Abstract
The use of bone as fuel has been already documented in some sites dated to the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. They contribute to a longer combustion time due to their durability; consequently, they are useful to reduce the need for firewood, a good advantage in open palaeoenvironmental contexts with limited arboreal vegetation. The use of bones as fuel can be identified by several lines of evidence. The main one is a large number of burned bones, with an intense cremation–charring or calcination, together with high fragmentation resulting from the long contact with the fire. Other features may be present, although they can also result from individual circumstances. They include either the presence of complete skeletal profiles–which implies using all the bones of the animal–or a selection of the anatomical parts which contribute better to combustion, i.e. epiphyses and axial elements. In this article, we argue that the faunal assemblage of level Co.B.6 of Coímbre cave fully corresponds to this model. Moreover, this level coincides with a cold palaeoclimatic event, which was correlative to the climatic deterioration that occurred at the end of MIS 3, and an open environment. Thus, we propose that this level contains the first known use of bones as fuel in the Cantabrian Gravettian.
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Acknowledgments
This research was part of Project “Paleoecología y Poblamiento en la Cuenca Media del Río Cares durante el Pleistoceno Superior: La Cueva de Coímbre (Alles, Peñamellera Alta)”, regulated by the Dirección de Patrimonio Cultural de la Consejería de Cultura of the Principado de Asturias and founded by the Research Group “Investigación de Alto Rendimiento de Prehistoria de la Universidad del País Vasco (IT-288-07)” and the project HAR2008-3976/HIST of the Ministerio de Educación for the 2008 season, “the Sociedad de Ciencias de Aranzadi” in 2009 and the M. Cristina Masaveu Peterson Foundation in the 2010–2012 fieldworks. We would like to thank the Ayuntamiento of Peñamellera Alta for their help in the archaeological works and also to the Speleological Group “l’Espertuyu Cavernícola” for their help in the different works and logistic organization. We appreciate the collaboration of M. de Andrés-Herrero, A. Calvo, J. Rojo, O. Fuente, M. A. Valles, N. García, R. Obeso, P. Obeso, D. Rueda and J. Santa Eugenia as well as, and the different students at the laboratory of the UNED and Universidad Complutense. We want to thank Aixa Vidal for the translation of the manuscript and Lucía Cobo for the end revision. This article was written in memory of our good friend Alberto Gómez Castanedo.
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Yravedra, J., Álvarez-Alonso, D., Estaca-Gómez, V. et al. New evidence of bones used as fuel in the Gravettian level at Coímbre cave, northern Iberian Peninsula. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 9, 1153–1168 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-016-0317-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-016-0317-0