Environmental, depositional and cultural changes in the upper Pleistocene and early Holocene; the Cinglera del Capello Sequence (Capellades, Spain)

Quaternaire
By: , and 

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Abstract

The correlation between environmental and cultural changes is one of the primary archeological and paleoanthropological research topics. Analysis of ice and marine cores has yielded a high-resolution record of millennial-scale changes during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene eras. However, cultural changes are documented in low-resolution continental deposits; thus, their correlation with the millennial-scale climatic sequence is often difficult. In this paper, we present a rare occurrence in which a thick archeological sequence is associated with a high-resolution environmental record. The Cinglera del Capello is a tufa-draped cliff located in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula, 50 km west of Barcelona. This cliff harbors several rock-shelters with Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene deposits. Together, the deposits of four rock-shelters span from 7000 to 70,000 years ago and provide a high-resolution record of the environmental and human dynamics during this timespan. This record allows the correlation of the cultural and environmental changes. The multiproxy approach to the Cinglera evidence indicates that the main cultural stages of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene (Middle Paleolithic, Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic) are associated with significant changes in the environmental and depositional contexts.

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Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Environmental, depositional and cultural changes in the upper Pleistocene and early Holocene; the Cinglera del Capello Sequence (Capellades, Spain)
Series title Quaternaire
DOI 10.4000/quaternaire.6481
Volume 24
Issue 1
Year Published 2013
Language English
Publisher French Quaternary Association
Contributing office(s) Volcano Science Center
Description 16 p.
First page 49
Last page 64
Country Spain
City Barcelona
Other Geospatial Capellades
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