Seasonal variations of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition at El Castillo, Cueva Morin and El Pendo (Cantabria, Spain)

With debate escalating in regard to the prolonged contemporaneity of neande rtal and modern human groups in the Franco-Cantabrian region on the one han d, and the late persistence of neandertals (until ca. 28-30,000 B.P.) and M ousterian industries in southern Iberia on the other; sites with Mousterian -Upper Paleolithic sequences from northern Spain play a pivotal role in the ongoing investigation of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition in wester n Europe. An important line of inquiry into the nature of social and econom ic change from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic is the monitoring of shifts in land use and resource procurement patterns. The recognition of short-ter m, seasonal patterning in settlement and resource provisioning may provide insights into changes in mobility, territoriality, and social organization that might otherwise be missed. This paper presents results of a seasonalit y study of fauna from archaeological levels spanning the Middle-Upper Paleo lithic transition from the sites of El Castillo, El Pendo, and Cueva Morin in Cantabrian Spain. Data concerning season of death and age at death of pr ey animals presented here are derived from dental growth mark (increment, a nnuli) analysis. These data, along with other artifactual and faunal eviden ce suggest to us that: (1) economic strategies and technologies pervasive i n the Upper Paleolithic are rooted in the Cantabrian Middle Paleolithic; an d, (2) the apparent increase in deposits from the Middle through Upper Pale olithic may be the signature of a gradual increase in logistical economic s trategies including the heightened level of social organization required fo r their implementation. (C) 1999 Academic Press.