Variability in the use of caves and rockshelters among ethnographic hunter-gatherers and its archaeological implications

Abstract

The archaeological research carried out in caves and rockshelters provided fundamental information for our understanding of the past, especially for the periods and regions dominated by groups with a hunter-gatherer economy. In spite of its clear importance, information on the use of caves and rockshelters by anatomically modern humans has encountered the persistent problem of the representativeness of the occupations in this naturally confined locations. In this research, a cross-cultural survey of ethnographic foragers was carried out in order to understand in depth the relationship between the use of caves/rockshelters and the organization of human groups. The interrelationships between the use of these places and the environment, mobility, technology, subsistence and land use are here analyzed and compared. Ethnographic records show a great variety of uses for these kind of sites, much more than what is usually considered in literature. Likewise, it is concluded that residential use, frequently cited, only occurs at low latitudes. At high latitudes, the combination of resource distribution, mobility strategies and the existence of means of transport make residential occupation unlikely. The information obtained suggest the existence of differences in the representativeness of the archaeological record of caves in relation to the surrounding archaeological landscapes.