Barranc de la Boella (Catalonia, Spain): an Acheulean elephant butchering site from the European late Early Pleistocene

Abstract

Evidence of late Early Pleistocene elephant butchery activity has been excavated in the Pit 1 locality at Barranc de la Boella (Catalonia, Spain). The fossil assemblage mainly comprises the remains of one prime adult individual of Mammuthus meridionalis, together with 125 lithic artefacts, among which several refitting groups of chert have been identified. The lithic assemblage from the Pit 1 locality is composed of cobbles, cores, simple and retouched flakes, together with a large, well-fashioned pick of hard-wearing schist. Spatial, zooarchaeological, taphonomic, technical and use-wear analyses confirm that the occupation was devoted to butchery of the mammoth carcass. The activity zone is in a fluvio-deltaic area that incises the terrace Tþ60 of the lower Francolí river basin, 50 m a.s.l. Palaeomagnetic and cosmogenic analyses, as well as microfaunal (Mimomys savini, Victoriamys chalinei) and macrofaunal biostratigraphy (Mammuthus meridionalis), support the timing of the occupation to the late Matuyama chron. These various lines of evidence point to Barranc de la Boella being the oldest Early Acheulean butchering site in Europe. Ongoing excavations at several localities at Barranc de la Boella are yielding new data on the palaeoenvironmental, geochronological and technological framework of these occupations. Finally, the evidence is integrated into current understanding of the subsistence strategies practised by Early Pleistocene hominins.

Fossils from Quaternary fluvial archives: Sources of biostratigraphical, biogeographical and palaeoclimatic evidence

“…A notable recent discovery is the site of Barranc de la Boella (Catalonia, Spain), where vertebrate remains (including a butchered elephant) were recovered in association with stone tools from deposits of the Francolí river (Vallverdú et al, 2014). Dating of this site was based on palaeomagnetic and cosmogenic determinations, supported by biostratigraphical evidence derived from the vertebrate faunas, which included Mimomys savini and Mammuthus meridionalis, suggesting a late Early Pleistocene age (Mosquera et al, 2015). In central Spain, faunal assemblages have been recovered from the sites of Pinedo and Cien Fanegas near Toledo, in the +25-30 m terrace of the River Tajo (Tagus), which have also yielded Acheulian archaeology.…”

New chronological data (ESR and ESR/U‐series) for the earliest Acheulian sites of north‐western Europe

“…Recent discoveries in Spain, France and England have, however, enriched our vision of human colonization in both the southern and the northern parts of the continent and attest to the onset of this technology before 500 ka, for example at Notarchirico (600 ka) in Italy (Piperno, ; Lefèvre et al ., ; Pereira et al ., ), Arago (older than 550 ka, levels P and Q) in the south of France and la Noira (700 ka, lower unit, stratum a) in central France (Barsky and Lumley, ; Barsky, ; Moncel et al ., ; Falguères et al ., in press). Moreover, the recent discovery of the site of la Boella in Spain with bifacial tools dated to 1 Ma to 900 ka (Mosquera et al ., ) has shed new light on the starting‐point of European bifacial technology. This site, and its associated artefacts, have raised questions as to the origin of this technology (local or introduced) and have reduced the chronological gap for the appearance of this technology between Africa and Europe (Vallverdú et al ., ).…”

Editorial: Chronology, palaeoenvironments and subsistence in the Acheulean of western Europe

“…The paper by Mosquera et al . (), however, presents evidence for the oldest elephant butchery site in Europe, from Barranc de la Boella in north‐east Spain. Here, a lithic assemblage including several hammerstones, multiple flakes (some refitting) and cores, and a large cutting tool (a pick) has been recovered from a palaeo‐landsurface, around the disarticulated carcass of a sub‐adult mammoth, Mammuthus meridionalis .…”

“…Twenty years ago, the appearance of handaxes on the European continent was widely viewed as delayed until the Middle Pleistocene (the ‘short chronology’ of Roebroeks and van Kolfschoten, ), with a series of stringent criteria to be met by sites put forward for early occupation; even then, the Acheulean was widely thought to be restricted to western and southern Europe. Many sites ‘failed’ these criteria on various grounds but in recent years there has been a resurgence in claims for pre‐Middle Pleistocene Acheulean occupation at Solana del Zamborino and at Estrecho del Quípar, in Spain, at ∼900 ka (Scott and Gibert, ; see, however, Jiménez‐Arenas et al ., , and Bridgland and White, ), at Barranc de la Boella, also in Spain, around 1 Ma (Vallverdú et al ., ; Mosquera et al ., ) and >700 ka at La Noira, central France (Despriée et al ., , ; Moncel et al ., ). Although controversial in some cases, if the dates of these oldest sites can be verified, then handaxe making in southern Europe might not be so very much later than in areas further to the south.…”