Upper Palaeolithic hunter–gatherer societies in the Basque Country (Iberian Peninsula) in the light of palaeoenvironmental dynamics in the last Glacial Period: cultural adaptations and the use of biotic resources
Upper Palaeolithic archaeological sites in the Basque Country have been excavated for over a century. They have yielded a rich palaeoenvironmental record with zoological and botanical remains that have been obtained in stratigraphic series dated precisely by radiocarbon. This information reveals cyc...
Published in: | Annals of Glaciology |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Cambridge University Press
2023
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10810/67534 https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2023.60 |
Summary: | Upper Palaeolithic archaeological sites in the Basque Country have been excavated for over a century. They have yielded a rich palaeoenvironmental record with zoological and botanical remains that have been obtained in stratigraphic series dated precisely by radiocarbon. This information reveals cyclical environmental changes from climates similar to today to drier and extremely cold conditions, when species in current boreal biomes and others now extinct but with similar ecological preferences were present in the region. Moreover, the archaeological sites have provided high-resolution information about the resilience mechanisms of the communities of our own human species. This information allows us to increase the corpus of palaeoclimate data regarding the Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 2 and MIS 3 for a critical region within the human population of Eurasia. The aim of this paper is to show how an extraordinary capacity for adaptation to drastic climate changes Upper Palaeolithic hunter–gatherer societies displayed, even though their subsistence depended on biotic resources that alter rapidly. This paper has been prepared by researchers from the Consolidated Group for Research in Prehistory, GIZAPRE: human evolution, climate change and cultural adaptation in pre-industrial societies (IT-1435-22) of the Basque University System. It also forms part of the Project PID2021-126937NB-I00 (PALEOCROSS), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033 and by ‘FEDER. A way to do Europe’. |
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