Clues about Neanderthal Fire Technology and Climate from a Microstratrigraphic Study of Unit XXIV at Crvena Stijena, Montenegro

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Late Middle Paleolithic in the Western Balkans: Results from Recent Excavations at Crvena Stijena, Montenegro" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

A trend in the past few decades of archaeological research is to apply different microstratigraphic techniques, which provide clues about behavioral and paleoenvironmental aspects of past societies. At Crvena Stijena (Montenegro), a Middle Paleolithic site under current multidisciplinary investigation, lipid biomarker data has informed us about the paleohydrological evolution of the entire sequence, and other high-resolution techniques such as archaeomagnetism and Raman microspectroscopy have provided useful clues about the formation of Unit XXIV, a rich archaeological stratified deposit with visible combustion residues. Here, we couple soil micromorphology and lipid biomarker analysis and provide new data about different aspects of fire technology, climate, and some of the taphonomic processes associated with Unit XXIV, which we interpret as a sequence of in situ and reworked anthropogenic deposits related to different activities involving fire. These activities took place under cold, humid conditions and were affected by soft-sediment deformation due to extensional and compressional forces from mega-block roof spall and possibly sinkhole subsidence.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Late Middle Paleolithic in the Western Balkans: Results from Recent Excavations at Crvena Stijena, Montenegro   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37572.0