http://hdl.handle.net/10366/154135 Tue, 12 May 2026 08:08:06 GMT 2026-05-12T08:08:06Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170895 [EN] The archaeological deposit in Lezetxiki Cave has been excavated in two stages by teams directed first by José Miguel de Barandiarán (1956-1968) and then by Alvaro Arrizabalaga and María José Iriarte- Chiapusso (1996-2018). In the first stage, the deposit was found to cover a long period in the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. A number of human fossils, remains of numerous animal species and a large assemblage of stone tools were documented. When the second stage of excavations began in 1996, the objectives were much more modest, but the research has repeatedly been overwhelmed by the complexity of the deposit and the abundant information it has provided. Bedrock was reached in summer 2016. Although some analytical studies have still not concluded, we now begin to glimpse the role played by the site in the articulation of human population in the Basque Country in the Middle Palaeolithic and Early Upper Palaeolithic. The main aim of the present paper is therefore to summarize almost seventy years’ research at the site. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170895 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170859 [EN] Los Gitanos de Montealegre cave has one of the most outstanding sequences in the Cantabrian region, thanks to which it has been possible to determine, in particular, the subsistence activities practiced by the first foodproducing societies, including the collection of marine invertebrates in the intertidal zone. Although the characteristic is the shellfishing of gastropods, particularly limpets, other organisms have been documented at the site that provide us with information on related aspects beyond the subsistence of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic groups. This chapter studies in detail a set of archaeozoological remains of marine origin belonging to different bryozoans (Turbicellepora magnicostata), annelids (genera Spirorbis and Spirobranchus), arthropods (crab species Eriphia verrucosa, Pachygrapsus marmoratus, Necora puber and Xanthidae, and the goose barnacle Pollicipes pollicipes), and echinoderms (purple sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus). Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170859 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170857 [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. Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170857 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170856 [EN] This article presents new evidence of portable art documented in the levels attributed to the Lower Magdalenian period in the El Cierro cave (Fresno, Ribadesella, Asturias). It comes from the excavations carried out by A. Gómez Fuentes and F. Jordá Cerdá between 1977 and 1979 in the main chamber of the cave. These excavations yielded a limestone, probably detached from the walls of the cave itself, decorated with parallel incisions of unknown function. Research carried out between 2016 and 2019 has documented occupations dating back to the early Holocene (Mesolithic), in the transition from the late Pleistocene to the Holocene (Azilian), but mainly to the Upper Pleistocene (several levels dated to the Lower Magdalenian, Upper Solutrean, Late Gravettian, Aurignacian and one dated to the Mousterian). In this context, the new evidence recovered is analysed and compared with other decorated objects from the cave, both on organic supports (in particular, a shoulder blade engraved with a deer with multiple striated lines and fragments of throwing weapons engraved with different motifs) and on inorganic supports, from interventions carried out in the last century. This evidence is compared with similar evidence from other sites of the same chronology documented in the Cantabrian region. Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170856 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170521 [ES] En las nuevas intervenciones arqueológicas realizadas en la cueva cántabra de El Pendo se han documentado dos fragmentos de rocas blandas del tipo esteatita con evidencia de manipulación antrópica. En este artículo se estudian estas piezas en detalle y se revisa la información sobre este tipo de materia prima documentada en anteriores excavaciones en la cueva de El Pendo y en otros yacimientos de la región cantábrica durante la Prehistoria. Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170521 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170260 [ES] Investigaciones realizadas en la Cueva de El Cierro (Ribadesella), Campañas del 2022 y 2023 Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170260 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170073 [ES] Intervenciones Arqueológicas en la Cueva de Les Pedroses 2020-2024 Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170073 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170071 [ES] Intervenciones Arqueológicas en la Cuevona de Ardines y La Viesca en el año 2022 Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170071 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170067 Intervenciones arqueológicas en Tito Bustillo, Campaññas 2020 a 2024 Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170067 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/167882 [EN] This chapter justifies the necessity of a social archaeology of kinship. To do so, the text frames what is understood today by kinship within its intellectual trajectory, giving a brief overview of different disciplinary approaches. Over the previous decades the topic was subject to strong criticism, loss of interest, mistrust or reticence. Nowadays the scholarly outlook is optimistic, the old weaknesses have been contested, interest in the topic is growing steadily, and fresh lines of enquiry have been opened. This paper critically surveys the current confusing panorama and points out unsolved shortcomings that the academic community is yet to face, particularly regarding the mainstream biodeterministic narrative within a context of scientism and neopositivist supremacy. The text then explains the genesis, aims and scope of the volume, framing its contents within the current intellectual landscape, which are arranged into two main research branches: science-based contributions drawing on bioarchaeology (aDNA and isotope analyses) and humanistic-oriented and anthropologicallyinformed chapters interested in household archaeology. Finally, it comments on the promising prospects for future advancements in this field. Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/167882 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/167881 [EN] This contribution addresses a basic and ubiquitous collective social agent in antiquity between the conjugal family –which was rarely a social unit in itself– and the settlement or local community. The paper delves into such an intermediate and kin-driven social grouping, often materialised as a neighbourhood or multi-house aggregate. The text proposes an approach from the standpoint of household archaeology, centring on kinship, with the aim of challenging unquestioned claims and to endorse the target formulas of conviviality with supportive and highly detailed historical information from diverse sources. Such residential group cannot be interpreted as an “extended family” or a “cultural trait”, nor always be reduced to a complete household or corporate unilineal group. The chapter first discusses its underpinnings and interpretative limits and then surveys the literature of two major household archaeological schools in a comparative fashion to focus on a necessarily restrictive selection of well-known and representative case studies. Out of the suite of combinations of residence and descent options, the text concentrates on those multi-functional and self-sufficient composite residential groups involving either subaltern small conjugal dwellings or elite oversized ancillary subunits: mostly virilocal and patrilineal, and some bilocal and bilateral cases, often confused. This sample ranges from decentralised pre-/protohistoric Near Eastern and Mediterranean organisations to Mesoamerican and South American historical state-based polities. Such an exercise highlights key underlying commonalities of this collective social actor in varied settings across time and space, readdresses misguided points in current archaeological literature and suggests prospects for multi-stranded research integrating the domestic and funerary realms. Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/167881 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/167880 [EN] The study of kinship from archaeology has been fluctuating. At the end of the 20th century archaeologists were reluctant or skeptical about its relevance and viability. However, in recent decades it has gained prominence and today it is experiencing a sweet moment, although not without problems. Its recent impulse has been due to the methodological development of bioscience techniques (aDNA and isotope studies) and to the profound revision and updating of other inference strategies from household archaeology. All this has resulted in the public interest in kinship in the past, as well as an increasing funding of research programs and a rapidly growing scholarly literature. However, as a line of work in its infancy, the academic landscape is fraught with confusion and interpretive uncertainty. There are various ways of understanding kinship and assorted ways of approaching it from archaeology. The common identification of kinship as biological relatedness is only a restrictive and context-dependent way of understanding it, which may serve to comprehend our Western society, but is not directly applicable to any other. Archaeology must critically construct its own methods of inference and narratives about kinship as a social matter. It is therefore urgent to reclaim a social archaeology of kinship that collaborates yet is not subordinated to other sciences. This volume aims to contribute to this challenge. To this end, it compiles case-based essays elaborated by renowned international scholars (archaeologists and geneticists) in which inference methods and interpretative possibilities about kinship in the past are discussed. The volume’s scope is mainly focused on Iberia, although case-studies are drawn worldwide. Spain is a dynamic research hub belonging to a minority archaeological tradition, where varied theoretically informed and promising approaches to the subject are being undertaken and is therefore paradigmatic of current trends and prospects in the international scene. Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/167880 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/167065 [ES] En este artículo se estudian las cuentas y otros objetos de adorno-colgantes realizados en concha y en materia prima de origen mineral hallados en la secuencia estratigráfica de cueva de Arenaza I (Galdames, Bizkaia). Los primeros, documentados en ocupaciones adscritas al Aziliense, al Mesolítico y al Calcolítico/Edad de Bronce, se han fabricado a partir de gasterópodos, de escafópodos y de un bivalvo; estas conchas fueron probablemente recogidas en las costas cercanas a la cueva. Los segundos, elaborados en piedra, se localizan exclusivamente en el nivel datado en el Calcolítico/Edad de Bronce y han sido realizados a partir de materias primas de origen local (caliza, calcita) y foráneo (azabache, diabasa y las denominadas “piedras verdes”); este tipo de cuentas y colgantes, de diferentes formas (discoidales, en forma de tonel, etc.) y tamaños, se empiezan a utilizar en la región cantábrica, a partir de comienzos del Neolítico. Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/167065 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/164939 Introducción al libro Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/164939 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/164755 Animal emblématique des Pyrénées, le bouquetin peuple ses deux versants depuis les temps les plus anciens. En s’adaptant à cet environnement, une forme typiquement pyrénéenne Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica apparaît, il y a plusieurs millénaires. Consommé pendant la Préhistoire, le bouquetin est devenu, au cours du Paléolithique récent, une figure incontournable du bestiaire préhistorique. Nombre de ses représentations sont mondialement connues : bouquetins peints du Salon Noir (grotte de Niaux, Ariège) ou sculptés sur dent de cachalot (grotte du Mas d’Azil, Ariège). Ce second tome de l’ouvrage « Bouquetins et Pyrénées » est consacré à ces figurations préhistoriques et en propose un inventaire détaillé pour les Pyrénées françaises et espagnoles, totalement inédit et richement illustré. Il présente aussi des sites paléolithiques hors des Pyrénées dans lesquels le bouquetin est bien représenté. Au-delà de son intérêt iconographique accessible à tous publics, cet inventaire a vocation à devenir un outil de travail pour les chercheur·e·s et les enseignant·e·s ; il a donc été structuré dans cet objectif et se double d’une base de données évolutive en ligne. Il rassemble plus d’une centaine de spécialistes français, espagnols, portugais, italiens, belges ou australiens et est, comme le premier tome, dédié à Jean Clottes, préhistorien, ariégeois, conservateur général du Patrimoine honoraire au ministère de la Culture et spécialiste international des grottes ornées. Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/164755 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10366/164680 El presente libro, coordinado por Miguel García-Bustos y Olivia Rivero, reúne investigaciones actuales sobre el arte rupestre y mueble desde el Paleolítico hasta épocas posteriores de la Prehistoria, con especial atención al simbolismo y las dinámicas sociales de los grupos humanos de esta cronología. Dividido en tres partes —arte paleolítico, arte postpaleolítico y Metodología, Conservación y Difusión del Arte Prehistórico—, a lo largo de los trabajos que se incluyen en esta obra destaca el enfoque multidisciplinar combinando arqueología, química, estadística, análisis 3D, traceología y arqueología cognitiva, entre otras disciplinas, para profundizar en la comprensión de las prácticas gráficas y sus contextos sociales en la Prehistoria. El volumen presenta estudios sobre el uso de pigmentos, técnicas de aplicación, análisis experimentales y estadísticos, reinterpretaciones iconográficas y nuevas evidencias de yacimientos en la Península Ibérica y Europa occidental, así como reflexiones sobre la conservación, la virtualización y la difusión del arte rupestre. Como resultado del VIII Congreso Internacional “El Arte de las Sociedades Prehistóricas”, esta obra resalta la importancia de impulsar el relevo generacional en la investigación científica y reivindica el valor del arte como expresión fundamental de la humanidad desde sus orígenes. Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10366/164680 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z