La explotación de los recursos faunísticos en el Aziliense de la cueva de El Cierro (Fresnu, Ribadesella, Asturias).

Abstract

[EN] Faunal remains represent a fundamental element of the archaeological record for understanding the subsistence strategies of Upper Palaeolithic huntergatherer societies in the Cantabrian region. In this chapter, we present the results of the archaeozoological and taphonomic study of the faunal assemblage recovered from the Azilian levels of El Cierro Cave (Ribadesella, Asturias), with the aim of identifying how these resources were exploited by human groups. El Cierro Cave contains one of the most complete Upper Pleistocene stratigraphic sequences in northern Spain. The Azilian occupations are represented in levels Cierro D and Cierro C, which yielded abundant faunal remains radiocarbon dated to approximately 13,000–12,500 cal BP. The archaeozoological analysis revealed a wide range of species, primarily marine molluscs, but also large mammals, birds, fish, crustaceans, echinoderms, and terrestrial molluscs. The taphonomic analysis of both vertebrates and invertebrates has enabled us to determine the role played by different animal resources in the diet and to reconstruct subsistence strategies based on the energetic and nutritional contributions each resource would have provided to the Azilian hunter-gatherers of El Cierro. The results obtained from each stratigraphic level have been compared and contextualised within the broader framework of the Cantabrian region.