XIX INQUA Congress, Zaragoza (Spain) - 2015 XIX INQUA CONGRESS – 2015, SPAIN FRONTIERS IN QUATERNARY The strategic location of the Iberian Peninsula makes of it an exceptional location for an International Quaternary Congress. Spain can be envisaged as a cultural bridge between Africa and Europe, playing for sure an important role in human evolution; but also it constitutes an essential link between Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, acting as a climatic threshold for all land ocean interactions. This role of borderline between different continents and water masses is what we want to stress as the key point for the Spanish bid. VENUE The proposed venue for the XIX INQUA Congress is the city of Zaragoza, which has hosted many of the International Congresses organized in Spain in the last years. Capital of Aragón and the most important city in the Ebro Valley (600.000 inhabitants), Zaragoza lies 200 metres above sea level, occupying the alluvial terraces of the great peninsular river and part of the lower valleys of its tributaries, the Rivers Gállego and Huerva. The climate is Mediterranean-Continental and arid. DATES July 27th – August 2nd , 2015 1 XIX INQUA Congress, Zaragoza (Spain) - 2015 LOCAL ORGANISING COMMITTEE (LOC) Chair: Blas Valero Garcés Vice-Chair: Gerardo Benito Honorary Chair: Emiliano Aguirre Local Committee: José María García Ruiz Penélope González Samperiz Francisco Gutiérrez Santolalla Mateo Gutiérrez Elorza Ana Moreno Caballud Jose Luis Peña Monne Carlos Sancho Scientific Program coordinators: Teresa Bardají Isabel Cacho Yolanda Fernández Jalvo José Luis Goy Alfredo Pérez González Lothar Schulte Pablo G. Silva Cari Zazo CONGRESS THEME AND LOGO The chosen theme for the Congress, FRONTIERS IN QUATERNARY, pretends to highlight the frontier character of the Iberian Peninsula between two different continents and seas. This strategic location has played a decisive role in human evolution and climate during the Quaternary and this is what the designed logo intends to represent: two blue water masses, two brown continents, and the Iberian Peninsula reshaped as an evolving human skull. 2 XIX INQUA Congress, Zaragoza (Spain) - 2015 SCIENCE PROGRAMME The preliminary program is presented here with an approximate outline of the time table. Most of the morning time will be devoted to oral presentations; however attendants will be encouraged to present their contributions in poster format. Specific poster sessions will be scheduled everyday not coinciding with the oral sessions. Chairs of poster sessions will be encouraged to promote brief presentations from the authors. Special attention will be paid to plenary sessions dealing with the most outstanding themes related to Quaternary, and especially to Iberian case issues. 1RS 2ND DAY 3TH DAY 4TH DAY 5TH 6TH DAY 7TH DAY 8TH DAY 9TH DAY DAY DAY 08.00 Registration Registration Registration Registration Registration Registration (08.00-18.00) (08.00-18.00) (08.00-18.00) (08.00-18.00) (08.00-18.00) (08.00-18.00) 08.15 Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral 09.15 General presentations presentations presentations presentations presentations 10.15 Assembly I Coffee break Coffee break Coffee break Coffee break Coffee break 10.30 Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral presentations presentations presentations presentations presentations 11.15 Plenary Plenary Plenary Plenary Plenary Plenary 13.00 Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch 14.30 Poster Poster Poster Poster Poster Poster sessions session session session session session 15.30 Coffee break Coffee break Coffee break Coffee break Coffee break Coffee break 16.00 Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral General presentations presentations presentations presentations presentations Assembly II 18.00 Break Break Break Break 18.30 Welcome Commission Commission Commission reception meetings meetings meetings 19.00 Congress dinner to Madrid and arrival excursions Pre-congress excursion Mid-Congress Post-congress-excursions The International Council will be stated after advice of the Executive Board, preferably after most Commission Meetings have taking place. 3 XIX INQUA Congress, Zaragoza (Spain) - 2015 FIELD TRIP PROGRAM Several field trips have been preliminary chosen to showcase the most outstanding Quaternary sites in the Iberian Peninsula, especially those unique and of worldwide interest. Some significant examples of these are for instance those field trips related to Human Evolution (Gibraltar, Atapuerca) or to Palaeolithic Cave Art (Cantabria). Other field trips have been proposed to cover different aspects related to the Quaternary not only in Spain, but also in neighbouring countries such as Portugal, Morocco or Tunis. Although some of these excursions will have to take place before the congress due to their longer distance to Zaragoza, the precise allocation of the rest of field trips will not be decided until the final organization of the Congress. A number of 1-day intra-congress excursions have been also planned in order to visit some of the most interesting Quaternary sites close to Zaragoza. Pre-Congress Excursions Field trip A.1 Title: Holocene Volcanism in the Gran Canaria Island (Canary Islands, Spain) Leaders: Francisco Pérez Torrado (ULPGC, Spain); Alejandro Rodríguez Santana (ULPGC, Spain) Summary: Field-Trip focused in the Holocene volcanic centers, phreatomagmatic eruptions and intra canyons lava flows. Ancient Pleistocene tsunami events and lava-littoral sediments interactions can be included in this proposal Field trip A.2 Title: Quaternary and Historical Volcanic activity in the Tenerife Island (Canary Islands, Spain) Leaders: Juan C. Carracedo (CISC, Tenerife, Spain). Summary: Field-Trip focused in the Quaternary activity of the El Teide Stratovolcano and lateral vents; Pleistocene to historical events and volcanic risk 4 XIX INQUA Congress, Zaragoza (Spain) - 2015 Field trip A.3 Title: Geoarcheology of the Early-Middle Pleistocene sites of Ambrona –Torralba and Atapuerca. A multidisciplinary view of early humans in Western Europe and Iberian Acheulan. Leaders: Alfredo Pérez González (CENIEH, Spain) and Manuel Santonja (CENIEH, Spain) . Pre- Post- Congress Excursions Field trip B.1 Title: Fluvial tufa, slope deposits and paleosols to understand river response to environmental changes in the middle and lower River Aguas catchment, southeastern Iberian Peninsula Leaders: Lothar Schulte (UB, Spain), Ramon Julià (CSIC, Spain), Francesc Burjachs (ICREA, Spain) Summary: A Quaternary soil chronosequence of the Aguas river terrace has been established, and it seems to be typical for the Vera basin. The chronology of the fluvial sequence of 15 geomorphological units was determined by geomorphologic and sedimentologic criteria, OSL, 14C, 210Pb, U/Th disequilibrium dating and artifacts. Fluvial archives, tufa and slope deposits provide sensitive resolution records of environmental changes in the River Aguas basin during the last 170 kyr. From the chronostratigraphic data sets we have established a model of Late Pleistocene river response for littoral basins on the southern Iberian Peninsula. Regarding the three mechanisms of Pleistocene river dynamics in middle-size catchment areas of the littoral region of southeastern Spain, our results support the hypothesis that large scale tectonics triggered the general downcutting trend, whereas the main aggradation and incision phases occurred during periods of major sea-level changes. Over short-time scales the influence of climate variability, as documented by pollen records, plays a decisive role. Field trip B.2 Title: Active Tectonics and ground effects of historic and paleo-earthquakes in South Spain (Betic Cordillera). Leaders: Pablo G. Silva* (Univ. Salamanca, Spain); Pedro Alfaro (Univ. Alicante, Spain); Eulalia Massana (Univ. Barcelona, Spain); José J. Martínez-Díaz (Univ. Complutense Madrid, Spain; Teresa Bardají (Univ. Alcalá, Spain); Francisco J. García-Tortosa (Univ. Jaén, Spain). Summary: South–North transect of the Alpine Betic Cordillera, illustrating the main Quaternary active fault systems, tectonic geomorphology, paleoseismological research (available fault- Trenches) and archaeoseismological research on Earthquake Ground Effects. Field trip B.3 Title: MIS 3 Human occupation and environment along the Gibraltar Corridor Leaders: Joaquín Rodríguez-Vidal (University of Huelva, Spain) and Clive Finlayson (The Gibraltar Museum, UK) Summary: This field-trip is about the importance of the coastal zone in human evolution, with particular emphasis on the distinctive environmental history of a region that lies on the boundary between Africa and Europe, and between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. New studies on the both South Iberia-Gibraltar Caves and North Africa shelters also coincide with renewed interest in other parts of the world in the role of coastal environments in human evolution and dispersal, a growing realisation that they have been neglected or discounted in existing accounts, not least because most of the relevant evidence (~90% in Pleistocene times) is now submerged on the sea bed, and a recognition that coastal environments may have acted both as important population refugia and as primary corridors of population dispersal between and within continents. 5 XIX INQUA Congress, Zaragoza (Spain) - 2015 Field trip B.4 Title: Human Evolution at the Southernmost part of the Iberian Peninsula: Guadix-Baza and Gibraltar. Leaders: Robert Sala ((IPHES, Spain) IPHES=Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Socia), Clive Finlayson (The Gibraltar Museum, UK) Summary: We are facing two