Journal
ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 12, Issue 7, Pages -Publisher
SPRINGER HEIDELBERG
DOI: 10.1007/s12520-020-01101-6
Keywords
Phytoliths; Dung spherulites; FTIR; Livestock; Late Prehistory; Seasonality; fumier
Funding
- Spanish Government MINECO/FEDER [CGL2015-65387-C3-1-P]
- project Human settlement during the Upper Pleistocene and Holocene in the South-eastern Pyrenees [HAR2016-75124-P, PID2019-104843GB-I00]
- Generalitat de Catalunya [SGR2017-1357, SGR2017-836]
- Servei d'Arquelogia- Generalitat de Catalunya
- Caja viva Fundacion Caja Rural Burgos-Fundacion Atapuerca
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The archaeological evidence from Cova Gran de Santa Linya suggests that during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, the site was used as a livestock enclosure where the accumulated excrements were burned, generating a sequence known by the termfumier. Here we present the results of an integrated study of silica phytoliths, dung spherulites, and mineral composition of sedimentary matrix from the remaining Holocene sequence. The use of fire to sanitize the space had important consequences for the preservation of dung spherulites and the accumulation of phytoliths. Phytolith assemblages indicate that the animals enclosed in the cave were mostly sheep that exploited the pastures nearby the site during the year. In this sense, the results from our modern plant reference collection challenge the assumption that grass inflorescence phytolith can be used as a seasonality indicator.
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