Article El Castillo cave (Cantabria, Spain): Archeozoological comparison between the Mousterian occupation level (unit 20) and the “Aurignacien de transition de type El Castillo” (unit 18) LURET, Mathieu, et al. Abstract In Spain, the site of El Castillo is part of the emblematic cave system of Cantabria, famous for its cave art. They are registered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 2008. This archaeological site is also important due its stratigraphic sequence, which spans several prehistoric occupation units and in particular the techno-complexes of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition. These constitute the subject of this article. We carried out an archaeozoological / taphonomical analysis on the faunal skeletal remains of unit 20 (Mousterian) and unit 18 (Aurignacien de transition de type El Castillo), in order to study the evolution of subsistence strategies of the human populations between the end of the Middle Palaeolithic and the start of the Upper Palaeolithic, in the Iberian Peninsula. This research demonstrates that units 20 and 18 reflect differences in species acquisition. The humans of unit 18 targeted red deer specifically, whilst the Mousterian are less speciality and hunted red deer, horses, and bovines (auroch or bison). Level 18 shows a specialisation in deer acquisition, but it is worth noting that it is [...] Reference LURET, Mathieu, et al. El Castillo cave (Cantabria, Spain): Archeozoological comparison between the Mousterian occupation level (unit 20) and the “Aurignacien de transition de type El Castillo” (unit 18). Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2020, vol. 31, p. 102339 DOI : 10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102339 Available at: http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:134865 Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version. 1 / 1 Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 31 (2020) 102339 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep El Castillo cave (Cantabria, Spain): Archeozoological comparison between the Mousterian occupation level (unit 20) and the “Aurignacien de transition T de type El Castillo” (unit 18) ⁎ Mathieu Lureta, , Ariane Burkeb, Federico Bernaldo de Quirosc, Marie Bessea a Laboratoire d'archéologie préhistorique et anthropologie, Section des sciences de la Terre et de l’environnement & Institut des sciences de l'environnement, Université de Genève, Switzerland b Laboratoire d'Ecomorphologie et de Paleoanthropologie, Université de Montreal, Departement d'Anthropologie, Canada c Area de prehistoria, Universidad de Leon, Spain ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: In Spain, the site of El Castillo is part of the emblematic cave system of Cantabria, famous for its cave art. They Mousterian are registered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 2008. This archaeological site is also important due its Aurignacian stratigraphic sequence, which spans several prehistoric occupation units and in particular the techno-complexes Archeozoology of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition. These constitute the subject of this article. We carried out an Human consumption archaeozoological / taphonomical analysis on the faunal skeletal remains of unit 20 (Mousterian) and unit 18 Red deer (Aurignacien de transition de type El Castillo), in order to study the evolution of subsistence strategies of the human populations between the end of the Middle Palaeolithic and the start of the Upper Palaeolithic, in the Iberian Peninsula. This research demonstrates that units 20 and 18 reflect differences in species acquisition. The humans of unit 18 targeted red deer specifically, whilst the Mousterian are less speciality and hunted red deer, horses, and bovines (auroch or bison). Level 18 shows a specialisation in deer acquisition, but it is worth noting that it is also the most important animal in level 20. Its prevalence in level 20 only appears lower because other species are present in greater proportions (horse, Bos/Bison). 1. Introduction campaigns carried out by Cabrera-Valdés and Bernaldo de Quiros fo- cused on a smaller surface, about 20 m2 and 1 to 1m 30 deep. The aim The cave of El Castillo has been famous since the start of the 20th was to study the Mousterian/Aurignacian transition. In 1984, Cabrera- century for its important stratigraphic sequence, going from the Valdés published a revision of the stratigraphic units of Obermaier, Acheulean to the Eneolithic. It is also renowned for its cave art, regis- with a new numeration from 1 to 26 (Cabrera-Valdes, 1984). tered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 2008 under the title of In this article, we propose a study of the archaeozoological material « Cave of Altamira and Palaeolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain ». Two of unit 20 (sub-units 20E, 20Dtot, 20Ctot, 20B and 20A) and of the excavations phases have been conducted at El Castillo since its dis- Mousterian unit 19Base, as well as the sub-units « Aurignacien de tran- covery in 1903 by Don Hermilio Alcade del Rio. From 1910 to 1914, H. sition de type Castillo » (19Sup, 18C and 18B) from the Cabrera-Valdés/ Obermaier investigated the site, under the supervision of the “Institut de Bernaldo de Quiros excavations (Cabrera-Valdes et al., 2001). These Paléontologie Humaine” (IPH) and of Prince Albert 1st of Monaco. From analyses contribute to a better understanding of the subsistence stra- 1980 to 2011, the site was excavated under Cabrera-Valdés and tegies of the last Neanderthal groups and the first Aurignacian popu- Bernaldo de Quiros. lations in El Castillo cave. The excavations carried out at the beginning of the 20th century The El Castillo cave is not the only one in Cantabria to present ar- concerned a surface of 135 m2, and 25 m in depth. This exposed 12 chaeological levels for the Middle Paleolithic – Upper Paleolithic anthropic occupation phases, including Eneolithic, Azilian, two transition (including Sopeña, Covalejos, Morin, Esquilleu…). Indeed, Magdalenian units, Solutrean, four Aurignacian units (alpha to delta), both Mousterian and Aurignacian industries are well documented in the three Mousterian units (alpha to gamma) and one Acheulean unit. The region, and transition cultures have been identified in other sites, which ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Luret). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102339 Received 12 July 2019; Received in revised form 19 March 2020; Accepted 26 March 2020 2352-409X/ © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/). M. Luret, et al. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 31 (2020) 102339 Fig. 1. Geographical location of El Castillo (Puente Viesgo, Cantabria, Spain). Fig. 2. Plan of El Castillo cave and localisation of the various excavation areas. have yielded proto-aurignacian (Labeko koba and La Viña) and 2. The site of El Castillo Châtelperronian (la Güelga, Ekain and Labeko koba). Whilst studies show that Aurignacian levels present subsistence strategies specialised The cave of El Castillo is localised in the Cantabrian region, in in deer hunting, for the Mousterian populations only a few sites present North-western Spain. It is delimited to the North by the Atlantic Ocean, specialised hunting (Covalejos and Esquilleu). Our research will and to the South by the Cantabrian mountain range. The cave over- therefore bring additional information on the Mousterian populations, hangs above the village of Puente Viesgo, at an altitude of 195 m on the and the first Aurignacians of Cantabria. North-eastern side of the El Castillo mount, and dominates the Pas valley (Fig. 1). The cave of El Castillo is part of the karstic massif of the El Castillo mount, dug within carboniferous limestone (345–325 Ma), 2 M. Luret, et al. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 31 (2020) 102339 and comprises several ornate caves also inscribed as World Heritage Valdes et al., 1996; Rink et al., 1997; Bernaldo et al., 2006; Liberda Sites. et al., 2010; Wood et al., 2016). The site has yielded an important stratigraphic sequence, with 12 The debate on the stratigraphic integrity of the units mentioned anthropic units (Cabrera-Valdes, 1984. These comprise an Eneolithic above opposes the original excavators of 1984–2011 and other re- unit (2), one Azilian (4), two Magdalenian units (6 and 8), one Solu- searchers. This topic was the subject of a new article by Wood et al. trean unit (10), four Aurignacian units (12, 14, 16 and 18), three (2016), which proposed to use radiocarbon dating to evaluate the site’s Mousterian units (20 and 22) and one Acheulean unit (24). This re- taphonomy and compare the results with the various hypotheses of the search focuses on the last Mousterian unit (20) and the first Aurignacian two parties. The conclusions of this research refute some of the hy- unit (18). These two units represent a transition phase between two potheses of Zilhao and D’Errico (2003), especially that concerning unit anthropic occupations, and two human groups with different cultures, 18′s mix of mousterian and aurignacian industry. This article did bring and are separated by unit 19, which is sterile in terms of archaeological new data on these units, but the debate remains open. In our research, vestiges. the data will be analysed according to stratigraphic sub-units, even Mousterian unit 20 of the cave of El Castillo is divided into four sub- though we distinguish the mousterian (unit 20) from the Transitional units: 20E, 20Dtot, 20Ctot and 20A/B. We add the base unit of unit 19 Aurignacian (unit 18). (19Base) to the later (20A/B), which corresponds to the same occupa- tion phase (Bernaldo et al., 2006, personal communication). The mate- 3. Materials and methods rials of sub-units 19base correspond to the last remains deposited by humans under sub-unit 20A/B, and these materials are localised in the 3.1. Materials unit 19 sediment. The lithic remains in sub-units 20A/B and 19base are the same (Bernaldo et al., 2006, personal communication).