones microclimáticas donde se inserta el yacimiento y finalmente a la
diversificada oferta de recursos subsistenciales y abióticos que ofrece el territorio
donde se inscribe Cueva Bajondillo.
En lo relativo a la
sustitución de los tecnocomplejos musterienses por industrias leptolíticas, asimilables
propiamente al Paleolítico Superior Inicial, apreciamos la superposición sobre una
conjunto Musteriense (Estrato 14), enriquecido en muescas y denticulados, de industrias
regidas por esquemas operativos ligados a la obtención de hojas y hojitas, asimiladas por
los atributos tecnotipológicos reconocidos a un Auriñaciense sensu lato (Niveles
11 a 13).
En el apartado
subsistencial, parecen existir procesos postdeposicionales, en estudio, que sesgan de modo
significativo el registro faunístico, sobre todo en lo referente a restos óseos. Este
hecho ocasiona una grave limitación a la hora de realizar inferencias económicas
contrastadas.
Estas circunstancias no
afectaron del mismo modo al registro malacológico, aunque tampoco carente de otras
incidencias, ligadas en gran medida a la fragilidad de este tipo de vestigios, pero al
menos permiten reafirmar la existencia de un aprovechamiento “oportunista y
complementario” de algunos recursos malacológicos marinos durante el Paleolítico
Medio.
New
perspectives on Neanderthal evolution and extinction
Chris Stringer, Dept of Palaeontology, The Natural History
Museum, London SW7 5BD
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About thirty five thousand years ago,
there was a remarkable juxtaposition in Europe of late Neanderthals and early modern
humans. Our main method of physical dating, radiocarbon, does not give us great
accuracy during this critical period of time, but is sufficient to suggest that the two
populations were broadly contemporaneous within regions, even if we cannot yet
establish that they co-existed in the same valleys or even sites. This juxtaposition is
also marked by what some archaeologists see as a major technological and behavioural
revolution, one that occurred around the time modern humans arrived in Europe. In my view,
there is good anatomical evidence that Neanderthals and modern humans are more different
from each other than today’s human populations are different from each other, and
that is as true when we compare Neanderthals and their approximate contemporaries as it is
when comparing the skeletons of Neanderthals and recent humans. Ancient DNA recovery has
helped significantly with interpretation of the morphological data because it is largely
independent of it. Extracting authentic ancient human DNA has proved very difficult, but
several Neanderthals have yielded mitochondrial DNA, with four sequences (from three
individuals) published so far. Although some workers have claimed the results are
uninformative, or can be manipulated to support the view that Neanderthal genes survive
today, the most straightforward interpretation of the data is that Neanderthals had their
own, distinct, population variation, they diverged from the modern human lineage during
the Middle Pleistocene, and they are now extinct. However, the Neanderthals were clearly
very closely related to us, and neither the fossil nor DNA data rule out the possibility
of some hybridisation between Neanderthals and modern humans, for example, during
their period of overlap in Europe about 35,000 years ago. Such a species would have been
very closely related to us genetically, and many comparable species of mammal can
hybridise - for example, lions and tigers, dogs and wolves, even African and Indian
elephants.
The real question is whether the species merged, and in my opinion we have scant evidence
of that for the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, since their core populations seem to have
remained distinct. A putative hybrid child from Lagar Velho in Portugal has recently been
described, but it is certainly possible that its Neanderthal-like body proportions are the
result of parallel cold-adaptation in an early modern population (the Atlantic Ocean off
the coast of Portugal was some 10ºC colder than today at, or shortly before, the time
this child was alive). Nevertheless, such hybridisation could have occurred, but
the question remains on what scale, and with what impact on later populations? A small
degree of hybridisation could easily have been lost in subsequent demographic changes that
geneticists have modeled for the Upper Palaeolithic from recent European mitochondrial and
Y-chromosome DNA variation. For example, one recent study has suggested that most European
mitochondrial lineages derive from post-Last Glacial Maximum population expansion.
However, whatever the outcome of
these debates, recent research on Neanderthal behaviour certainly requires us to modify
our views of their capabilities. The evidence seems compelling that they buried their
dead, although claims that this was accompanied by flowers at Shanidar now seem suspect.
Similarly, two separate studies of a claimed Neanderthal flute from Slovenia suggest that
this was actually the product of cave bear, rather than human, activity. However, finds
made over 30 years ago at the French site of Grotte du Renne (Arcy-sur-Cure) suggest that
some of the last Neanderthals made pendants from animal teeth. While some workers
have questioned the stratigraphic integrity of the site, others accept the evidence, but
interpret it very differently. Could the Neanderthals have done this independently, or
only under the influence of neighbouring Cro-Magnons ? And in contrast to the prevailing
view that Neanderthals did not use marine resources, our excavations at Vanguard Cave in
Gibraltar have demonstrated that their varied diet included baked mussels harvested at
least a kilometre away. Such complex behaviours show us that even if the Neanderthals were
not our ancestors, they were fully human. So when we come to consider Neanderthal
extinction, we need to explore a variety of possible scenarios beyond rapid replacement,
including a combination of resource competition from early modern humans (ultimately, but
perhaps not immediately, derived from Africa), and the impact of repeated millennial-scale
climatic fluctuations.
The Neandertal Paradox
Erik Trinkaus, Department of
Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis MO, USA
--------------------------------
It is two decades since Out-of-Africa
models of Neandertal extinction were first proposed (Kurtén, Trinkaus & Bräuer),
albeit ones with significant admixture between autochthonous Neandertals and in-dispersing
early modern humans. Twenty years of research
and debate are formulating a consensus that strict models of continuity or replacement in
the Neandertal geographical range are intellectually deceased, and the current issue is
the degree to which, and where and when, Neandertals contributed to early modern human
gene pools. Paleontologically, an
Out-of-Africa model for European modern human emergence is supported only by European
early Upper Paleolithic body proportions and nasal aperture morphology and, indirectly, by
the chronological priority of a modern human morphology in the northeastern African
ecozone. Extant human molecular data are
largely inconclusive, since their interpretation is dependent upon the assumptions and
algorithms employed for their analysis, and fossil human mtDNA can be employed to support
a range of phylogenetic interpretations (especially given the inherent bias in the
sampling fossil DNA). At the same time, the
persistence of Neandertal limb segment proportions, incisor morphology, mandibular traits
and nasal morphology in some early Upper Paleolithic individuals argues for some degree of
assimilation of the Neandertals.
Yet, in this strictly phylogenetic
debate, the relevant biological question has been largely, but not entirely, relegated to
a secondary role, a role solely to support one or another phylogenetic interpretation of
European modern human emergence. The question
remains: what was the nature of the biological and cultural changes associated with the
dispersal and evolutionary success of early modern humans?
In this approach, the persistent tendency to describe the Neandertals as
specialized, uniquely derived (autapomorphic), human dodos, etc. is irrelevant, since all
delimitable biological groups are by definition uniquely derived and all ultimately
evolutionarily more successful groups are by inference adaptively superior.
Most considerations of this issue
have tended to view the Neandertals, relative to early modern humans, as behaviorally
identical or, in contrast, distinctly inferior. This
has created a paradox, in which the Neandertals are simultaneously viewed as the same as
and different from early modern humans in their adaptive patterns. A consideration of current analyses of (here
principally paleontological) reflections of Neandertal and early modern human adaptive
behavior reinforces this paradox.
In such comparisons, it needs to be
emphasized that the comparative samples are principally those from before (OIS 4 and early
OIS 3 Middle Paleolithic Neandertals) and after (later OIS 3 Gravettian early modern
humans) the transition. No securely dated
European early modern humans are older than ca.32 ka, and only St. Césaire 1 and Vindija
G1 fossils provide relevant Upper Paleolithic Neandertal data.
The biobehavioral contrasts between
the Neandertals and earlier Upper Paleolithic early modern humans (EUP-EMH) are multiple. They involve non-masticatory use of the anterior
dentition, reflected in dental arcade proportions, relative incisor attrition rates and
relative incisor beveling angles, all of which indicate greater use of the dentition for
manipulative purposes among the Neandertals. This
is paralleled with a host of reflections of relatively greater upper limb muscular
hypertrophy among the Neandertals, including scapular breadth, thoracohumeral muscular
insertions, cubital muscle moment arms, pronation muscular moment arms, extrinsic and
intrinsic manual muscle moment arms, opponens muscle hypertrophy, and apical tuft
dimensions. These are accompanied by cubital
and carpometacarpal articular shifts implying greater use of power grips among the
Neandertals and an increased emphasis on precision grips in the EUP-EMH. In the lower limb, there are reflections of
greater anteroposterior loading of the femora among EUP-EMH, related to mobility patterns.
At the same time, the incidence of
trauma, if not necessarily the pattern, decreases markedly among the EUP-EMH. This probably reflects increasing sophistication
of projectile technology. There is an
associated dramatic decrease in developmental stress, indicated by modest dental enamel
hypoplasia frequencies, and there is a prolonged survival of individuals with serious
congenital abnormalities. Both of these
paleopathological indicators are accompanied by an increase in older adults, reflecting
lower stress levels and increased demographic stability, both of which may have been aided
by the variable but increasing breadth and evenness of the exploited resources (as
indicated by stable isotopes).
It must be emphasized that late,
Upper Paleolithic, Neandertals (to the limited extent preserved) exhibit a mosaic of these
features. The St. Césaire 1 femur exhibits
the loading pattern seen in EUP-EMH femora and its humerus has the deltoid emphasis
evident in early EUP-EMH humeri such as Vogelherd 3, but its anterior dental pattern and
forearm muscle moment arms are similar to those of the Neandertals. The Vindija G1 stable isotopes overlap
Neandertal and EUP-EMH ranges of variation. Other
contrasting features are currently unknown for the latest Neandertals or earliest EUP-EMH.
The emerging similarities between
these groups are also multiple. There is
little if any difference in encephalization or, to the extent assessable, brain
organization. Craniofacial robusticity and
masticatory hypertrophy is the same, despite contrasts in prognathism. The locomotor apparatus exhibits similar levels of
robusticity, once ecogeographical differences in body shape are taken into account. This is evident in lower limb articular,
diaphyseal and muscular reflections of hypertrophy, indicating similar levels of mobility
and burden carrying. Stable isotope analyses
indicate that the Neandertals, as well as the EUP-EMH, were effective predators of
terrestrial game. And some Neandertals were
surviving for a few years with congenital difficulties and pronounced degenerative stress. These paleontological reflections of behavior
similarities are joined by archeological reflections, including (among the Neandertals)
intentional burials, faunal profiles and damage patterns, late regional survival, and body
ornaments in the initial Upper Paleolithic.
From this emerges a complex image of
behavioral changes across the transition to early modern humans in Europe, ones which
involve principally changes in manipulative behaviors and reductions in general levels of
stress. The former is almost certainly
related to archeologically documented changes in technology and the second reflects a host
of social, technological and organizational changes reflected in the archeological record
of the late Aurignacian and particularly of the Gravettian.
None of these changes are surprising given the OIS 3 archeological changes
in Europe, cultural changes which are known to be non-synchronous with the human
biological transition. Moreover, subtle
changes in one Upper Paleolithic Neandertal imply that at least some of these changes
occurred within late Neandertals as well as across the transition to EUP-EMH.
The Neandertal paradox is therefore
largely a product of our attempts to justify phylogenetic interpretations of European
modern human emergence. It also highlights
that the adaptive advantages of the early modern humans must have been subtle, complex,
and principally cutural in nature.