Changes in pollen and small mammal spectrum compositions and in human-landscape relationships during the last 40,000 years of the Pleistocene in El Mirón Cave, Cantabrian Spain

Abstract

The important albeit discontinuous pollen and more complete small mammal microrecords from the long, Late Upper Pleistocene stratigraphic deposit in El Mirón Cave (Cantabria, Spain, >47,000–12,000 cal BP) are presented and compared in detail. They describe a sequence of environmental conditions varying from cold and relatively dry to somewhat more temperate and more humid throughout the course of late MIS 3 and MIS 2, and into the early Holocene conditions of MIS 1, with variable intensity and function of human occupation of the cave during late Mousterian, Gravettian, Solutrean, Magdalenian and Azilian cultural periods. In general, the discontinuous palynological record is concordant with the more continuous small mammal sequence in tracing the changes in local climate and landscape within the broader context of the high relief and coastal setting of the Cantabrian region of northern Atlantic Iberia. Shifts in the extent and composition of open versus wooded vegetation in the montane and low valley surroundings of the cave are documented by the analyses detailed here. Some of the environmental fluctuations, namely the Last Glacial Maximum, the Late Glacial and the at the beginning of the Holocene, seem to have had significant effects on the nature of human uses of this cave with short, ephemeral, special/limited-function visits, while Oldest Dryas, despite its still-rigorous conditions but abundant pasture for game species (red deer and ibex), did not prevent the cave from being used as a major, repetitive, long-term base camp for foraging bands, notably during the Cantabrian Lower Magdalenian.