Arturo Morales-Muñiz

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid | UAM · Department of Biology

Climate change and size-selective overexploitation can alter fish size and growth, yet our understanding of how and to what extent is limited due to a lack of long-term biological data from wild populations. This precludes our ability to effectively forecast population dynamics and support sustainable fisheries management. Using modern, archived, a...

Understanding the historical emergence and growth of long-range fisheries can provide fundamental insights into the timing of ecological impacts and the development of coastal communities during the last millennium. Whole-genome sequencing approaches can improve such understanding by determining the origin of archaeological fish specimens that may...

Understanding the historical emergence and growth of long-range fisheries can provide fundamental insights into the timing of ecological impacts and the development of coastal communities during the last millennium. Whole genome sequencing approaches can improve such understanding by determining the origin of archaeological fish specimens that may...

Fish taphonomy from archaeological sites provides considerable useful information about human behaviours and environmental contexts as potential food remains or as natural occurrences. This article focuses on mechanical deformations of fish vertebrae and the potential information about predation, diachrony in the deposition of the remains, and time...

Overexploitation has directly, negatively affected marine fish populations in the past half-century, modifying not only their abundance but their behaviour and life history traits. The recovery and resilience of such populations is dependent upon their exploitation history, which often extends back millennia. Hence, data on when exploitation intens...

Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus; BFT) abundance was depleted in the late 20th and early 21st century due to overfishing. Historical catch records further indicate that the abundance of BFT in the Mediterranean has been fluctuating since at least the 16th century. Here we build upon previous work on ancient DNA of BFT in the Mediterranean by...

The origin and development of the Iberian Medieval fisheries is a poorly documented phenomenon both from the standpoint of historical (documentary) and material (archaeological) evidence. Such dearth of knowledge can be explained in terms of proximal (i.e., a deficient retrieval of fish remains) and ultimate causes. Among the latter, the Muslim inv...

The presence of fossils in Iberian archaeological sites is confirmed from the Upper Paleolithic to Bronze Age. In the Neolithic of the Iberian Peninsula they have been reported in 10 sites: Hoyo de la Mina; Hedionda-IV; Tesoro (Málaga); Los Castillejos (Granada); Peña de la Abuela (Soria); Benàmer (Alicante); Aljezur; Fontainhas; Estria; Monte Abra...

The Organising Committee of the 2nd Iberian Zooarchaeology Meeting (formerly EZI 2020, now EZI 2021) has taken the decision to hold the meeting online. The conference will take place on the 23rd , 24th and 25th of June 2021 and registration will be free of charge. We believe this is the best option left to keep the dissemination of research going...

This paper reviews the development of archaeological fish analyses in the Iberian Peninsula. From almost total neglect until the early 1970s to the research now being done in terms of historical and ecological problems, fish remains studies have endured a slow and often not too straightforward development involving local and foreign scholars alike....

The first archaeozoological evidence on the use of falconry in Western Europe occurs by the late 4th century AD. Among the short-winged hawks, goshawk (Accipiter gentilis L. 1758) and sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus L. 1758) females were apparently more appreciated than males. Females are bigger and thus able to cope with a larger range of prey. Howev...

The distribution of the black rat ( Rattus rattus ) has been heavily influenced by its association with humans. The dispersal history of this non-native commensal rodent across Europe, however, remains poorly understood, and different introductions may have occurred during the Roman and medieval periods. Here, in order to reconstruct the population...

The prevalence of large game found in association with Middle Paleolithic tools has traditionally biased our ideas of Neanderthal subsistence practices. Studies document the exploitation of small mammals, birds, and plants by Neanderthals, whereas data on aquatic resources are still scarce and data on fish are almost non-existent. This article prese...

This paper constitutes the first comprehensive review of animal fossils retrieved in Iberian archaeological sites. Out of 633 items from 82 sites, 143 were analyzed and a further 13 assessed and their status clarified by us on 20 sites. Among others, this study is the first one in Iberia to assess the role played by fossil scaphopods and to carry o...

The skeletal development of the European rabbit during its first weeks of life is a poorly documented phenomenon whose potential applications reach to various fields of research. In this paper a table is provided to turn the lengths of seven skeletal elements (mandible, humerus, radius, ischium, ilium, femur and tibia) into weight and age equivalen...

Se valora la fauna del pozo-depósito de la antigua Fábrica de Tabacos de Gijón desde la perspectiva de la génesis del depósito. Aunque la información arqueozoológica no basta para inferir tal fenómeno, apunta a que en el aljibe estuvo establecida una comunidad léntica con anterioridad a las circunstancias que dieron al traste con su función y que l...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Abst ract / Zusa m men fassu ng This paper constitutes a fi rst attempt to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of hake (Merluccius merluccius Linnaeus, 1758) fi nds in archaeological sites from the Iberian Peninsula. Even though this deep-water species has been never considered a signifi cant item in terms of fi shing up until 18 th centu...

Bird remains are rare on archaeological sites yet often crucial to address a multitude of questions, both cultural and biological. In this paper we argue that oribatid mites living on bird feathers, scales and nests may prove useful to infer not only bird presence but occasionally their breeding at a given site in the absence of their remains. Alth...

The environmental interpretation of an archaeological site requires a combined assessment of all the taxa of proven bioindicator value. Some animal groups, such as rodents, are routinely used as proxies to this end. Combining such results with those of other animal groups strengthens the validity of inferences about the palaeoenvironment and regard...

This work presents the results from the analysis of the bone material from the Byzantine harbor quarter overlapping the Roman theater of Carthago Spartaria (Cartagena, Murcia). From a broad sample of 2,723 fragments from debris pits and garbage dumps, the production strategies and the consuming patterns of the livestock are established during a his...

Horse domestication revolutionized warfare and accelerated travel, trade, and the geographic expansion of languages. Here, we present the largest DNA time series for a non-human organism to date, including genome-scale data from 149 ancient animals and 129 ancient genomes (≥1-fold coverage), 87 of which are new. This extensive dataset allows us to...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0039171.].

The physiographical features of the Galician sea, in particular its temperature, marine currents and plankton richness, have turned its waters into one of the most biologically diversified marine regions of the planet. The 1500 km of shorelines from this Northwest Iberian region are dotted with rías (Galician fjords) where settlements devoted to fi...

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Among the many fish species commercially exploited since prehistoric times, Atlantic bluefin tuna (BFT, Thunnus thynnus) is one of the most economically significant, having left an indelible imprint on several civilizations including the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans. Here, we describe our efforts to identify tuna specimens among the remains of 34...

Paleontological, archaeological, and biogeographical evidences strongly suggest the common genet (Genetta genetta; Mammalia, Carnivora) was translocated by humans into Europe. A widespread hypothesis considers the Muslims, which conquered Iberia at the eighth century AD, as the putative agents of translocation. This hypothesis was reinforced becaus...

Fish are consumed by many predators in addition to humans. Identifying the agent responsible for an archaeological fish bone accumulation is a crucial yet far from straightforward task in the absence of diagnostic criteria. It is for this reason that exploring the features of fish bone collections produced by animals constitutes a key issue of arch...

Westernmost Europe constitutes a key location in determining the timing of the replacement of Neanderthals by anatomically modern humans (AMHs). In this study, the replacement of late Mousterian industries by Aurignacian ones at the site of Bajondillo Cave (Málaga, southern Spain) is reported. On the basis of Bayesian analyses, a total of 26 radioc...

The Middle (MP) and Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) evidences of shellfish collection on the southern Iberian site of Bajondillo cave are presented and compared with Westernmost Mediterranean archaeological sites. The main feature is stasis for Mytilus galloprovincialis represents the dominant taxon during a ~120kyr temporal sequence. The second feat...

This article attempts to set out a research agenda on the origin and evolution of hake exploitation in the Northeast Atlantic through a combination of zooarchaeological data with history and fisheries biology. An overview of archaeological hake remains from the Iberian Peninsula is presented and discussed in terms of a series of long-established pa...

Cyanobacterial communities are highly diverse in freshwaters and respond rapidly to changing environments. Previous studies have highlighted variations in the structure and composition of epilithic cyanobacterial communities in response to eutrophication in watercourses. In the present study, changes in benthic cyanobacterial communities from Guada...

Present-day domestic horses are immensely diverse in their maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, yet they show very little variation on their paternally inherited Y chromosome. Although it has recently been shown that Y chromosomal diversity in domestic horses was higher at least until the Iron Age, when and why this diversity disappeared remain...

Fossil gathering by humans has been rarely documented in the Iberian Peninsula. In the present paper, a multidisciplinary approach has been taken to analyze a straight-tusked elephant (Elephas antiquus) molar retrieved in a Magdalenian deposit at the rock shelter of El Pirulejo in southern Spain. The taphonomical analyses revealed a multifarious us...

The cat has long been important to human societies as a pest-control agent, object of symbolic value and companion animal, but little is known about its domestication process and early anthropogenic dispersal. Here we show, using ancient DNA analysis of geographically and temporally widespread archaeological cat remains, that both the Near Eastern...

La serie de publicaciones Cuadernos del Seminario Walter Andrae, acercará a los estudiantes universitarios temas por fuerza poco atendidos en los programas normales de estudio con el mismo y profundo sentido didáctico que el resto de las actividades del Centro. Así, gracias a su publicación en la serie, los textos de las conferencias impartidas, la...

Taxonomic over-splitting of extinct or endangered taxa, due to an incomplete knowledge of both skeletal morphological variability and the geographical ranges of past populations, continues to confuse the link between isolated extant populations and their ancestors. This is particularly problematic with the genus Equus. To more reliably determine th...

All tables are presented as separate spreadsheets consolidated into a single Excel file. Table A Description of all samples analyzed Table B Primers used to amplify mitochondrial sequences Table C Description of published sequences used Table D Sample location and results of sPCA analysis Table E Summary statistics for the kiangs and dziggetais of...

Supplementary figures of the phylogenetic analyses followed by the detailed description of the archeological sites and the samples analyzed grouped in a single supporting document. Figure A: Global alignment of all sequences obtained and used for the various analyses Figure B: Diagnostic SNPs of the various clades Figure C: sPCA, distribution of th...

Horses have been valued for their diversity of coat colour since prehistoric times; this is especially the case since their domestication in the Caspian steppe in ~3,500 BC. Although we can assume that human preferences were not constant, we have only anecdotal information about how domestic horses were influenced by humans. Our results from genoty...

Taxonomic over-splitting of extinct or endangered taxa, due to an incomplete knowledge of both skeletal morphological variability and the geographical ranges of past populations, continues to confuse the link between isolated extant populations and their ancestors. This is particularly problematic with the genus Equus. To more reliably determine th...

Horseback riding is the most fundamental use of domestic horses and has had a huge influence on the development of human societies for millennia. Over time, riding techniques and the style of riding improved. Therefore, horses with the ability to perform comfortable gaits (e.g. ambling or pacing), so-called 'gaited' horses, have been highly valued...

This paper presents an archaeological, paleontological, taphonomical, chronological and geochemical study of a fossil oyster valve retrieved at the cave of La Pileta. The specimen was taken from Neogene fossiliferous deposits located more than 10 km away from the site. The shell was worked so as to become a portable lamp. 14C/AMS dating of the carb...

Zooarchaeological and palaeontological records indicate that whereas the pine marten (Martes martes, L.) constitutes a genuine element of the European fauna, the beech marten (Martes foina E.) is a recent colonizer whose invasion was fostered by the spread of the Neolithic economies. In this paper: (1) we provide the first direct radiocarbon date f...

La ictioarqueología se ocupa del análisis de restos de peces procedentes de yacimientos arqueológicos, con la finalidad de la reconstrucción paleoecológica de los medios acuáticos antiguos y de la paleoeconomía de las poblaciones humanas del pasado. Entre los restos de peces se incluyen huesos, otolitos, dientes y escamas, siendo su análisis una ap...

The small collection of marine fish remains retrieved at the Epipaleolithic-Neolithic site of Cova Fosca is presented. The relevance of these presumably food items is not quantitative but qualitatively, as it reveals a movement of people between the mountains and the shore taking place for at least 6 millennia rather than a movement of objects, a p...

The ancient record of the Iberian naiads is still poorly documented despite the development of archaeo-malacological research that has taken place over the past decade in the peninsula. The naiad remains retrieved at Camino de las Yeseras thus constitute a welcome addition that provides information concerning three different aspects, namely: (i) th...

Seven centuries before the discovery of the African zebras by the Europeans, the names zebro and zebra were given to an enigmatic equid widely reported in the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. Roughly 150 toponyms deriving from the words zebro/a have been recorded in Iberia starting from the IX th century A.D. together with 65 Portuguese Fo...

Leopard complex spotting is inherited by the incompletely dominant locus, LP, which also causes congenital stationary night blindness in homozygous horses. We investigated an associated single nucleotide polymorphism in the TRPM1 gene in 96 archaeological bones from 31 localities from Late Pleistocene (approx. 17 000 YBP) to medieval times. The fir...