Palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic proxies of the Gorham’s cave small mammal sequence, Gibraltar, southern Iberia

Abstract

Gorham’s cave is located in the British territory of Gibraltar in the southernmost end of the Iberian Peninsula. The cave was discovered in 1907 and first excavated in the 1950s by John Waechter of the Institute of Archaeology in London. New excavations, which started in 1997, have exposed 18 m of human occupation in the cave, spanning the Late Pleistocene, as well as including brief Phoenician, Carthaginian and Neolithic occupations. The Late Pleistocene levels consist of two Upper Palaeolithic occupations, attributed to the Solutrean and Magdalenian technocomplexes (Level III), and which are dated, by AMS radiocarbon, to between 18,000 and 10,000 years ago. The underlying Mousterian layer (Level IV), dated by AMS radiocarbon to between 23,000 and 33,000 years ago, is separated from Level III by an archaeologically sterile layer, which spans some 4000 years. This paper presents previously unpublished palaeoenvironmental and paleoclimatic reconstructions of Gorham’s cave, during these Pleistocene occupations, using the small mammal assemblage. The small mammal assemblage at Gorham’s cave comprises of at least 12 species: 4 insectivores ( Crocidura russula, Sorex gr. coronatus-araneus, Sorex minutus and Talpa occidentalis); 3 chiropters ( Myotis myotis, Myotis nattereri and Miniopterus schreibersii); and 5 rodents ( Microtus ( Iberomys) cabrerae, Microtus ( Terricola) duodecimcostatus, Arvicola sapidus, Apodemus sylvaticus and Eliomys quercinus). The presence of these small mammal species indicates that the landscape surrounding the Rock of Gibraltar was predominantly an open habitat, with the presence of woodland and water stream meadows, as well as the presence of larger bodies of water. These results are then compared with pollen and charcoal analysis as well as other faunal proxies, such as the herpetofauna, bird and large mammal assemblages, providing an accurate reconstruction of the climatic and environmental conditions that prevailed during the Late Pleistocene in the southernmost of the Iberian Peninsula.