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The Early Exploitation of Cetacean in Western Europe during the Late Upper Palaeolithic

Projektbeschreibung

Die Rolle des Wals bei der Entwicklung der Küstenwirtschaften im Europa der Eiszeit

Mehr und mehr Belege deuten darauf hin, dass sich die frühe Küstenwirtschaft während der Magdalénien-Kultur in Europa vor 18 000 bis 15 000 Jahren durch Walfang entwickelte. Artefakte aus Walknochen in der nordspanischen Region Kantabrien bestätigen das Auftreten von routinemäßigen und organisierten Kommunikationsnetzen. Es ist jedoch unklar, ob dies nur auf lokaler Ebene oder europaweit geschah. Das im Rahmen der Marie-Skłodowska-Curie-Maßnahmen finanzierte Projekt WHALEBONE konzentriert sich auf die Küsten Spaniens und will dieser Frage durch die Identifizierung von Objekten aus Walknochen über die Region Pyrenäen-Kantabrien hinaus nachgehen. Hierzu wird es eine Analysetechnik für Proteine und ein minimalinvasives Programm zur Datierung von Knochenobjekten aus Walen einsetzen.

Ziel

The Whalebone project builds upon new advances in the study of past human adaptations to coastal environments, focusing on a key case study: early interactions between Late Upper Palaeolithic foragers and cetaceans at the end of the Last Glaciation in Western Europe. Over the last decade, a growing body of evidence suggests that the exploitation of whales could have been one of the significant factors underlying the development of early coastal economies during the Magdalenian culture, between 18,000 to 15,000 years ago. The recent identification of 54 whale bone artefacts in the Cantabrian region (northern Spain) during the previous postdoctoral research of the PR, to which can be added the 109 previously known Pyrenean examples, revealed the existence of regular and structured communication networks for the long-distance circulation of these marine resources. However, these studies focused only on the Bay of Biscay and it is still unclear whether this phenomenon was a strictly local adaptation or was part of a wider, shared coastal economy connecting different parts of Europe. To test this hypothesis, Whalebone proposes to identify cetacean bone objects outside the Pyreneo-Cantabrian region, focusing on the Spanish coasts. As many Magdalenian sites are close to the paleo-shorelines that yielded rich osseous industries, the Mediterranean coast is a particularly crucial area of investigation. Direct (dolphin bones) and indirect (whale barnacles) evidence for the exploitation of cetaceans in its southern part confirms the early interest and management of marine mammals. A multi-proxy approach beyond traditional zooarchaeology, including the first use of an innovative ancient proteomic technology (ZooMS), together with a minimally invasive dating program of cetacean bone objects, will be undertaken by Whalebone in order to address long-standing questions about long-term forager mobility patterns, regional interactions and coastal adaptations on a European scale.

Koordinator

UNIVERSIDAD DE CANTABRIA
Netto-EU-Beitrag
€ 181 152,96
Adresse
AVENIDA DE LOS CASTROS S/N
39005 Santander
Spanien

Auf der Karte ansehen

Region
Noroeste Cantabria Cantabria
Aktivitätstyp
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Gesamtkosten
Keine Daten

Partner (1)