The Magdalenian settlement of the Cantabrian region (Northern Spain): The view from El Miron Cave

Abstract

The Magdalenian of Cantabrian Spain spans the period of Oldest Dryas and the Late Glacial Interstadial, with an Epimagdalenian extension, the Azilian, dating to Younger Dryas, for a full temporal range between ca. 17–9 ka (20–11 cal ka). It is currently divided into Initial (17–16 ka = 20.3–19.3 cal ka), Lower (16–14.5 ka = 19.3–18 cal ka), Middle (14.5–13.2 ka = 17.7–16.4 cal ka) and Upper (13.2–12 ka = 16.4–14 cal ka) phases, a possible Final Magdalenian/Transitional (12–11.5 ka = 14–13.4) period, and finally the Epimagdalenian Azilian per se dating to ca. 11.6–9 ka (13.4–10.2 cal ka). Although the Initial and Middle phases are still poorly known (and difficult to specify in the absence of diagnostic artifacts and/or precise radiocarbon dates), it is clear that the densities of Lower Magdalenian, Upper/Final Magdalenian and Azilian sites are the highest of any of the Paleolithic time periods in the geographically circumscribed Cantabrian region, a narrow strip of land between the Bay of Biscay and the Cantabrian Cordillera. Human populations may have been organized into small band territories corresponding to the short valleys in this region of extremely high relief, whose Late Glacial coastline (unlike that of neighboring Aquitaine) was only slightly further north its present position and whose chief game species (red deer and ibex–as opposed to reindeer, horse and saiga) were characterized by low mobility. The Magdalenian is known for a wealth of cave and portable art. In the Initial and Lower Magdalenian (as in the preceding Solutrean), Cantabrian societies seem to have been characterized by a high degree of “localism”, while in the Middle and Upper Magdalenian contacts with Pyrenean France and other parts of the expanding Magdalenian world increased significantly, as expressed in art styles and items of exchange. This region had been a major refugium for human groups during the Last Glacial Maximum/Solutrean period and the development of Magdalenian technologies and other cultural traditions seems to have been a largely in situ process in northern Atlantic Spain, which is adjacent to, but geographically and ecologically different from both SW France and Mediterranean Spain. However, increasingly, as environmental conditions ameliorated, there was an intensification of social contacts between Vasco–Cantabria and the rest of the ever-larger inhabited parts of Western Europe. El Mirón Cave, in the Cordillera on the border between the provinces of Cantabria and Vizcaya, has yielded one of the most complete and thoroughly dated sequences of Magdalenian (and Azilian) levels in the entire region. It is characterized by major, intensive, repetitive, long-term, multi-functional occupations (Initial, Lower and Middle Magdalenian)–with independently dated rock art and rich assemblages of lithic and osseous artifacts, portable art objects, personal adornments, terrestrial and anadromous faunal remains, structural features, and a highly ritualized secondary human burial. However, there were also short, ephemeral, limited-function, discontinuous occupations (Upper/Final Magdalenian, Azilian), as the role of the cave and the organization of human activities within the territory of the Asón River basin both changed during the closing millennia of the Pleistocene.