2026-06-29T22:11:35Zhttps://riubu.ubu.es/oai/request

oai:riubu.ubu.es:10259/61102026-04-29T11:55:26Zcom_10259.4_2560com_10259_5086com_10259_2604col_10259.4_2561

Mallol, Carolina Hernández Gómez, Cristo M. Mercier, Norbert Falguères, Christophe Carrancho Alonso, Ángel Cabanes, Dan Vidal-Matutano, Paloma Connolly, Rory Pérez, Leopoldo Mayor, Alejandro Ben Arous, Eslem Galván, Bertila 2021-11-05T09:15:00Z 2021-11-05T09:15:00Z 2019-12 2045-2322 http://hdl.handle.net/10259/6110 10.1038/s41598-019-54305-9 There is a relatively low amount of Middle Paleolithic sites in Europe dating to MIS 4. Of the few that exist, several of them lack evidence for anthropogenic fire, raising the question of how this period of global cooling may have affected the Neanderthal population. The Iberian Peninsula is a key area to explore this issue, as it has been considered as a glacial refugium during critical periods of the Neanderthal timeline and might therefore yield archaeological contexts in which we can explore possible changes in the behaviour and settlement patterns of Neanderthal groups during MIS 4. Here we report recent data from Abric del Pastor, a small rock shelter in Alcoy (Alicante, Spain) with a stratified deposit containing Middle Palaeolithic remains. We present absolute dates that frame the sequence within MIS 4 and multi-proxy geoarchaeological evidence of in situ anthropogenic fire, including microscopic evidence of in situ combustion residues and thermally altered sediment. We also present archaeostratigraphic evidence of recurrent, functionally diverse, brief human occupation of the rock shelter. Our results suggest that Neanderthals occupied the Central Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula during MIS 4, that these Neanderthals were not undergoing climatic stress and they were habitual fire users. This research was funded by a Leakey Foundation General Grant, Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities Projects HAR2008-06117/HIST and HAR2015-68321-P, Junta de Castilla y León-FEDER Project BU235P18, the LabEx Sciences Archéologiques de Bordeaux (LaScArBx ANR-10-LABX-52) and ERC Consolidator Grant ERC-CoG-2014. Archaeological excavations at Abric del Pastor are supported by the Archaeological Museum of Alcoy and the Government of Valencia Cultural Heritage Department. application/pdf eng Springer Nature Scientific Reports. 2019, V. 9, 18281 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-54305-9 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/MICIU//HAR2008-06117%2FHIST/ES/Territorio Neandertal. Caracterización de las primeras sociedades cazadoras-recolectoras de los valles alcoyanos (Alicante, España) info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/MICIU//HAR2015-68321-P/ES/NEANDERTALES EN LA MONTAÑA ALICANTINA. UN ENFOQUE MULTIANALITICO info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/Junta de Castilla y León//BU235P18//Análisis arqueomagnéticos en materiales arqueológicos quemados de edad holocena y pleistocena info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ANR//ANR-10-LABX-52 Atribución 4.0 Internacional http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Arqueología Prehistoria Archaeology Prehistoric peoples Fire and brief human occupations in Iberia during MIS 4: Evidence from Abric del Pastor (Alcoy, Spain) info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion