Bird remains from the Middle Paleolithic levels (MIS3) of Llonin Cave (Peñamellera Alta, Asturias, Spain)

Elsa Duarte,Undefined Marco De La Rasilla,Alfred Sanchis,Carmen Núñez-Lahuerta,Víctor Sauqué

doi:10.5852/cr-palevol2021v20a30

Abstract

Birds are abundant in fossil assemblages of Quaternary sites; they can be used in landscape reconstruction as they are well adapted to the environment. Here we present the analysis of the avian assemblage from the Middle Paleolithic levels of the Llonin Cave, where 558 bird remains have been recovered from levels G-VI and CP-VIII, belonging to at least ten different taxa: Aves indet., Galliformes indet., Lagopus lagopus Linnaeus, 1758, Tetrastes bonasia Linnaeus, 1758, Columba livia/oenas Gmelin, 1789/Linnaeus, 1758, Passeriformes indet., Alaudidae indet., Motacilla sp., Turdus sp., Corvidae indet., Garrulus glandarius Linnaeus, 1758, Pyrrhocorax sp., Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax Linnaeus, 1758, Pyrrhocorax graculus Linnaeus, 1766 and Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758. This assemblage is similar to other assemblages from the Upper Pleistocene of the north of the Iberian Peninsula, and it reflects a mixed landscape, with open areas and woodland. The taphonomic analysis points to a mixed origin of the accumulation, mainly formed by medium-sized corvids dying in the cave, and also raptors accumulating their prey.

Highlights

The Marine Isotopic Stage 3 is a period within the Upper Pleistocene with strong climatic fluctuations, showing both warming (Dansgaard et al 1993) and cooling events (Heinrich 1988)
The differences in the number of remains recovered in G-VI and Cono Posterior (CP)-VIII could be due to the structure of the cave, as a similar scenario can be found in the macromammal remains, where a larger amount of remains were recovered in level CP-VIII, and with a lesser presence of anthropic modifications and more evidence of carnivores in level G-VI (Sanchis et al 2019)
The Cono Posterior area had a different entrance at a lower level, which is inaccessible nowadays, and could have been less exposed than the Galería sector, which is accessible from the current main entrance of the cave

Summary

Introduction

The Marine Isotopic Stage 3 (between 60 and 27 ka ago) is a period within the Upper Pleistocene with strong climatic fluctuations, showing both warming (Dansgaard et al 1993) and cooling events (Heinrich 1988) In this context, fossil birds play a key role in the palaeoecological and paleoenvi ronmental reconstruction, as they appear as direct remains in paleontological and archaeological sites, and could have participated as main actors in the accumulation of small vertebrates (Andrews 1990). In the case of the middle part of MIS3 in this area, the present data is diverse regarding the accumulating agents and the human exploitation thereof (Gómez-Olivencia et al 2018; Marín-Arroyo et al 2018) In this context, the Llonin Cave contains an archaeofaunal assemblage where Neandertals and carnivorans show interaction, so it is interesting to go further in depth into their interrelations with other faunal species such as birds, which are quite numerous in the assemblage. This study focusses on the two excavated sectors of the cave (Galería and Cono Posterior) where the Middle Palaeolithic is documented, both containing Mousterian lithic remains (Rasilla & Santamaría 2011-2012; Sanchis et al 2019; Rasilla et al 2020)

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