The Solutrean Site of Ambrosio Cave (Almería, Spain)

• Published in: Journal of anthropological research Vol. 71; no. 4; pp. 509 - 522
• Main Authors: López, Sergio Ripoll, Muñoz Ibañez, Francisco J., Lerma, Ignacio Martín
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Chicago Press 01-12-2015
• Subjects: Ambrosio Cave; Last Glacial Maximum; Iberian Peninsula; Radiocarbon dates; Bow and arrow; Solutrean; Subsistence diversity
• ISSN: 0091-7710; 2153-3806
• DOI: 10.3998/jar.0521004.0071.403

Recent research in Ambrosio Cave, in the southeastern corner of the Iberian Peninsula, has permitted us to establish more precisely the chronostratigraphic position of major Solutrean occupations within the late Upper Pleistocene. The calibration of a new radiocarbon date for Level IV (Upper Solutrean) and six other new dates (5 of them by AMS) for level II (Final Upper Solutrean) allows us to place these two cultural phases between Greenland Stadial (GS) 3 (end of OIS 3) and the end of Greenland Interstadial (GI) 2, with the main occupation of Level II happening after Heinrich Event (H) 2, corresponding with the interstadial that came just before the Last Glacial Maximum (GS 2). The new dates clearly modify the previously reported chronology, making the whole Ambrosio record much older than once thought. In addition, the discovery of cave wall panels decorated with engravings and paintings, covered by Upper Solutrean sediments, allows us to place the art precisely within the Middle Solutrean (Level VI), which must be placed between GI 5 and GI 3. Excavation of “the microstratigraphy sector” within Level II (Final or Evolved Upper Solutrean) has yielded 21 coupled hearth lenses (one of them with a stone feature) and thousands of very typical Solutrean flint implements, including characteristic barbed-stemmed points, shouldered points, and leaf points. Our analyses suggest that some of them may have been arrowheads propelled with bows.