Hitherto unpublished C-14 and Th-230-U-234 determinations from Carihuela Cave (Granada province, Andalusia, Spain) raise a possibility of late survival here of Neanderthals and their Mousterian technocomplex into an advanced stage of the Late Pleistocene (MIS-3), when anatomically-modern humans with Upper Palaeolithic toolkits were penetrating the region, and when also several carnivore taxa competed for access to the cave. Previous palaeopalynological studies are reinforced by new pollen analyses of samples extracted from coprolites. The palaeoecological and sedimentological records bear comparison with new data from the Padul peat deposits in the Sierra Nevada, and are in line with the view that there was late persistence of the Mousterian in Granada. There is a pressing need for renewed international multidisciplinary research at Carihuela Cave, with up-to-date lithostratigraphical and dating techniques that can expand on results obtained from fieldwork undertaken by a previous generation of researchers. Carihuela Cave continues to hold out great promise for analysing Neanderthal palaeoecology during the Late Pleistocene up to the appearance in southeastern Iberian Peninsula of anatomically-modern Upper Palaeolithic people, particularly with regard to the earlier phases of the Middle Palaeolithic at the cave which await intensive excavation but apparently extend back in time to the last interglacial period. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1.Univ Murcia, Fac Biol, E-30100 Murcia, Spain 2.Univ Granada, Fac Filosofia & Letras, Dept Prehist & Arqueol, Campus Univ Cartuja,CP 18011, E-18071 Granada, Spain 3.Univ Granada, Inst Univ La Paz & Conflictos, C Rector Lopez Argueta S-N, E-18071 Granada, Spain 4.Univ Zurich, Dept Anthropol, Winterthurerstr 190, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland 5.Polytech Univ Cartagena, Dept Agr Sci & Technol, Cartagena 30203, Spain 6.Univ Murcia, Dept Prehist Archaeol Ancient Hist Medieval Hist, E-30071 Murcia, Spain 7.Museo Arqueol Granada, Carrera Darro 41-43, Granada 18010, Spain 8.Swiss Fed Inst Technol, Lab Ion Beam Phys, Otto Stern Weg 5, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland
Recommended Citation:
Carrion, J. S.,Fernandez, S.,Jimenez-Arenas, J. M.,et al. The sequence at Carihuela Cave and its potential for research into Neanderthal ecology and the Mousterian in southern Spain[J]. QUATERNARY SCIENCE REVIEWS,2019-01-01,217:194-216