Initial Magdalenian artifact assemblages in El Mirón cave (Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria, Spain): a preliminary report

El Mirón Cave, in the Cantabrian Cordillera near the border between Cantabria and Vizcaya, contains a long sequence of radiocarbon-dated Magdalenian and Azilian levels. Lying between a series of Solutrean levels and a major, multi-level horizon pertaining to the classic Cantabrian Lower Magdalenian –CLM–, are several layers dating between c. 17-16 uncal. kya –c. 20.5-19 cal. kya– and lacking traditional hallmarks of the CLM –e.g., scapulae with striation engraved images of hinds and other ungulates, square section antler points with complex geometric (‘tectiform’) engravings–. In these Initial Magdalenian –IM– levels, both microliths –mainly backed bladelets– and macroliths –sidescrapers, denticulates, notches– are well represented; the former are made on non-local, high-quality flint and the latter on local, non-flint materials –quartzite, mudstone, limestone–. Large, often round-section antler points –mostly undecorated– are present, together with bone needles and awls. In several respects, however, there is evidence of industrial continuity among the Solutrean, Initial –‘Archaic’– Magdalenian and Lower Magdalenian assemblages, with no hint of a Badegoulian component in the original French sense of the term –i.e., essentially there are no raclettes or transversal burins–. The presence of many “archaic” –‘substrate’, ‘Mousteroid’– tools is a constant in many Cantabrian Upper Paleolithic sites and El Mirón is no exception. This can be explained by site-functional and lithological factors, without recourse to the deus ex machina of extra-Iberian ‘cultures’