Ecological response of large herbivores to the late Quaternary climatic changes in northeast Iberian Peninsula refugium

Ecological response of large herbivores to the late Quaternary climatic changes in northeast Iberian Peninsula refugium. DFG Project EcoRef DR945/6-1.

Program

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

Implementation period

2020–2023.

Amount

€31,960.00.

Principal Investigator

Dorothée G. Drucker, Senckenberg Research Institute, HEP Tübingen · Universität Tübingen.

ICRPC participants: Dr. Joaquim Soler.

Description

The last glaciation was an environmentally fluctuating time between moments of cold climate and steppe landscape and more temperate episodes. This variability had a direct impact on mammal communities and, in turn, on human behaviors. This project aims to describe this environmental variability in a territory with great landscape variability, such as Catalonia during isotopic stages 3 and 2. The research team from the Serinyà sites participates by providing samples that are in custody at the Banyoles Regional Archaeological Museum and also provides archaeological control and interpretation. Using isotopic analysis and dental wear techniques, the project evaluates the response of large herbivores to these changes based on the remains captured by Neanderthal and sapien hunter-gatherer communities that exploited these territories between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago. The results will indicate the degree of adaptation of herbivores to these changes thanks to their dietary flexibility or their substitution in parallel with climatic fluctuations.