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Upper Palaeolithic archaeological sites in the Basque Country have been excavated for over a century. They have yielded a rich palaeoenvironmental record with zoological and botanical remains that have been obtained in stratigraphic series dated precisely by radiocarbon. This information reveals cyclical environmental changes from climates similar to today to drier and extremely cold conditions, when species in current boreal biomes and others now extinct but with similar ecological preferences were present in the region. Moreover, the archaeological sites have provided high-resolution information about the resilience mechanisms of the communities of our own human species. This information allows us to increase the corpus of palaeoclimate data regarding the Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 2 and MIS 3 for a critical region within the human population of Eurasia. The aim of this paper is to show how an extraordinary capacity for adaptation to drastic climate changes Upper Palaeolithic hunter–gatherer societies displayed, even though their subsistence depended on biotic resources that alter rapidly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Schöningen 13II-4 ‘Spear Horizon’ site is famous for the excellent preservation of 300,000-year-old Palaeolithic hunting weapons, including nine wooden spears and a lance, deposited on the shores of a former interglacial lake in association with a large assemblage of well-preserved and butchered animal bones, mainly from horse. Some bones show distinct areas of dark staining, thought to be derived from contact with decaying plant remains along the shores of the lake. It was decided to test this theory and try to determine experimentally where bone staining was most likely to occur on the littoral zone. Modern horse and cow bones were fastened along parallel transects at two locations and the installations were left for several months. Black stains appeared on some bones in the shallows, but not on bones deposited on permanently dry land or in deeper water. Within the 10 m wide band of bones in the main concentration at the Schöningen site, there is a high incidence of bone staining, indicating accumulation of finds along a shallow lake margin. By using GIS, additional clusters of stained bones in the eastern part of the site were revealed and may indicate shorelines when water levels in the lake were lower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called bone retouchers have been the subjects of numerous studies examining them from different points of view and in various chronological and geographic contexts. However, the study of these tools has rarely been carried out in conjunction with data from lithic typology and technology studies and archaeozoological research, to understand the context in which retouchers were made and used. In this paper, we examined the technological and functional aspects of the retouchers recovered in the Proto-Aurignacian and the Early Aurignacian levels of Labeko Koba. Our study shows that the retouchers of these two techno-complexes of Labeko share several features but also some differences. The exploitation of bones in the Early Upper Palaeolithic EUP levels at Labeko Koba, represented mainly by the retouchers, cannot be regarded as complex. This behaviour is part of a technical tradition that has its roots in the Middle Palaeolithic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper, we present two sites with evidences of ephemeral occupations dating to the Chatelperronian: Labeko Koba IX and Ekain X. In both levels carnivore presence is abundant. For this reason the interactions between humans, carnivores and herbivores are investigated from a taphonomic point of view in order to clarify the origin of faunal accumulation. Lithic industry is also analyzed from different perspectives: raw material acquisition, fabrication system, typology and use. These data have been used to characterize lithic provisioning strategies and to precise the range of activities performed in the site. The combination of thaponomic and industrial data suggest that both sites served as hunting camps. Starting from this interpretation we can assess the territory management strategies practiced during the Chatelperronian and the implication of this in the understanding of the Middle to Upper Paleolithic Transition and the replacement of Neanderthal populations in eastern Cantabrian region and Sud-Ouest of France. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]