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Numerous studies along the northern Mediterranean borderland have documented the use of shellfish by Neanderthals but none of these finds are prior to Marine Isotopic Stage 3 (MIS 3). In this paper we present evidence that gathering and consumption of mollusks can now be traced back to the lowest level of the archaeological sequence at Bajondillo Cave (Málaga, Spain), dated during the MIS 6. The paper describes the taxonomical and taphonomical features of the mollusk assemblages from this level Bj(19) and briefly touches upon those retrieved in levels Bj(18) (MIS 5) and Bj(17) (MIS 4), evidencing a continuity of the shellfishing activity that reaches to MIS 3. This evidence is substantiated on 29 datings through radiocarbon, thermoluminescence and U series methods. Obtained dates and paleoenvironmental records from the cave include isotopic, pollen, lithostratigraphic and sedimentological analyses and they are fully coherent with paleoclimate conditions expected for the different stages. We conclude that described use of shellfish resources by Neanderthals (H. neanderthalensis) in Southern Spain started ∼150 ka and were almost contemporaneous to Pinnacle Point (South Africa), when shellfishing is first documented in archaic modern humans.

En los últimos años se ha puesto de manifiesto que los neandertales explotaron un rango de especies muy amplio. Diversos  animales independientemente de su tamaño o su nicho ecológico fueron explotados, así proboscidios, ungulados de diversas tallas,  carnívoros, pequeños mamíferos como los lagomorfos, reptiles, aves y peces presentan evidencias de haber sido aprovechados por estos seres humanos. Esta gran variabilidad de recursos es un ejemplo de la versatilidad neandertal. En este trabajo hemos tratado de reflejar  esta adaptabilidad a través de una revisión de las evidencias zooarqueológicas y tafonómicas descritas en los yacimientos musterienses del interior de la Península Ibérica, tomando como referencia aquellos lugares situados en la meseta norte y la meseta sur correspondientes a los estadios isotópicos 5-3.Neanderthals have recently been found to have exploited a rather wide range of species. Regardless of size or habitat, many animals were consumed, from proboscidians, ungulates of different size and carnivores, to small mammals such as lagomorphs or even reptiles, birds and fish. All these species present evidence of having been intervened by this hominines. This large variety of resources is an example of Neanderthal versatility. This paper discusses this adaptive behavior in a revision of the zooarcheological and taphonomic evidence found in Mousterian sites in inland Iberia, particularly the ones located in the northern and southern plateau for the 5-3 isotopic stages.

Journal of Archaeological Science 49: 518-523, DOI: https://doi.Org/10.1016/j.jas.2014.06.004 Kreutser, L. A. (1999): \"Bison and deer bone mineral densities: comparison and implications for the interpretation of archaeological faunas\". Journal of Archaeological Science 19 (3): 271-294, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-4403(92)90017-W Lam, Y. M.; Xingbin Chen y Pearson, O. M. (1999): \"Intertaxonomic variability in patterns of bone density and the differential representation of bovid, cervid and equid elements in the archaeological record\". American Antiquity 64 (2): 344-362, DOI: 10.2307/2694283 Levine, M.A. (1982): \"The use of crown height measurements and eruptions-wear sequences to age horse teeth\", en B. Wilson, C. Grigson y S. Payne (eds.), Ageing and Sexing Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites, BAR British Series 109: 223-250. Journal of Archaeological Science 20: 2254-2273, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/jjas.2013.01.002 Maroto, J.; Soler, N. y Fullola, J. M. (1996): \"Cultural change between Middle and Upper Palaeolithic in Catalonia\", en E. Carbonell y M. Vaquero (eds.), The last neandertals.

The volume traces the controversy that revolves around the bio-cultural relationships of Archaic (Neanderthal) and Modern humans at global and regional, Levantine scales. The focus of the book is on understanding the degree to which the behavioral organization of Archaic groups differed from Moderns. To this end, a case study is presented for a 44-70,000 year old, Middle Paleolithic occupation of a Jordanian rockshelter. The research, centering on the spatial analysis of artifacts, hearths and related data, reveals how the Archaic occupants of the shelter structured their activities and placed certain conceptual labels on different parts of the site. The structure of Tor Faraj is compared to site structures defined for modern foragers, in both ethnographic and archaeological contexts, to measure any differences in behavioral organization. The comparisons show very similar structures for Tor Faraj and its modern cohorts. The implications of this finding challenge prevailing views in the emergence of modern human controversy in which Archaic groups are thought to have had inferior cognition and less complex behavioral-social organization than modern foragers. And, it is generally thought that such behaviors only emerged after the appearance of the Upper Paleolithic, dated some 10-20,000 years later than the occupation of Tor Faraj.

This work shows a first description of the subsistence strategies carried out by the Neanderthal communities that inhabited the Horadada Gorge (Mave, Palence). Through the analysis of the faunal collections retrieved from the Mousterian archaeological horizon unearthed at Corazón Cave, dated at 96 Ka, a first characterization of the models used by the Neanderthals to obtain meat resources in this site is presented. Corazón Cave represents a strategic corridor connecting the Spanish Northern Plateau with the Cantabrian Range and the set of subsistence strategies described here can shed light on the importance of this locale in its regional framework. The methodological framework used to undertake this study includes zooarchaeological and taphonomic bone analyses, and mortality patterns. Our results suggest an anthropogenic accumulation of horses, deer, goats and other herbivores. Cut mark and fracture patterns on the bone assemblage support this. Cut marks have been identified in almost all anatomical sections, indicating a variety of activities related to skinning, disarticulation and fleshing. Apart from meat consumption, percussion marks and breakage patterns suggest access to marrow. Carnivores were present in the site as secondary scavenger agents, accessing to those remains left behind when Neanderthals abandoned the cave.

Neanderthals - no less than another kind of human - almost made it, finally dying out just 28,000 years ago. What caused us to survive while they went extinct? Ecology holds the clues, argues Clive Finlayson. It comes down to climate change and chance. There was little in it, and things could have turned out quite differently.

Neanderthals and Modern Humans develops the theme of the close relationship between climate change, ecological change and biogeographical patterns in humans during the Pleistocene. In particular, it challenges the view that Modern Human 'superiority' caused the extinction of the Neanderthals between 40 and 30 thousand years ago. Clive Finlayson shows that to understand human evolution, the spread of humankind across the world and the extinction of archaic populations, we must move away from a purely theoretical evolutionary ecology base and realise the importance of wider biogeographic patterns including the role of tropical and temperate refugia. His proposal is that Neanderthals became extinct because their world changed faster than they could cope with, and that their relationship with the arriving Modern Humans, where they met, was subtle.

El presente artículo cuestiona la pervivencia de los Neandertales y de su tecnología Musteriense en la mitad sur de la Península Ibérica durante el Pleniglacial Superior wurmiense, criticando buena parte de las fechas obtenidas en los principales yacimientos de la región, ya sea por los métodos por los que se han obtenido o bien por la procedencia y la naturaleza de las muestras.This paper calis into question the survival of Neanderthals and their Mousterian technology in Southern Iberia in the Upper Pleniglacial, carrying out a critical review of the dates of mousterian levéis in the main sites of this área, whether by dating methods or by the origin and the nature of sample.

La Gruta Nova de Columbeira, descubierta en 1962, constituye uno de los más importantes sitios del Paleolítico Medio en Portugal. La industria lítica, que aquí se caracteriza por primera vez, puede describirse genéricamente como un Musteriense de denticulados rico en raederas, de talla y facies levallois, sin signo alguno que la aproxime a patrones asimilables al Paleolítico Superior. Dos dataciones C14 de los dos niveles de ocupación humana de la base de la secuencia (28900 ± 900 y 26400 ± 750 BP) confieren un interés especial a esta localidad, que se incluye en el conjunto de casi dos decenas de sitios ibéricos (sur de España y Portugal) en que fué comprobada la subsistencia del Musteriense y de los neandertales hasta incluso después de 30000 BP. Se plantea una argumentación paleobiogeográfíca para explicar este fenómeno, en el cuadro de la evolución histórica documentada en las tres penínsulas meridionales (ibérica, itálica y balcánica) del continente europeo.