Linked by the fire: A Middle Palaeolithic hearth-related assemblage from Abric del Pastor Unit IVf (Alcoi, Spain)
Santiago Sossa-Ríos  1, 2, *@  , Alejandro Mayor  3, 4@  , Cristo M. Hernández  4, 5@  , Carolina Mallol  6, 7@  , Bertila Galván  4, 7@  , Manuel Vaquero  1, 2@  
1 : Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Departament d'Història i Història de l'Art, Avinguda de Catalunya 35, 43002 Tarragona, Spain
2 : Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES-CERCA), Zona Educacional 4, Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3), 43007 Tarragona, Spain
3 : Àrea de Prehistòria; Departament de Prehistòria, Arqueologia, Història Antiga, Filologia Llatina i Filologia Grega; Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres, Universitat d'Alacant – Sant Vicent del Raspeig Campus, 03080 – Sant Vicent del Raspeig, Alacant, Spain
4 : Grupo de Investigación Sociedades Cazadoras-Recolectoras Paleolíticas; Departamento de Geografía e Historia; Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad de Laguna – Guajara Campus, 38071 – San Cristóbal de la Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
5 : Área de Didáctica de las Ciencias Sociales; Departamento de Didácticas Específicas; Facultad de Educación, Universidad de La Laguna – Edificio Central Campus, 38200 – San Cristóbal de la Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
6 : Archaeological Micromorphology and Biomarker Research Lab; Instituto Universitario de Bio-Orgánica Antonio González, Universidad de La Laguna – Anchieta Campus, 38200 – San Cristóbal de la Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
7 : Área de Prehistoria; Departamento de Geografía e Historia; Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad de Laguna – Guajara Campus, 38071 – San Cristóbal de la Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
* : Corresponding author

Testing behavioural features of Neanderthal groups requires a high-resolution spatial and temporal approach that helps us get closer to an ethnographic scale and this is hampered by the archaeological palimpsest effect. In this sense, archaeostratigraphic and spatial analyses of the macroscopic archaeological record (i.e. lithic, faunal and combustion remains) has shown to be a useful tool for defining new analytical frameworks that help us to approach the human timescale. A series of Neanderthal short-term occupations have previously been identified at the Abric del Pastor Middle Palaeolithic site (Alcoi, Spain) based on high-resolution archaeostratigraphic data from Units IVa, IVb, IVc and IVd (Machado et al. 2013; 2019; Mallol et al. 2019). Here, we performed archaeostratigraphic, lithic raw material and technological analyses on an in situ archaeological combustion area from Unit IVf. Preliminary results show a discrete low-density accumulation of materials around a hearth as a potential human occupation episode. Thus, this is an opportunity to understand the formation processes of archaeological assemblages in a high-resolution way, allowing us to identify behavioural strategies that could go unnoticed in the study of dense palimpsests. These results will be compared to other MIS 4 primary human occupation contexts to explore variability in settlement patterns within this period.


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