Mobility and the use of littoral resources in the Late Mesolithic of Northern Spain: the case of La Chora cave (Voto, Cantabria, N Spain)

Abstract

Littoral resources have been consumed by humans since at least the Middle Palaeolithic. Examples of the use of molluscs have been documented along the shores of Europe during that period but it was not until many millennia later that European hunter-fisher-gatherer societies exploited those resources intensively—see the case of Nerja cave during the Younger Dryas. This economic activity caused the accumulation of shells at archaeological sites during the Mesolithic, resulting in the formation of the so-called shell middens, a very common type of deposit along the Atlantic seaboard of Europe. Despite the large number of research projects that have studied the exploitation of coastal environments and the way of life of Mesolithic populations, questions such as the relationship between human mobility and mollusc exploitation patterns still remain. The archaeomalacological study of the shell midden in La Chora cave (Cantabria, Spain) confirms that people foraged for shellfish at several places along the coast, mainly in the estuary of the River Asón. The main difference between La Chora and other Mesolithic sites is its longer shellfish collection radius as the inhabitants travelled over 10 km to the open coast to collect shellfish. This study has expanded the available data about the subsistence strategies of Mesolithic groups in a little-studied area and improved our knowledge of mobility patterns among Mesolithic societies in the northern Iberian Peninsula.