View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Trabajos de Prehistoria (E-Journal) TRABAJOS DE PREHISTORIA 75, N.º 1, enero-junio 2018, pp. 9-51, ISSN: 0082-5638 https://doi.org/10.3989/tp.2018.12202 The Upper Paleolithic of Iberia El Paleolítico Superior de la península ibérica Lawrence G. Strausa ABSTRACT subsistencia y la expresión artística, desde una perspectiva que subraya en que medida la naturaleza y extensión de This article attempts to provide a relatively complete las redes sociales han cambiado durante todo el desarrollo synthesis of what is currently known about the transition del Estadio Isotópico Marino 3 tardío y todo el Estadio 2. from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic and the develop- El objetivo es abarcar todas las regiones de la península, ment of human adaptations and cultures during the latter pese a sus diferentes historias de la investigación y sus des- period in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal, as well iguales densidades de yacimientos. Una conclusión general as Andorra and Gibraltar). The emphases of the work, which es que a pesar de las fluctuaciones climáticas del Tardigla- is inescapably selective and reliant mainly on the most recent ciar, uno puede escribir diferentes histoires de la longue available literature, are on environmental conditions, human durée sobre importantes unidades geográficas como la región settlement, technologies, subsistence and artistic expression, cantábrica (atlántica septentrional) de España, la cuenca from a perspective that gives importance to the nature and del Ebro, la España levantina (mediterránea), Andalucía, extent of social networks as they changed throughout the las mesetas interiores de España y las cuencas del Duero y course of late Marine Isotope Stage 3 and all of Stage 2. el Tajo, y las regiones meridional y central-septentrional de The aim is to give coverage to all regions of the Peninsula, Portugal. Además, en diferentes grados a través del tiempo, despite their different research histories and their varying site hubo tanto una unidad cultural peninsular, creada por redes densities. An overall conclusion is that despite the climatic sociales entre esas regiones, como contactos con bandas de fluctuations of the Last Glacial, one can write differing his- cazadores-recolectores al norte de los Pirineos. toires de la longue durée for such major geographic units as Cantabrian (northern Atlantic) Spain, the Ebro basin, Levan- Key words: Iberia; Upper Paleolithic; Chronology; Envi- tine (Mediterranean) Spain, Andalucía, the Spanish interior ronmental diversity and change; Technology; Subsistence; mesetas and Duero and Tagus basins, and the Algarve, Es- Art; Last Glacial. tremadura and Douro regions of southern and north-central Portugal. Yet, to varying degrees through time, there was both Peninsular cultural unity created by social networks among Palabras clave: Península Ibérica; Paleolítico Superior; these regions and evidence of inter-band contacts with forager Cronología; Diversidad y cambio medioambiental; Tec- groups living to the north of the Pyrenees. nología; Subsistencia; Arte; Tardiglaciar. RESUMEN 1. INTRODUCTION Este artículo intenta ofrecer una síntesis relativamente By 1992, when Trabajos de Prehistoria changed completa de lo que se conoce en la actualidad sobre la its publication norms and periodicity, Upper Paleo- transición del Paleolítico medio al superior y el desarrollo lithic studies in both Portugal and Spain had already de las adaptaciones humanas y de las culturas durante el último periodo en la Península Ibérica (España y Portugal, been profoundly transformed from their states at the así como Andorra y Gibraltar). Los énfasis del trabajo, que respective ends of the internationally marginalized es inevitablemente selectivo y se basa principalmente en la Salazar and Franco regimes in the mid-1970s. As with bibliografía disponible más reciente, son las condiciones the Lower Paleolithic (notably because of the seminal ambientales, el asentamiento humano, las tecnologías, la discoveries at Atapuerca) and the Middle Paleolithic a Dept. of Anthropology. University of New Mexico. Albuquerque. NM 87131 USA. E-mail: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0348-3338 Recibido 24-VI-2017; aceptado 2-XII-2017. Copyright: © 2018 CSIC. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License. 10 Lawrence G. Straus (with a new focus on late survival of Neandertals in Vasco-Cantabrian (northern coastal) region, where I a southwestern refugium), the explosion of both new have worked discontinuously, but followed develop- cave art finds and of high-quality publications of site ments continuously since 1973. My direct experience excavations and comparative analyses in the late 1970s in Portugal is far more limited (surveys and test exca- and 1980s had moved Iberia from the periphery to vations in Estremadura, Alentejo and Algarve in 1987- the forefront of European Upper Paleolithic research. 88). While I have visited many sites in Mediterranean Just as the international excavations in El Castillo (and Spain (Catalonia, Valencia and Andalucía) and the in- other caves near Santander) in the years immediately terior regions of Old and New Castile and Extremad- preceding World War I had been critical to the develop- ura, and have tried to follow much of the literature, I ment of that research area, the reactivation of work in do not have field experience in these important parts both Spain and Portugal, with the significant participa- of the country (aside from a survey and testing proj- tion of small numbers of foreign archeologists (includ- ect with G. A. Clark in Burgos in 1972). This fact ing the present author) in the late 1960s-1970s, led to undoubtedly biases the following review in terms of the creation of a much enlarged, enhanced, world-class the evenness and detail of its coverage. In large part, record, the formation of cadres of highly qualified, ex- because of space limits and so as not to replicate my perienced Spanish and Portuguese prehistoric archeo- earlier overviews of the Upper (and Middle) Paleoli- logists (and specialists in allied Quaternary sciences). thic, I am confining bibliographic references mainly to While not abandoning all aspects of the traditional recent ones, with emphases on syntheses and reports (French-dominated) culture-historical approach, many on the most significant sites. I regret the impossibility members of the post-dictatorship generation of PhDs of being more inclusive in citations. I refer the rea- became open to and practiced aspects of American der to my earlier reviews for Cantabrian Spain (Straus “Processual Archeology” or British “Economic Prehis- 1985, 1992, 2005, 2015a) for additional details and tory”, with emphases on environmental reconstruction, references on that region. artifact and site function, subsistence, human adapta- I structure the article with reference to the late tion, regional perspectives and comparative analyses. Upper Pleistocene climate stages derived from marine Eventually this transformation of Paleolithic archeo- and ice cores (some equivalent to classic pollen zones logy involved the development of cutting-edge excava- as applied to Iberian caves sites by the late Arlette tion and analytical methods, world-class curation and Leroi-Gourhan and her “school”). I also structure it laboratory infrastructures, and the parallel expansion in terms of the conventional cultural phases originally of Quaternary geological and paleobiological studies developed in France, despite the fact that I regard the in universities and museums of both countries. This latter as falsely implying successive cultural disconti- process was significantly assisted by membership in the nuities and population replacements, rather than a re- European Union since 1986 and in other international cord of continuous human occupation of the Peninsula, organisms such as UNESCO, including the prestige of with variable demography and uneven rates, aspects eventual inclusion of many rock art locations among and mechanisms of adaptive change. However it is the World Heritage Sites, beginning with Altamira in unavoidable to use these traditional terms for succes- 1985. The period from the arbitrary date of 1992 (co- sive Upper Paleolithic cultures for the sake of reader incidentally the date of my book-length synthesis of comprehension, even I believe they tend to reify both Cantabrian Stone Age prehistory) until the present has normative thinking and a French source for all cultural been one of continued growth in the numbers, sophis- innovation. The culture-history approach, of which the tication, specialization and (thanks to EU scholarships unit terms Aurignacian, Châtelperronian, Gravettian, and academic mobility funding) internationalization of Solutrean, Magdalenian and Azilian are part and parcel, the corpus of practitioners. These developments came masks variation (caused by functional, lithological, and as the cohort of the 1970s —now with increased finan- sampling factors, as well as by “style”) within each cial support— mentored and promoted their own (and unit and over-emphasizes differences between units. I non-Iberian) students in the field, classrooms, and labs. believe that there was a great deal of continuity in In archeology and other fields, however, the budget cuts technologies (aside from a few key diagnostic types resulting from the world economic crisis