RT Journal Article
T1 Giant limpets in southern Iberian coastal and continental archaeological sites, from Neanderthals to Copper Age
A1 Cortés-Sánchez, Miguel
A1 Lozano-Francisco, María del Carmen
A1 Simón-Vallejo, M. Dolores
A1 Jiménez-Espejo, Francisco
A1 Odriozola, Carlos
A1 Macias Tejada, Sara
A1 Morales Muñiz, Arturo
K1 Patella (Moluscos) - Edad del cobre
K1 Paleontología estratigráfica
K1 Moluscos fósiles - Península Ibérica
AB The use of coastal resources has been crucial for human diet and social behaviour evolution has been extensively documented since the Middle Palaeolithic, mainly in the western Mediterranean and southern Africa. In southern Iberia, the mollusc assemblages associated with archaeological sites show a continuous record regardless of palaeoclimatic conditions. Among these, limpets are uninterruptedly abundant from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Bronze age with the giant limpets (Cymbula safiana and Patella ferruginea) being present since MIS6. To assess their distribution, predominance, and cultural significance this paper presents the results from an exhaustive archeozoological survey of the southern Iberian region. A total of 1628 specimens have been analysed, including 425 modern (333 C. safiana and 91 P. ferruginea) and 1203 from 60 archaeological deposits deriving from 36 sites, both coastal and continental. Giant limpets’ context also has been described and it has been related with a wide variety of deposits ranging from food refuse accumulations to occupations and burials. Detailed morphological and surface analysis allowed us to determine extraction methods and anthropic transformations. On coastal sites, the giant limpet record starts with Neanderthal populations from the Middle Palaeolithic and continues throughout the Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Copper Age. On inland sites, giant limpets appear first in reduced numbers during the Late Neolithic and have been often worked into elliptical contours with polished, rib-free, external shell surfaces. In this study, we focus on the Copper Age, when giant limpet use becomes common, and records include tholoi, dolmens and other funerary contexts. The data indicate that the use of P. ferruginea is associated with Los Millares and El Argar cultures. Giant limpets use declines during the Bronze Age probably due to the major cultural shift that occurred during the Chalcolithic to Bronze transition.
PB Elsevier
YR 2023
FD 2023-09-09
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10630/40106
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10630/40106
LA eng
NO Miguel Cortés-Sánchez, M. Carmen Lozano-Francisco, María D. Simón-Vallejo, Francisco Jiménez-Espejo, Carlos Odriozola Lloret, Sara Macías Tejada, Arturo Morales Muñiz. 2023. Giant limpets in southern Iberian coastal and continental archaeological sites, from Neanderthals to Copper Age. Quaternary Science Reviews, 371: 108238.
NO https://openpolicyfinder.jisc.ac.uk/id/publication/4700
NO Universidad de Sevilla
NO Ministerio de Economía y Conpetitividad
DS RIUMA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga
RD 20 ene 2026