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Recent research in northern Spain has revealed the disappearance of Neanderthal populations in the Vasco Cantabrian region a few millennia earlier than in eastern and southern Iberia and discovered a short period of overlap with modern humans, at least, in terms of radiocarbon dates. However, the causes of Neanderthal decline understood as a regional and temporal process remain open. Despite the abundance of technological studies, modern?quality chronological dating, and the availability of archaeofaunal and palaeoenvironmental data, there is a lack of consensus about how climatic and environmental conditions could have affected ungulate prey and, therefore, Neanderthal subsistence strategies. In this paper, an analytical summary of the archaeofaunal and taphonomic data available for the Vasco?Cantabrian region, combined with the most recent chronological evidence, present general knowledge about animal biogeography and ecology during the Middle?Upper Palaeolithic transition, and provides an interpretation of the behaviour of both human species in the region. This work reviews the palaeomammal community of animals represented in the record as exploited by human groups in several caves and rock shelters and pointing to continuing lacunae in knowledge. Further research is needed to verify and potentially explain the apparent hominin population gap and the ultimate fate of the Neanderthals ; This research is funded by the European Research Council under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant agreement No. 818299‐ SUBSILIENCE project (https://www.subsilience.eu) and the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (ABRUPT ‐ HAR2017‐84997‐P) to ABMA. ASR's PhD is supported within the SUBSILIENCE project. The authors would like to thank J. García Sanchez (Instituto de Arqueología‐ Merida, CSIC‐Junta de Extramadura) for technical assistance with catchment areas analysis and Figs. 1, 5 and 6. Special thanks to L. Agudo (EvoAdapta‐University of Cantabria) for her technical assistance and G. Terlato for comments on the final version of the manuscript. The authors wish to acknowledge L. Straus for editing the manuscript and for his suggestions to improve this manuscript, as kind and effective as always.

A large number of sites dated to the Late Middle Paleolithic and the Early Upper Paleolithic have been recorded in the Cantabrian region (northern Iberia), making this area a key location to investigate the lifeways of the last Neanderthals and the first anatomically modern humans. The stratigraphic sequence from El Cuco rock-shelter was originally attributed to the Early Upper Paleolithic based on radiocarbon dates measured on bone apatite. However, new radiocarbon dates on shell carbonates from the lower levels produced inconsistent dates with those previously published. In order to clarify this anomaly, a reassessment of the chronology of levels VI to XIV was undertaken. The review was based on new radiocarbon dates performed on bones and shells, and a re-evaluation of the lithic assemblages. Bone samples did not produce radiocarbon dates due to a lack of collagen preservation but radiocarbon dating of shell carbonates provided dates ranging from 42.3 to 46.4 ka BP. These dates are significantly older than that previously obtained for level XIII using biogenic apatite from bones (?30 ka uncal BP), suggesting that the bone apatite used for radiocarbon dating was rejuvenated due to contamination with secondary carbonate. Lithic assemblages, defined in the first place as Evolved Aurignacian, have now been confidently attributed to the Mousterian techno-complex. These results suggest a Middle Paleolithic chronology for this part of the sequence. The new chronology proposed for El Cuco rock-shelter has significant implications for the interpretation of Neanderthal subsistence strategies and settlement patterns, especially for coastal settlement and use of marine resources, not only in northern Iberia, but also in Atlantic Europe. ; Radiocarbon dates OxA-27196 and OxA-27730 were funded by the NERC Radiocarbon Facility (NF/2012/1/18) and they were part of the project NF100413 (Newton International Fellowship to IGZ). Radiocarbon dates OxA-30851, P-32155 (ORAU) and UGAMS-9076 were part of the project HAR2013-46802-P funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Two other samples that failed to be dated at the ORAU (P-35524 and P-35523) as well as the date Beta – 382682 and elemental analysis were obtained in the project HAR2010-22013, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. Isotopic analysis was performed as part of the projects HAR2012-33956 funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and EUROREFUGIA (Ref. 322112) funded by the European Union through FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG (https://eurorefugia.wordpress.com/), with additional support from the Max Planck Society. IGZ and ABMA were funded by the Juan de la Cierva (JCI-2012-12094) and the Ramón y Cajal (RYC-2011-00695) Research Programmes of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, respectively

Abstract: Methodological advances in dating the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition provide a better understanding of the replacement of local Neanderthal populations by Anatomically Modern Humans. Today we know that this replacement was not a single, pan-European event, but rather it took place at different times in different regions. Thus, local conditions could have played a role. Iberia represents a significant macro-region to study this process. Northern Atlantic Spain contains evidence of both Mousterian and Early Upper Paleolithic occupations, although most of them are not properly dated, thus hindering the chances of an adequate interpretation. Here we present 46 new radiocarbon dates conducted using ultrafiltration pre-treatment method of anthropogenically manipulated bones from 13 sites in the Cantabrian region containing Mousterian, Aurignacian and Gravettian levels, of which 30 are considered relevant. These dates, alongside previously reported ones, were integrated into a Bayesian age model to reconstruct an absolute timescale for the transitional period. According to it, the Mousterian disappeared in the region by 47.9?45.1ka cal BP, while the Châtelperronian lasted between 42.6k and 41.5ka cal BP. The Mousterian and Châtelperronian did not overlap, indicating that the latter might be either intrusive or an offshoot of the Mousterian. The new chronology also suggests that the Aurignacian appears between 43.3?40.5ka cal BP overlapping with the Châtelperronian, and ended around 34.6?33.1ka cal BP, after the Gravettian had already been established in the region. This evidence indicates that Neanderthals and AMH co-existed <1,000 years, with the caveat that no diagnostic human remains have been found with the latest Mousterian, Châtelperronian or earliest Aurignacian in Cantabrian Spain. ; This research has been supported by the European Commission through FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG (Ref: 322112), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (HAR2012-33956 and RYC-2011-00695), Cantabria Campus International and University of Cantabria to ABMA. The Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Cantabria is sponsored by the University of Cantabria, the Government of Cantabria and Banco Santander.

The cooling and drying associated with the so-called '8.2 ka event' have long been hypothesized as having sweeping implications for human societies in the Early Holocene, including some of the last Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Atlantic Europe. Nevertheless, detailed 'on-site' records with which the impacts of broader climate changes on human-relevant environments can be explored have been lacking. Here, we reconstruct sea surface temperatures (SST) from ?18O values measured on subfossil topshells Phorcus lineatus exploited by the Mesolithic human groups that lived at El Mazo cave (N Spain) between 9 and 7.4 ka. Bayesian modelling of 65 radiocarbon dates, in combination with this ?18O data, provide a high-resolution seasonal record of SST, revealing that colder SST during the 8.2 ka event led to changes in the availability of different shellfish species. Intensification in the exploitation of molluscs by humans indicates demographic growth in these Atlantic coastal settings which acted as refugia during this cold event. ; This research was performed as part of the projects HAR2016-75605-R and HAR2017-86262-P, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, MINECO. During the development of this research AGE was funded by the University of Cantabria through a predoctoral grant (no code available), by the Basque Country Postdoctoral Programme (Grant number POS_2020_2_0032), by the University of La Rioja through a posdoctoral grant (no code available) and he is currently supported by the Catalonia Postdoctoral Programme through a Beatriu de Pinos fellowship (grant number 2020 BP 00240). ABMA was funded by the SUBSILIENCE ERC-CoG project (Grant agreement No. 818299). This study has also been supported by the Prehistoric Research Consolidated Group of the Basque Country University (IT1223-19), funded by the Basque Country Government. We thank the Max Planck Institute for Science of Human History (MPI-SHH), University of Cantabria (UC), Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistoricas de ...

The cave of Hornos de la Peña contained one of the most relevant stratigraphic sequences for the study of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic in the Cantabrian Region, northern Iberia, as well as an important group of Paleolithic rock art. The site was discovered in 1903 and excavated during 1909-1910. Those excavations did not take place in the main hall of the cave because it was already emptied for modern phosphate extraction. At that time, in the preserved deposits, the archeological excavations revealed an interesting sequence with Mousterian, Early Upper Paleolithic, Solutrean and Magdalenian cultural remains. Since then, the site has received little attention owing to the difficulties of interpreting the sequence and the biased nature of the preserved collections. In 2016 and 2017 a limited area of the preserved section was excavated to document its archeological sequence, obtain samples for dating and achieve some insights about the cultural attribution of the identified units and their correlation with Obermaier's sequence. The results show that there is a coarse correlation between both sequences. More interestingly, this work has revealed the good preservation and interest of the Mousterian occupation, the presence of Early Upper Paleolithic, the indefinite nature of the Solutrean and the existence of a Middle Magdalenian occupation. These results provide new insights about the human presence at the site and allow to incorporate it into the new debates about the Middle and Upper Paleolithic in the Cantabrian Region. ; The authors wish to thank the Consejeria de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte of the Cantabria Government for funding the multidisciplinary study project "Estudio del arte parietal paleolitico de la Cueva de Hornos de la Pena" directed by Dr. Olivia Rivero. The present study has been carried out within the framework of this project. The results presented here have been partially funded by the research projects of the Spanish Science Ministry HAR2017-87739-P and HAR2017-84997-P led by Olivia ...

The article presents evidence about the Middle Palaeolithic and Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition interval in the karst area of the Danube Gorges in the Lower Danube Basin. We review the extant data and present new evidence from two recently investigated sites found on the Serbian side of the Danube River - Tabula Traiana and Dubocka-Kozja caves. The two sites have yielded layers dating to both the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic and have been investigated by the application of modern standards of excavation and recovery along with a suite of state of the art analytical procedures. The presentation focuses on micromorphological analyses of the caves' sediments, characterisation of cryptotephra, a suite of new radiometric dates (accelerator mass spectrometry and optically stimulated luminescence) as well as proteomics (zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry) and stable isotope data in discerning patterns of human occupation of these locales over the long term ; Research at TT and DK was supported by the High Risk Research in Archaeology grant of the National Science Foundation (BCS‐0442096) in 2004, British Academy Small Grant 40967 in 2005, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge grants in 2005, 2008 and 2009, Cardiff University in 2013 and 2017, the NOMIS Foundation in 2019–2020 (all to DB), and the European Research Council Starting Grant Project HIDDEN FOODS grant agreement no. 639286 (to EC) in 2017. Research on cryptotephra and several AMS radiocarbon dates were funded through the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) consortium 'RESponse of Humans to Abrupt Environmental Transitions' (RESET, NE/E015670/1 and NE/E015913/1). Stable isotope analyses were supported by the European Research Council Starting Grant Project SUBSILIENCE grant agreement no. 818299 (to AMB). CAIF thanks Tonko Rajkovača, McBurney Geoarchaelogy Laboratory, Department of Archaeology University of Cambridge, for making the thin section slides and Chris Rolfe and Dr Steve Boreham of the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge are thanked for conducting the pollen preservation assessment. Als Chemex of North Vancouver is thanked for producing the multi‐element figures. DB thanks Brandon Fowler for his help with the MALDI‐TOF at the Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, Maria Gurova for drawings 1 and 3 of flint artefacts on Fig. 7, Miljana Botunjac for drawings on Figs. 11 and 12, and Andrea Zupancich for the base map in Fig. 1. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that improved the presentation of our results. The radiocarbon dating was supported in the main by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/ERC grant agreement 324139 "Palaeo-Chron," awarded to Professor Tom Higham, University of Oxford. This funding also supported Rachel Hopkins'' doctoral research.