The study of 170 samples of deer bones in the Cantabrian cave Miron allowed to answer questions about how the environment was and what climatic changes occurred at different times, as prehistoric times.
The results have been published in the November issue of the prestigious journal “Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (Palaeo 3)”. As noted by the University of Cantabria in a statement, the Cantabrian cave Miron is an “extraordinary” file for information about the past.
Cataloging and analyzing the numerous archaeological remains recovered season after season , prehistorians reconstruct more than 40,000 years of human occupation: from the last Neanderthals to the early Bronze Age, with special density in the Magdalenian, a contemporary of the great concerns of caves like Altamira and El Castillo
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The site not only provides data about our ancestors, but also information about its environment and landscape thanks to the remains of animals that the inhabitants of the cavity hunted and ate.
The work published now is the result of collaboration between the British researchers Rhiannon Stevens (University College London) and Xosé Hermoso-Buxán (University of Cambridge) and three prehistorians working in El Miron: Manuel González Morales and Ana Belén Marín Arroyo, the International Institute of Prehistoric Research in Cantabria (IIIPC) and Lawrence Straus, University of New Mexico (USA), member associated IIIPC and codirector of the excavations.
TRACES OF PLANTS
Deer depend for their livelihoods of local vegetation, food that leaves a mark in the bone tissue of these animals .
The scientists analyzed the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope bone, observing correlations between changes in carbon-13 and factors such as changes in temperature and water availability in the area.
The nitrogen cycle-15, meanwhile, is related to biological soil regeneration, which slows down in the cold moments and influences the development of vegetation.
The results of the study, first of its kind conducted in Spain from an archaeological site show accurately the changes in the landscape in the valley of Ason since late last glacial period until mid-Holocene.
Comparison of the data obtained in the Miron with other 300 deer in other regions of Europe allows to know the geographic variations in these changes, rhythm and magnitude, placing the Spaniard as a key site for the reconstruction of past climate change point in Western Europe.
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