Multidisciplinary evidence of an isolated Neanderthal occupation in Abric del Pastor (Alcoi, Iberian Peninsula)

Testing Neanderthal behavioural hypotheses requires a spatial–temporal resolution to the level of a human single occupation episode. Yet, most of the behavioural data on Neanderthals has been obtained from coarsely dated, time-averaged contexts affected by the archaeological palimpsest effect and a diversity of postdepositional processes. This implies that time-resolved Neanderthal behaviour remains largely unknown. In this study, we performed archaeostratigraphic analysis on stratigraphic units ive, ivf, ivg, va, vb and vc from Abric del Pastor (Alcoi, Iberian Peninsula). Further, we isolated the archaeological remains associated with the resulting archaeostratigraphic unit and applied raw material, technological, use-wear, archaeozoological and spatial analyses. Our results show a low-density accumulation of remains from flintknapping, flint tool-use and animal processing around a hearth. These data provide a time-resolved human dimension to previous high-resolution environmental and pyrotechnological data on the same hearth, representing the first comprehensive characterisation of a Neanderthal single occupation episode. Our integrated, multidisciplinary method also contributes to advance our understanding of archaeological record formation processes.This paper has been developed during the research project Clima e interacciones humanas en el Mediterráneo central ibérico durante el MIS 4 (IBEMIS4) funded by the Spanish Government (PID2019-107113RB-I00). This paper is part of SSR’s PhD thesis and all authors agree. Several authors developed their work within different research groups/projects/contrats: SSR by the Generalitat Valenciana through a predoctoral research-staff contracting Grant (ACIF/2021/407); AM by Universitat d’Alacant through a university faculty formation Grant (UAFPU2018-049); MB by the Spanish central government through a university faculty formation Grant (FPU17/02885); LP is beneficiary on postdoctoral research Grant (APOSTD/2020/202) funded by the Generalitat Valenciana and European Social Fund. CMH, BG and CM are part of the research group SCRP (Sociedades cazadoras recolectoras paleolíticas), MB and LP are part of the research group PREMEDOC (GIUV2015-213), CM is part of the research group MBA (Micromorfología y Biomarcadores arqueológicos), and MV is a part of the ‘Neanderthal behaviour and paleoecology in Mediterranean ecosystems’ project (PID2019-103987GB-C31)