Miguel Ángel FanoUniversidad de La Rioja (Spain) | UNIRIOJA · Human Sciences
Miguel Ángel Fano
PhD
About
100
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Introduction
Associate Professor of Prehistory, University of La Rioja, Logroño, Spain (www.unirioja.es). My research has concentrated on the study of Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic societies in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. It has also attempted to elucidate the end of the so-called ‘Asturian culture’ and the start of the Neolithic.
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (100)
The role played by the Magdalenian site of El Horno in the context of the Asón river basin (northern Spain) is considered in relation to its location and the physical characteristics of the surrounding area. This information has been integrated with data from the archaeological study. Special attention has been paid to the lithic tools and mammal r...
A century ago, in the excavation of El Penicial Cave in Asturias (North Spain), Count Vega del Sella documented the first materials known to belong to the Asturian culture. That was the name for the new culture proposed by H. Obermaier in his book El Hombre Fósil (1916). Due to this German prehistorian’s publications and those of authors like M. C....
The lithic assemblage studied here comes from El Horno Cave (Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria, Spain) and is dated in the recent Magdalenian. It was recovered in Level 2 in this site, during fieldwork in 2000 and 2001, in association with a large collection of bone industry, portable art and fauna. The study has been conducted within an integral a...
In this study of the location and physical characteristics of the surroundings of a series of decorated caves in the Nalón river basin in Asturias (northern Iberia), the spatial analysis, which included fieldwork and the use of GIS, has defined the external archaeological context (EAC) of pre-Magdalenian art in that area. The spatial information ha...
Count Vega del Sella’s research marked the beginning of the long tradition of Mesolithic studies in Asturias (North Spain). Another pioneer, L. Sierra, explored a number of caves in Cantabria with Mesolithic shell-middens, but no specific research line was developed on this kind of deposit in the province. The early excavation at Santimamiñe Cave r...
This paper presents the current state of research on the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Cantabrian Spain. The Neolithization process took place later in the north of the Iberian Peninsula (from c. 5000 cal BC onwards) than in other parts of the peninsula, such as Mediterranean Spain, where the transition occurred some centuries
earlier. This t...
The ‘Asturian culture’ is an archaeological techno-complex characteristic of the coastal areas of central
and eastern Asturias and western Cantabria in northern Spain. Despite a long tradition of research on this
archaeological phenomenon, little information has been acquired about domestic structures. Even locations
of living areas have been po...
For one hundred years the Asturian has been the main reference point for the Mesolithic of northern Spain at both national and international levels. However, from the very beginning of research, some Basque
counterparts to the eastern Asturian shell middens were added to the list and were very soon studied by T. de Aranzadi, J. M. de Barandiaran,...
North Iberia is a key region for studying prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies in Europe. The Special Issue brings together studies on the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic in this northern fringe of the Iberian Peninsula, but also contributions referring to adjacent or surrounding areas. Research in North Iberia began in the last quarter of the ninetee...
North Iberia is a key region for studying prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies in Europe. The Special Issue brings together studies on the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic in this northern fringe of the Iberian Peninsula, but also contributions referring to adjacent or surrounding areas. Research in North Iberia began in the last quarter of the ninetee...
El Horno Cave is located in the middle River Asón valley (North Spain), at about 200 m above sea level and 20 km from the present coastline. A surface area of 3.5 m² was excavated there from 1999 to 2007. The intact part of the archaeological deposit (Levels 1, 2 and 3) yielded a series of remains which can be attributed to upper Magdalenian occupa...
The study of the territory where an archaeological site is located is essential for understanding the role it played in the economic and social system of the Palaeolithic groups that inhabited it. The application of a specific methodology allows quantifying the characteristics of that territory and, at the same time, making objective comparative an...
The study of the landscape where an archaeological site is located is essential to understand the role the site played in the economic and social organization of hunter-gatherer communities. Landscape analysis must be based on a specific methodology allowing us to quantify the characteristics of the site territory. The objective analysis of the ter...
Research projects undertaken in the Cantabrian region since 1980 have produced new, high-quality information about the neolithisation process(es) in this area. It is now necessary to review this archaeological information and test the main hypotheses put forward to explain it. This paper presents an update on the archaeological evidence (sites, chr...
Research projects undertaken in the Cantabrian region since 1980 have produced new, high-quality information about the neolithisation process(es) in this area. It is now necessary to review this archaeological information and test the main hypotheses put forward to explain it. This paper presents an update on the archaeological evidence (sites, chr...
The Asturias is a classic cultural complex within the European coastal Mesolithic. Since its discovery by Count Vega del Sella in 1914, about one hundred thirty sites have been catalogued only in eastern Asturias, and some tens of them have been excavated. However, archaeological information about this Mesolithic complex is tremendously biased. Mos...
Mesolithic hunter-gatherer settlements generally leave ephemeral archaeological traces and
are notoriously difficult to detect. Nowhere is this more so than on the northern
coast of Spain, despite a long tradition of Mesolithic research. In this project,
evidence of Mesolithic activity together with the geomorphological and topographical
suitabilit...
The aim of this paper is to review the current state of research for the Early Neolithic (c.5000–c.4300 cal BC) in Cantabrian Spain. Bayesian chronological models have been constructed to examine the neolithisation process and assess the role radiocarbon dates may play in understanding this period. The models suggest that the disappearance of hunte...
Three Magdalenian harpoons from El Horno Cave (Ramales, Cantabria) have been studied microscopically. The objective of the study was to identify marks on the surface of the harpoons susceptible of providing preliminary information about how they were used. In one case, the observations reveal that the harpoon was used on several occasions, perhaps...
In connection with the question of mobility and contacts between Magdalenian societies, this paper presents the preliminary results of a review of one of the classic themes in late Magdalenian art: the representations of zoomorphs, particularly ibex, viewed from the front, found essentially in portable art. hese motifs are known in both Cantabrian...
Research on Palaeolithic groups has been based essentially on the study of the archaeological deposits resulting from the groups' everyday activities. The present paper stresses the importance of information related to the location and characteristics of sites containing these Palaeolithic deposits. If an understanding of a site involves knowing it...
En la actualidad, uno de los retos más relevantes de la investigación sobre el Paleolítico es el de superar definitivamente el paradigma del yacimiento único, abordando el estudio de las sociedades de cazadores desde una perspectiva regional, tal y como demanda el carácter móvil de las mismas. De hecho, la movilidad debería ser considerada siempre...
A partir d'un ensemble de pièces métaliques, qui sont dehors du context, on a essaie s'approcher de sa valeur cultúrale, toujours à travers un analyse comparative avec d'autres zones de la Péninsule. A partir de un conjunto de piezas metálicas descontextualizadas, se intenta una aproximación a su valoración cultural, a través de un análisis compara...
El Horno has produced rich faunal assemblages associated with magdalenian lithic and bone tools. Taphonomic analysis strongly suggests a human origin for the fauna. The faunal spectra which appear to be widely specialized are very clearly dominated by the Ibex. Adult prey probably hunted at the end of winter and in early spring were mainly killed b...
While the excavation of individual sites remains fundamental to the creation of the Palaeolithic archeological record, increasingly the focus of prehistoric research is on human adaptations to and within natural regions. Such a reorientation implies viewing sites and occupations as samples of different suites of activities in various habitats acros...
We show the methodology we followed in order to reliably estimate a factor that, to our judgement, is fundamental for the assessment of the characteristics of a prehistoric settlement: the conditions of exposure to the sun. This methodology is applied to the study of Mesolithic shell middens in the North of Spain, with the aim to introduce a new ki...