Inside the secrets of Teixoneres Cave (Moià, Barcelona, Spain): An example of a multidisciplinary approach applied to a Neanderthal site

JORDI ROSELL; RUTH BLASCO; ANNA RUFÀ; CARLOS SÁNCHEZ-HERNÁNDEZ; MAITE ARILLA; M. GEMA CHACÓN; ANDREA PICIN; MIRIAM ANDRÉS; IVÁN RAMÍREZ; PAULA MATEO; GUILLERMO BUSTOS; MÓNICA FERNÁNDEZ; LEANDRO ZILIO; HEIDI HAMMOND; JUAN MANUEL LÓPEZ-GARCÍA; HUGUES-ALEXANDRE BLAIN; ELISA LUZI; DIEGO J. ÁLVAREZ-LAO; CARLOS TORNERO; BRUNO GÓMEZ DE SOLER; SAHRA TALAMO; FLORENT RIVALS

Tarragona

Encuentro; 60th Annual Meeting of the Hugo Obermaier Society for Quaternary Research and Archaeology of the Stone Age; 2018

Universitat Rovira i Virgili; IPHES y AGUAR

The use of techniques and methods from diverse disciplines is proving a salutary lesson for studies related to Neanderthal lifestyles. The multidisciplinary works point towards a high capacity to adapt to different climates and ecological environments, which suggests a significant behavioral plasticity of this human species. In this work, we aim to contribute to this topic from the Mousterian site of Teixoneres Cave (Moià, Barcelona, Spain). The geochronological, paleoecological and archaeological studies suggest a changing environment throughout MIS 3, with a combination (or alternation) between animals of temperate and cold environments (Rosell et al., 2017; Álvarez-Lao et al., 2017; Luzi et al., 2017). Human occupations seemed to lose territorial (and temporal) stability progressively as the period advanced. While unit IIIb, dated to ~ 50 ka, shows an important persistence of groups settled in the territory, the upper units (e.g., IIIa, IIb, IIa; ≤40 ka; Talamo et al., 2016) seem to be characterised by short-term settlements and their alternation with carnivore dens, mainly for hyenas and cave bears (Sánchez-Hernández et al., 2014; Rufà et al., 2014, 2016; Bustos et al., 2017; Rosell et al., 2017). The recent discovery of human remains opens the door to other disciplines, such as Paleoanthropology and genetics, at the site. Thus, Teixoneres Cave represents a key site to understand the Neanderthals? fate as a human lineage in the Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as the evolution of their subsistence strategies starting from the Middle Pleistocene until their disappearance in MIS 3-2.