Joaquin Panera

Complutense University of Madrid | UCM · Department of Prehistory

In Africa, the scarcity of hominin remains found in direct association with stone tools has hindered attempts to link Homo habilis and Homo erectus with particular lithic industries. The infant mandible discovered in level E at Garba IV (Melka Kunture) on the highlands of Ethiopia is critical to this issue due to its direct association with an Oldo...

Melka Kunture es un clúster de yacimientos prehistóricos situados en el altiplano etíope, a 2.000-2.200 m sobre el nivel del mar, en la cuenca alta del río Awash. El clima es más bien fresco (temperatura media anual de 17° C) y lluvioso. Los resultados palinológicos demuestran que la vegetación durante el Pleistoceno era de tipo afromontano y, por...

Kill/butchering sites are some of the most important places for understanding the subsistence strategies of hunter-gatherer groups. However, these sites are not common in the archaeological record, and they have not been sufficiently analysed in order to know all their possible variability for ancient periods of the human evolution. In the present...

While the emergence of the Acheulean is well documented in East Africa at ~1.7 Ma, subsequent developments are less well understood and to some extent controversial. Here, we provide robust evidence regarding the time period between 1.6 Ma and 1.2 Ma, based on an interdisciplinary approach to the stratigraphic sequences exposed in the Gombore gully...

Among the outstanding questions about the emergence of human-controlled fire is the systematic recurrence between the geochemical remains of fire and its preservation in the archaeological record, as the use of fire is considered a technological landmark, especially for its importance in food cooking, defensive strategies, and heating. Here we repo...

We describe fossils of a new species of fallow deer, Dama celiae. It is the end member of the lineage Dama farnetensis–D. vallonnetensis–D. roberti–D. celiae, which reduced the number of points of the antler from four to two, while the parallel lineage leading to the living fallow deer evolved more complex and palmate antlers. The fossils are from...

Pleistocene archaeology records the changing behaviour and capacities of early hominins. These behavioural changes, for example, to stone tools, are commonly linked to environmental constraints. It has been argued that, in earlier times, multiple activities of everyday life were all uniformly conducted at the same spot. The separation of focused ac...

RESUMEN: Melka Kunture es un clúster de yaci-mientos prehistóricos situados en el altiplano etíope, a 2.000-2.200 m sobre el nivel del mar, en la cuenca alta del río Awash. El clima es más bien fresco (temperatura media anual de 17° C) y lluvioso. Los resultados palino-lógicos demuestran que la vegetación durante el Pleis-toceno era de tipo afromon...

Most of the lithic tools made during Prehistory in the Iberian Peninsula are mainly composed of three main siliceous rock types: chert, quartzite, and quartz. While the methodologies for the characterization and provenance of raw materials made on chert (and obsidian) have been developed with well-established and widely used protocols, the same doe...

The fluvial deposits of the Manzanares and Jarama rivers present one of the largest concentrations of lithic and faunal remains of Pleistocene sites in Europe. In the Manzanares River close to the confluence of the Jarama River, the stepped terrace system disappears and gives way to the Complex Terrace of Butarque (CTB), where the sites of Santa El...

The MS is a 5m high and 15m long cliff with a sequence of Acheulean levels exposed in full view, the last remnants of what was once much more extensive Lower Pleistocene deposits. The environment was of alluvial plain facies, with interbedded volcanic deposits. Then a major tectonic event, the Kella Formation or Kella Event, dated ~1.2 Ma years [1]...

The MS is a 5m high and 15m long cliff with a sequence of Acheulean levels exposed in full view, the last remnants of what was once much more extensive Lower Pleistocene deposits.

In the upper basin of the Guadiana River, especially in the sectors drained by its right-bank tributaries, the Bullaque and Becea rivers, important concentrations of Acheulean and Mousterian industries can be found in a superficial position. These industries have provided series containing tens of thousands of pieces. Deposits in stratigraphic posi...

Early Palaeolithic archaeological sites are very often in open-air fluvial environments. Sedimentary features have important consequences for the degree of conservation of the archaeological record. Following these constraints, sites on gravel beds (i.e., stone lines) which imply high-energy water deposition, have traditionally been considered exte...

Simbiro III, comprising the Monumental Section (MS) and the gully, is part of the Melka Kunture cluster of prehistoric sites, located in the Ethiopian highland at ~2000 m a.s.l. The MS, discovered in the Sixties and then not extensively investigated, looks like a ~5 meters high cliff and includes the impressive remnant of deposited multiple layers...

Since 2006, The Olduvai Paleoanthropology and Paleoecology Project (TOPPP) is conducting intensive research in a number of classical and newly discovered sites throughout the sequence of Olduvai Gorge, in Tanzania. Over these fifteen years of intense fieldwork, efforts have mostly focused on the Oldowan and Acheulean evidence located in Bed I and B...

Melka Kunture is a cluster of Pleistocene sites, extending over ⁓100 km² between 2000 and 2200 m asl, in the upper Awash Valley of Ethiopia. Starting around 2 million-years ago, the archaeological sequence includes sites with lithic productions of the Oldowan, Early Acheulean, middle Acheulean, final Acheulean, Early Middle Stone Age, Middle Stone...

Ambrona and Torralba are key sites for the study of the European peopling during the second half of the Middle Pleistocene. The initial research of these sites, in the early 20th century, was pioneering and had great international repercussion, since these were among the first sites in which the contemporaneity of humans with extinct faunas was pro...

The valleys of the Manzanares and Jarama rivers preserve one of the largest concentrations of Pleistocene sites in Europe, and feature plenty of discoveries of lithic industry and faunal remains that have taken place since 1862. The sites Oxígeno and Santa Elena are located in what is known as the Complex Terrace of Butarque (CTB) downstream from M...

Stable isotopes and phytoliths analysis have been widely used in archaeological research, providing key information in the study of paleoclimate and paleoecology, and allowing to test hypotheses on adaptation and habitat changes in Africa during human evolution. Here, we report on both stable isotopes (13C, 18O) (14 fossil teeth samples) and phytol...

Stable isotopes and phytoliths analysis have been widely used in archaeological research, providing key information in the study of paleoclimate and paleoecology, and allowing to test hypotheses on adaptation and habitat changes in Africa during human evolution. Here, we report on both stable isotopes (13C, 18O) (14 fossil teeth samples) and phytol...

Probably, one of the biggest questions about the Acheulean is focused on the functional aspects of its lithic industry and, more specifically, its link to subsistence activities developed by hominins during the Early Stone Age. Historically, tecno-functional research on ESA techno-complex has focused on the role played by flakes and LCT in the proc...

In this paper we present the experimental results obtained for the formation of use-wear traces on four types of basalt rocks from the Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania) and one from the Deba River (Spain). The objective of this study is to create a reference collection that will allow the posterior analysis and identification of archeological use-wear trace...

This paper presents for the first time an experimental protocol for the assessment of use-wear produced when using Precambrian and metamorphic white Naibor Soit quartzite (NQ) flakes. NQ is the most recurrent raw material from the archaeological sites of the Olduvai Gorge during the Early Stone Age (ESA). The objective of this study is to provide a...

To understand the identity of the early Acheulean, it is necessary to discriminate between the variables that influenced the selection of technological strategies. Functionality of the archaeological sites is crucial in assessing the manufacturing strategies of lithic tools. To achieve this goal, analysis of the post-depositional processes must be...

To assess the integrity of Pleistocene archaeological sites is crucial in the analysis of human behaviour. Most of the Early Palaeolithic sites are in active fluvial environments where it is necessary to understand the degree of sedimentary disturbance. The analysis of the formation processes through geoarchaeological and geostatistical techniques...

In this work, three important Pleistocene sites of the Madrid basin located close to the junction of the Manzanares (PRERESA site) and the Jarama (Valdocarros site and Maresa quarry) rivers have been studied in order to improve the existing chronological framework of the basin and to clarify the geological evolution of these fluvial systems and the...

The evolution of the landscape surrounding the rivers of the Madrid basin during the Middle Pleistocene is summarised in the present paper. Patterns of adaptation of human populations who settled on the riverbanks have been established in this area through geoarchaeological data recovered from associated deposits, mainly in the Manzanares and Jaram...

This paper presents a detailed analysis of the bifacial shaping and the spatial distribution of 85 bifaces recorded in an area of 51.9 m2 on the Lower Floor of the TK site, located alongside the Trench I excavated by M. Leakey in 1963. The repeated use of shaping schemes and patterns demonstrates that the knappers who produced these tools had a goo...

Since 1862, one of the largest accumulations of Palaeolithic sites of Europe has been found in the Manzanares valley (Madrid, Spain). Virtually all the fluvial deposits preserved from the Lower Pleistocene to the end of the Late Pleistocene contain remains of human occupation, that date to the Lower Palaeolithic ("core and flake assemblages" and Ac...

Most Middle Palaeolithic sites with faunal remains processed by humans in the Iberian Peninsula are located in rock shelters or caves. PRERESA is one of the few open-air sites, dating to the end of the Middle or early Late Pleistocene, in which faunal remains associated with lithic industry has been recorded. At least one individual of Mammuthus/El...

Owing to its geographical position relative to northwestern Europe, the Iberian Peninsula was a refuge for many species during periods of harsh environmental conditions in the Quaternary. Despite this, the Pleistocene history of non-marine molluscs in Spain has been scarcely addressed. In this study, we examine the malacofauna of Valdocarros II, a...

The aim of this work is to study from a taphonomic view the small mammals assemblage located on the Pleistocene site known as PRERESA. The small mammal fossiliferous layer is a silt level located at a fluvial terrace. The samples studied included remains from rodents (Minimum Number of Elements: MNE = 373) and lagomorphs (MNE = 372). During the exc...

Evidence suggesting human occupation in the interior of the Iberian Peninsula during cold periods of the Middle Pleistocene is scarce. The Estanque de Tormentas (ETB-H02) site (Manzanares Valley, Madrid) matches with a MIS 6 or MIS 7 cold event, which allows us to tackle the study of the human occupation of the highlands of the Spanish Meseta durin...

The successive fossil amphibian and reptile assemblages from the Middle to Late Pleistocene sites from the Manzanares and Jarama River Valleys (Madrid, central Spain) permitted the reconstruction of part of the climate instability with high-amplitude and rapid shifts of the last 450 ka and their associated landscapes: Áridos-1 (MIS11b), Valdocarros...

The successive fossil amphibian and reptile assemblages from the Middle to Late Pleistocene sites from the Manzanares and Jarama River Valleys (Madrid, central Spain) permitted the reconstruction of part of the climate instability with high-amplitude and rapid shifts of the last 450 ka and their associated landscapes: Áridos-1 (MIS11b), Valdocarros...

Since the middle of the 19th Century, when the first elephant remains were excavated near Madrid (Spain), continuous discoveries of proboscideans have taken place on the riverbanks of the middle and lower courses of the Manzanares and Jarama rivers. The pioneering research carried out by Aguilera y Gamboa in Torralba and Ambrona (Soria, Spain) in t...

The most recent excavations carried out at the Thiongo Korongo (TK) site, in the upper part of Olduvai Bed II and dating from about 1.353±0.035 Ma, have made it possible to identify a hitherto unknown Acheulean floor. Between 2010 and 2015, we excavated nearly 175 m2 in several areas immediately adjacent to M. Leakey's trenches. Our findings led us...

Middle Pleistocene sites that document glacials are relatively rare in the Iberian Peninsula, and as such, the composition of cold small-vertebrate assemblages is almost unknown in southwestern Mediterranean Europe. The archaeological site Estanque de Tormentas de Butarque H-02 in Villaverde, Madrid, in central Spain, recently attributed to Marine...

Ambrona is located in a karst landscape, and occupies a key geographic position, a transit area with natural routes connecting the three main drainage basins in the interior of the Iberian Peninsula. The site dates from the middle of MIS 11 and consists of fluvial-lacustrine deposits.Investigation of Ambrona, traditionally linked to that of Torralb...

The highest concentration of Palaeolithic sites known in the Iberian Peninsula is located in the lower stretches of the Manzanares and Jarama rivers. This area, together with a number of zones in the Tagus valley, constitutes one of the most important archives for the knowledge of the European Pleistocene. The purpose of this paper is to establish...

Two clearly differentiated techno-complexes can be recognised in the Iberian Peninsula during the second half of the Middle Pleistocene: the Acheulean and the Middle Palaeolithic. In this paper we present the current state of research on both technological entities, and propose that they represent two different industrial traditions. The Acheulean,...

Ever since Mary Leakey's initial excavations in the 1960s, TK (Thiongo Korongo) has been recognized as one of Olduvai Gorge's most important Acheulean sites. The significant concentrations of lithics and fauna reported by Mary Leakey have been augmented in recent years by Santonja et al., who argue that human activities appear to be largely related...

Due to the construction of the Stormwater Tank in Villaverde (Madrid), two new Pleistocene vertebrate bearing sites were discovered within the sediments of the Complex Terrace of Butarque (TCB, in Spanish), called H-02 and H-03. Termoluminiscence (TL) dates placed the first site at the Late Pleistocene, more precisely at the end of the MIS 5. An ol...

The interglacial episodes of the Quaternary Period are currently the focus of a great deal of attention within the scientific community, primarily because they can help us to understand how the climate of the current interglacial may have evolved without human intervention and to assess the impact of these climate changes on ecological systems. In...

Abstract This paper presents the findings from four sites with proboscidean remains associated with Middle Palaeolithic stone tools from the Manzanares Valley Complex Terrace of Butarque (CTB), which has been dated to between the final Middle Pleistocene (MIS 6, 190–130 ka) and the early Late Pleistocene (MIS 5, 130-74-71 ka). We review the direct...

At TK, 113 m2 were excavated in 2010–2012 in the two areas immediately adjacent to the trenches dug by M. Leakey in 1963. Extensive lithic and faunal assemblages were retrieved from several levels of the archaeological site. TK is located at the exposed top of Olduvai's Bed II, recently dated to 1.353 ± 0.035 Ma. From a geo-archaeological perspecti...

Un nuevo ciervo para la dieta neandertal Ha pasado ya una década desde que, en 2003-2005, se excavara el yacimiento paleolítico de PRERESA, en Getafe. Los directores de la excavación, los paleolitistas Joaquín Panera y Susana Rubio, me invitaron a visitar aquel yacimiento que era de enorme interés desde el punto de vista tafonómico, es decir, en lo...

a b s t r a c t Áridos 1 and Áridos 2 (Madrid, Spain) are two Middle Pleistocene sites belonging to the isotopic stages 9e11. Both places contain partial carcasses of Elephas (Paleoxodon) antiquus associated to Acheulian stone tools. In this work, the taphonomic study of the elephant remains of Áridos 2 is presented. This study has documented sever...

a b s t r a c t The archaeological site at PRERESA (Madrid, Spain) has been dated to 84 AE 5.6 ka by optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) (MIS 5a). An area 255 m 2 was excavated and 754 lithic pieces were recovered, as well as a large amount of micro and macro vertebrate remains, including proboscidean bones. The aim of this paper is to outline...

Anisotropic patterns documented indirectly through M. Leakey's drawings of Olduvai archaeological sites have led to questions about the integrity of these sites. Most experiments on bone transport by water have been carried out using complete elements that do not replicate specimen bone breakage and size as documented in archaeological sites. In th...

The present work describes a preliminary study of a primarily quartz-based Mousterian lithic assemblage deposited about 75,000 years ago by Neanderthals in Navalmaíllo rockshelter (Pinilla del Valle, Madrid, Spain). Although archaeological assemblages dominated by quartz are not common in the central Iberian Peninsula, they are more common in perip...

The archeological sites of HAT and PRERESA are located in the valleys of the rivers Jarama and Manzanares respectively, at nearly 6 km one from the other, and 18 km southeast of Madrid. They correspond to floodplain deposits that preserved the remains of the punctual activities of Neanderthal groups in particular the cutting up of large mammals (in...

The archeological sites of Hat and Preresa are located in the valleys of the rivers Jarama and Manzanares respectively, at nearly 6 km one from the other, and 18 km southeast of Madrid. They correspond to floodplain deposits that preserved the remains of the punctual activities of Neanderthal groups in particular the cutting up of large mammals (in...

La Terraza Compleja de Arganda (TCA), situada en el tramo bajo del río Jarama (Madrid), está formada por sucesivos apilamientos de secuencias fluviales denominados de abajo a arriba Arganda I, II, III y IV, en los que se han encontrado importantes yacimientos arqueológicos y paleontológicos del Pleistoceno (Áridos 1 y 2, Valdocarros o HAT), y numer...

Climate instability with high-amplitude and rapid shifts during the Middle Pleistocene is well known from pollen records and deep-ocean sediment cores. Although poorly correlatable with such long climate/environment records, the successive fossil amphibian and reptile assemblages from the Middle Pleistocene site of Valdocarros II (Autonomous Region...

We present here a study of some upper Pleistocene archaeological sites from central Spain. They are located at a karstic complex at de high Lozoya valley (Pinilla del Valle, Madrid). Navalmaíllo Shelter preserves lithics, hearths and highly anthropically altered fauna, which are common at camp sites. Buena Pinta Cave was mainly used as hyaena den,...

Abstract: PRERESA (Getafe, Madrid) is a site of the first third of the Late Pleistocene, at the end of MIS 5, of which 255 m2 have been excavated, and where 754 stone pieces and abundant remains of micro- and macrovertebrates have been recovered. This paper deals with the study of the following identified micromammals at the site: Erinaceomorpha: E...

In spite of the plentiful bibliography existent regarding the Pleistocene deposits of Ambrona, its lithic industry has been poorly documented. This fact becomes more marked in the «Upper Complex» of this site, where only a list with the total number of pieces contained in its sequence has been published. This paper tries to make up for this deficie...

Se realiza el estudio de los micromamíferos del yacimiento de Valdocarros, que se localiza en la uni dad de Arganda II de la Terraza Compleja de Arganda, en el valle del Jarama (Madrid), y del yacimiento de HAT, que está en la unidad de Arganda IV. Las asociaciones de micromamíferos determinadas en este trabajo en dichos yacimientos son las siguien...

Introducción Los más de 200 yacimientos documentados en los valles de los ríos Manzanares y Jarama, desde el descubrimiento de San Isidro en 1862, evidencian que los tramos medio y bajo de los valles de estos ríos son una zona con gran potencial para el estudio del Paleolítico. Sin embargo, salvo excepciones, la información disponible procede de in...

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