Reconstructing Mousterian landscapes in the southeastern Pyrenees (Roca dels Bous site, Pre-Pyrenees ranges, Spain)

Abstract

Landscape evolution studies enable us to understand site formation processes affecting past hunter-gatherer settlements. This work presents a landscape reconstruction of Roca dels Bous site (RB), which is a reference site for the Late Mousterian occupation of the incised valleys of the southeastern Pyrenees. For this purpose, we combined geomorphological studies, stratigraphic descriptions, new single-grain optically stimulated luminescence datasets, statistical methods, and geophysical surveys. RB formed by gravitational processes induced by fluvial undermining of the Segre River during changing late Pleistocene climatic conditions. Geomorphological and chronological data combined with fluvial age-incision models suggest that, during Late Mousterian occupation, RB was located very near the Segre floodplain level and closer to water and raw material natural resources than at present. The accumulation of gravitational deposits associated with the archaeological levels occurred at rates of 0.16–0.44 m ka-1, between 55 and 47 ka, coinciding with Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 3 (MIS3). More detailed comparison with available climatic curves suggests that the dated RB layers were potentially deposited during cold phases within MIS3. This work provides new landscape-based evidence to examine the paleoenvironmental context of Neanderthal presence in the southeastern Pre-Pyrenees, an important region in the debate regarding Neanderthal demise in Western Europe around 40 ka.

How Can We Understand the Past from Now On? Three-Dimensional Modelling and Landscape Reconstruction of the Shuanghuaishu Site in the Central Plains of China

“…Selecting pure water body image elements is key to the extraction of water bodies. (2) We evaluate the separability between samples. A separability value greater than 1.8 between all features indicates good separability between categories and allows for supervised classification.…”

“…There are several applications for restored site architecture paired with archaeological data and imagery [2][3][4]. The rise and fall of early settlements have important correlations with climate change and geographic locations [5][6][7].…”

El yacimiento musteriense de Roca San Miguel (Arén, Prepirineo de Huesca)

“…1). et al, 2015), bien del MIS 3, como los niveles recientes de Gabasa (Montes y Utrilla, 2014), o las ocupaciones de Cova Gran (Mora et al, 2018) y Roca dels Bous (Benito-Calvo et al, 2020).…”

“…Pese a lo prolongado de las ocupaciones (Montes, 1988;Martínez Moreno et al, 2004;Montes et al, 2006Montes et al, , 2016Utrilla et al, 2010;Mora et al, 2018) la información sobre el Paleolítico medio en la zona es poco uniforme. Solo unos pocos de estos sitios cuentan con estudios contextuales que permitan establecer relaciones paleogeográficas y paleoambientales: Estret de Tragó (Martínez Moreno et al, 2004), Cova Gran de Santa Linya (Mora et al, 2011(Mora et al, , 2018Polo Díaz et al, 2016), Olriols (Montes et al, 2016) y Roca dels Bous (Benito-Calvo et al, 2020).…”

Geomorphological analysis using small unmanned aerial vehicles and submeter GNSS (Gara Soultana butte, High Plateaus Basin, Eastern Morocco)

“…Nevertheless, few geomorphological studies are available to understand the landscape evolution and their implications in human occupation in the High Plateaus Basin. These studies are necessary to establish the relative chronology of artifacts according to their occurrence on landforms sequence (Despriée et al, 2011), to reconstruct the processes operating in landscape during site formation and to model palaeolandscapes occupied by humans (Benito-Calvo et al, 2017, 2020. In this work, we carried out the first large scale geomorphological analysis of the High Plateaus Basin focused on Gara Soultana hill and the El Haï valley (Za River tributary, Upper Moulouya catchment), where previous regional works mentioned pediments and conglomerates interpreted as fluvial terraces (Laouina, 1990;Muratet, 1991;Russo, 1927;Stretta, 1952;Wengler & Vernet, 1992).…”