Dietary traits of ungulates in northeastern Iberian Peninsula: Did these Neanderthal preys show adaptive behaviour to local habitats during the Middle Palaeolithic?

Examining Neanderthal and carnivore occupations of Teixoneres Cave (Moià, Barcelona, Spain) using archaeostratigraphic and intra-site spatial analysis

“…Studies of tooth microwear patterns for subunit III-a 31 , combined with an estimation of the seasonality through dental eruption of the ungulates, suggest repeated seasonal occupations of the site at all seasons 31 . However, for subunit III-b, tooth microwear, tooth eruption patterns, and cementochronology 31 , 75 indicate occupation patterns characterised by repeated short settlements occurring in different seasons (spring, summer and winter). These seasonality studies in Teixoneres reinforce the idea of a succession of short-term occupations at different times of the year.…”

Reassessing palaeoenvironmental conditions during the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in the Cantabrian region (Southwestern Europe)

“…The climatic reconstructions generated through this work reveal a progressive increase in aridity, and a temperature decrease from the Mousterian to Aurignacian, accompanied by a reduction of forest cover. Previous evidence from Iberia has suggested a preference of Neanderthal populations for inhabiting open forest and tree savannah environments, especially in the Mediterranean area during stadial periods, because this area might have offered favourable ecological conditions for hunting, gathering, shelter or fuel acquisition delaying their survival (Allu e et al, 2018;Fern andez-García et al, 2020;L opez-García et al, 2014;Ochando et al, 2021Ochando et al, , 2020S anchez-Hern andez et al, 2020). Thus, a progressive decline in woodland, as the preferred biome for Neanderthal groups, and a consequence decrease in the biomass of medium and mediumelarge herbivores, as the main elements of their subsistence, could have been crucial at the end of Mousterian for Neanderthals in the north to retreat to other areas of Iberia, where more stable biomes still were preserving biomass for secondary consumers (Vidal-Cordasco et al, 2022).…”

New insights in Neanderthal palaeoecology using stable oxygen isotopes preserved in small mammals as palaeoclimatic tracers in Teixoneres Cave (Moià, northeastern Iberia)

“…This pattern of cold and temperate faunal mixture is relatively common in other Iberian assemblages with the presence of this species, suggesting that cold-adapted taxa only reached the Peninsula occasionally and during the coldest episodes of the Pleistocene. Sporadic presence of cold-adapted fauna is also observed in level J (ca.44 ka BP) from Arbreda cave (Rufí et al 2018;Sánchez-Hernández et al 2020b) and is widely document into contemporaneous sites from the Cantabrian area (Álvarez-Lao et al 2015;Álvarez-Lao and Méndez 2016;Rodríguez-Almagro et al 2021). Colder and dryer pulsations were suggested for subunit IIIa from use-wear analysis on ungulate teeth, which reveals punctuated increase of grazer behaviour for cervids and equids (Sánchez-Hernández et al 2020a, b).…”

“…Environmental oscillations are buffered for these sites that are continuously visited by human groups and are not expected to alter logistic models of settlement and mobility of Neanderthal groups, based on short-seasonal movements. Moreover, from the comparison on feeding behaviours of ungulates (Cervus elaphus, Equus ferus, and Equus hydruntinus) from Teixoneres and Arbreda caves, Sánchez-Hernández et al (2020b) observed a maintenance of the same dietary behaviour of red deer and horses in both sites pointing to steady local environmental conditions over a long-term scale, independently of altitude. The dietary features observed for ungulates correlate well with the relative temperate and humidity conditions for the studied assemblage and from regional small-mammal trends already mentioned.…”