Los Enebrales rock-shelter (Tamajón, Guadalajara, Spain): First Gravettian site in central Iberia

Abstract

The stratigraphy and materials from a survey carried out in 1994 and 1995 in a rock-shelter in Tamajón (southwestern Iberian Central Range) are studied here. The Pleistocene deposits were generated by high-energy channelled fluvial flows and dense currents of debris flow and mud flow type. The recovered lithic industry, created mainly in low-quality local materials, can be associated with Gravettian technocomplexes. Three radiocarbon dates obtained from the stratigraphic sequence are located in a temperate interstadial of OIS 3a and in a cold episode at the beginning of OIS 2. The faunal remains, which come from human consumption, display cut and percussion marks. They reveal a predominance of equines, followed by deer, in a mosaic environment. A shale plaque-pendant, worked and decorated, was found outside the stratigraphy. The human occupations of the shelter must have been sporadic, but reflect, with the growing evidence nearby, a thriving population in this area of anatomically modern humans. The association of pre-Solutrean archaeological materials, together with the dates obtained, establishes the human occupation of the Los Enebrales shelter as the oldest evidence of the Upper Palaeolithic in the inner Iberian Plateau.