Neanderthals in Estremadura

Access to the Iberian peninsula is limited by mountains. One can come from Africa, across the Straits of Gibralter, as the Carthaginians did. Later, the Vandals moved down the countryside into Africa. Later still, Moslems moved north. After the reconquest, Moors and Jews moved back south to Tunis.

One can come by sea from the east, as the Phoenicians and Greeks did, or one can inch around the Pyrenees. Neanderthals living along the Mediterranean coast were related to those living in Italy and southern France. Those found from the Bay of Biscay to the Cantabrian mountains were related to those in northern Europe.

Bands reached the limestone mountain barriers on the west side of the Estremadura by 70,000 years ago during a general cold spell. The lower levels of the cave at Gruta da Oliveira on the Almonda branch of the Tagus have remains of burned small tortoises.

Tortoises were still being used 62,000 years ago, but most of the bones were from plant eating ungulates: rhinoceros, mountain goats, deer, and horses.

The climate was cold and damp. Charcoal remains came from Scots pine, a tree that can’t tolerate droughts. It eventually sought refuge near the Pyrenees.

Men had adapted. Only 50% of their tools were made from flint. The rest came from locally available quartzite and quartz.

About 55,000 years ago, the behavior of the glacier changed in the Estremadura. The climate alternated between periods of dry cold and moister warmth. During cold spells, arid steppe dominated the landscape. Dust flaked off barren uplands. Sediments covered decaying bones.

During warm times, Scots pine sometimes had time to emerge. Roots dug into the soil and erosion abated.

A few times the climate warmed enough for deciduous and evergreen oaks to return with hazel and copper beech. One time, birches appeared with aurochs. Another time, junipers and alders.

Animals and Neanderthals followed their food supply. They usually returned to Gruta da Oliveira in the warmer periods.

In the layers of the cave from 50,000 years ago, Mariana Nabais believed bones were burned for fuel because they didn’t produce smoke. Pines might not have returned. The land might still have been treeless.

In the time between 48,000 and 40,000 years ago, mountain goats were present along the Almonda. Some fragments of wood charcoal survived.

Nabais said the burned bones were again important in the occupation dated to 42,900 years ago. The climate might have warmed, but the landscape remained treeless. The most common species were rabbit and red deer. Hares and rabbits were another animal genus to survive the Pleistocene along the Portuguese coast and up the Tagus. The European rabbit would eventually emerge from there to repopulate the countryside.

Around 35,000 years ago, the climate began to warm. Forests and pigs appeared. Neanderthals ventured further into the Estremadura.

A work site has been found on a tributary of the Tagus that drew its waters from the limestone of the Gruta de Oliveira, rather than the granite of the east. Instead of ore bearing deposits, the soils around Foz do Enxarrique contain calcium carbonate that preserved bones.

Men were making tools on the gravel terrace using the quartzite and quartz. Most of the bones were red deer, but teeth of horses and aurochs have been found. Archaeologists also discovered a tooth left by a straight-tusked elephant, one of the last recorded appearances of Elephas antiquus in Europe.

The weather turned cold again around 32,700 years ago. Dry steppe dominated. The roof collapsed on the cave at Gruta da Oliveira. Mountain goats disappeared, but deer, wood mice and garden dormice remained. Species of salamanders, lizards, and frogs survived in the Estremadura.

Neanderthals moved farther south. Their last known remains, dated to 24,000 years ago, were found at Gibralter. Extreme cold arrived around 22,000 years ago and lasted nine thousand years.

Notes:
Badal, Ernestina, Valentín Villaverde, and João Zilhão. "The Fire of Iberian Neanderthals. Wood Charcoal from Three New Mousterian Sites in the Iberian Peninsula," International Meeting of Charcoal Analysis, Sagvntvm, 2011.

Cardoso, João Luís. "The Mousterian Complex in Portugal," Zephyrus 59:21-50:2006.

Gómez, Africa and David H. Lunt. "Refugia Within Refugia: Patterns of Phylogeographic Concordance in the Iberian Peninsula," in Steven Weiss and Nuno Ferrand, Phylogeography of Southern European Refugia, 2006.

Nabais, Mariana. "The Neanderthal Occupation of Gruta Da Oliveira (Almonda Karstic System, Torres Novas, Portugal)," Jóvenes En Investigación Arqueológica, Jornadas, 2009.

Notes on species: Only the genus or family could be determined for many of the animal and plant remains.

Animals Large
Auroch - Bos primigenius
Deer Red - Cervus elaphus
Elephant Straight Tusk - Elephas antiquus
Goat Mountain goat - Capra
Horse - Equus
Rhinoceros - Rhinocerotidae
Pig - Sus

Animals Small
Dormice Garden - Eliomys quercinus
Frog Iberian Painted - Discoglossus galganoi
Hares - Leporidae
Lizard Iberian Wall - Podarcis hispanica
Mice Wood - Apodemus sylvaticus
Rabbit European - Oryctolagus cuniculus
Salamander Fire - Salamandra salamandra
Tortoise Hermann’s - Testudo hermanni

Trees
Alder - Alnus
Beech Copper - Fagus sylvatica
Birch - Betula
Hazel - Corylus
Juniper - Juniperus
Oak - Quercus
Oak Evergreen - Quercus ilex
Pine Scots - Pinus sylvestris