Multi-purpose fossils? The reappraisal of an Elephas antiquus molar from El Pirulejo (Magdalenian; Cordoba, Spain)

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 use of a tooth that had not only been worked into an anvil-sort-of-tool but also used as a core and partly tainted with a composite pigment. The dating and geochemical analyses further evidenced that the molar derived from an animal that had lived in a rather arid landscape with a temperature range between 12.3 and 14.3 A degrees C coincident with a cold episode within marine isotope stage (MIS) 6.6 and probably fed on herbaceous plants. These analyses evidence the potential fossils from archaeological sites bear for addressing a wide range of issues that include both the cultural and paleoenvironmental realms.

Palavras-chave

Oxygen isotopes Bone phosphate Middle Pleistocene Iberian Peninsula Cave Israel Collagen Europe Preservation Carbonate Apatite Tooth Taphonomy U/Th dating Isotopes Upper Paleolithic Fossil gathering

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/13020

Editora

Springer

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-016-0324-1

Coleções

ICR2-Artigos (em revistas ou actas indexadas)

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