Across Atlantic Ice

by Dennis J. Stanford

  We frequently hear the argument that the absence of a well-documented Clovis predecessor in northeastern Asia just means we have not found it yet. To us the problem seems to be not the lack of a good candidate but where that candidate is located. Our guess is that no one would question the Solutrean origin of Clovis if Solutrean sites were found in northeastern Asia instead of southwestern Europe.

  8

  THE SOLUTREAN MARITIME ADAPTATION

  Always, then, in this flotsam and jetsam of the tide lines, we are reminded that a strange and different world lies offshore.

  RACHEL CARSON, THE EDGE OF THE SEA

  The preceding chapters provide information that illustrates the strong correlations between Solutrean technologies of southwestern Europe and the earliest technologies found in eastern North America. There is a possibility that these could be the consequence of independent invention, but we have argued for a historic relationship. To consider this proposition further, we pose models of how and why a trans-Atlantic connection would have taken place.

  Our hypothesis proposes that certain Solutrean groups expanded their terrestrial economic resource base to include maritime resources. Since the direct evidence of these maritime resources is mostly on the submerged continental shelf, the well-excavated Solutrean sites near the ice age coast in northern Spain provide the best clues for a maritime adaptation. Lawrence Straus and his associates have done some of the most recent and intensive excavations in this part of Spain. Their research on the Paleolithic occupation of La Riera Cave, in Asturias between Santander and Oviedo, has provided a springboard for the synthesis of more than a hundred years of Paleolithic archaeology in northern Spain. Moreover, they have published a wealth of data from which we can draw to build our models and hypotheses.1 Hence, we can examine their Vasco-Cantabrian reports for evidence pointing to a shift from a terrestrial to a maritime economy, or to a mixed economy that exploited both biospheres. Because of this wealth of data, our model is based on the continental shelf of the Vasco-Cantrabrian region, but the Solutrean people who we hypothesize came to North America could have originated from any place along the Celtic or even the North Sea continental shelf.

  Approximately fifty-two sites in the Vasco-Cantabrian provinces of northern Spain have been identified as occupied during the Solutrean period (figure 8.1). They are distributed along a narrow coastal strip that is roughly 350 kilometers long by 50 kilometers wide, stretching from the Nalón River in Austurias to the Bidasoa River in Basque country, bounded on the north by the Bay of Biscay and on the south by the then glaciated Picos de Europa. This area was roughly 20,500 square kilometers when it included the now submerged continental shelf. Solutrean sites appear to be evenly distributed throughout the region but concentrated along river valleys within 37 kilometers of the ice age coast.

  FIGURE 8.1.

  Solutrean sites in northern Spain and adjacent southwest France. Triangles mark the Solutrean sites that have occupation levels where bifacial concave base projectile points were found.

  The number of sites with known Solutrean occupations represents an approximately tenfold increase over the number of sites per millennium during the preceding Aurignacian and Gravettian periods. Geoffrey Clark and Lawrence Straus postulate that this increase reflects a growing human population as Iberia became a critical refuge for people who abandoned northern Europe during the climatic crisis of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).2 People fleeing territories rendered uninhabitable by the advancing glaciers and deteriorating climatic and hunting conditions migrated south and west, mostly ending up at coastal locations where the marine environments slightly moderated the inclement weather. Since the Vasco-Cantabrian coast is a relatively small and confined area, such an influx of population would have stressed its subsistence resources and reduced the size of the territories available to resident groups.

  Clark and Straus also postulate a trend during the Solutrean of intensified food acquisition and suspect that specialized hunting methods, such as game drives, surrounds, and ambushes, were perfected to procure large numbers of animals during single episodes of hunting. Hunters developed new technologies, such as decoys, nets, movable fences, thrusting spears tipped with self-barbed points, spear throwers, and even bows and arrows, allowing them to be more efficient in capturing and killing game. Although there is no direct evidence for most of these methods, we agree with Clark and Straus that there was a broadening of the kinds of animal and plant resources that were regularly exploited for food.

  If the increasing number of archaeological sites signals a similar increase in human population density, requiring an intensification of hunting, tremendous stress would have been placed on the local animal populations unless major new elements were incorporated into the subsistence economy. As Straus and Clark have pointed out, increasing niche breadth by adding new kinds of foods to the subsistence base is another result of territorial circumscription.

  Any long-term increase in human population also eventually requires reorganization of its distribution to maximize the use of the available resources. A free-ranging settlement pattern with bands exploiting large territories, shifting from one valley to the next when resources were depleted, would have given way to smaller, more prescribed, exclusive territories. Local groups would then have become more familiar with resources that free-roaming bands had neglected in favor of those with a higher payoff, such as simply following a herd of horses into a neighboring valley.

  As the population density increased, there would also have been a parallel development in social relationships that relieved resource stress and provided better mechanisms for dealing with normal periodic shortfalls and those caused by environmental catastrophes. A set of related social groups could have monitored game over larger areas and, when one area experienced a shortfall, obtained relief from another group. Other advantages would have been more predictable sources for marriage partners and trading partners, to name a few possibilities.

  The archaeologist Louis Binford has said that “if intensification is indicated by a shift in exploitation from one type of biotic community to another, the shift will usually be to aquatic resources.”3 The evidence from La Riera demonstrates that the Solutrean people did broaden their niche by including aquatic resources. The question is, did they include marine sources beyond estuaries and beaches?

  THE SOLUTREAN OCCUPATIONS OF LA RIERA CAVE

  The stratigraphy in La Riera Cave provides an excellent picture of changing resource procurement strategies. The sixteen levels that contain artifacts attributed to Solutrean manufacture are thought to have been deposited between ca.18,000 and 20,500 radiocarbon years before the present. On the basis of the faunal remains, Straus and Clark suggest that the activities and types of occupations can be divided into three groups, from oldest to youngest: levels 2–3 were residential camps where bison and horse were the primary prey; levels 4–6 were temporary hunting camps; and levels 7–17 were residential camps from which red deer were intensively hunted.

  A study of the faunal remains by Jesús Altuna provides more insight into the economic activities conducted in and around the cave, as well as the durations of occupation or at least the seasons when the cave was used.4 His interpretations are unfortunately based on minimal samples, since the entire site has not been excavated, some levels were more intensively excavated than others, and the kinds and amounts of faunal remains removed by earlier excavations and by relic hunters are unknown.

  From a total of 20,105 bones excavated from the sixteen Solutrean levels, Altuna calculated a minimum number of individual animals (MNI) in each level by comparing the bones present with the expected number of kinds of bones per animal. That is, each animal had a right- and a left-side upper hind leg bone (femur), and so on. If three upper left front leg bones (humeri) were found, we would know that parts of three animals had been brought into the cave. Conversely, the absence of certain bones, such as the lower rear leg, suggests that part of the animal was left at the kill site.
These calculations indicate that at least 403 major food source mammals were consumed during the Solutrean occupations. Altuna also estimated in which month the younger animals died, from the eruption and wear patterns of their teeth. This tells us what time of year and for how long the cave might have been occupied.

  Levels 2–3 were deposited during a cool, humid phase of the LGM. The faunal sample indicates that horses provided 56 percent of the available meat and bison 27 percent. Red deer and ibex provided 10 and 6 percent, respectively, supplemented by a single small chamois. The bones in the assemblage generally corresponded to the body parts that yield the largest amount of meat. This indicates that larger animals, such as the bison, were butchered in the field, where their less useful parts were left. By contrast, the presence of entire carcasses of smaller animals implies they were brought back to the cave for butchering.

  Nearly a third of the horse and bison remains recovered at the site were encountered in the two earliest of the sixteen Solutrean levels. Although horses and bison are present in some of the later levels, only in level 7 do they approach the earlier frequency. The decline of these animals, which had the greatest payoff in terms of meat yield, may reflect overkill by the earliest Solutrean hunters or a shift in the habitat of these animals, or both.

  Dental eruption and wear suggest to Altuna that the animals were killed from the end of winter or beginning of spring into the summer. He also found that 33 percent of the horses were juveniles, 43 percent were of prime age, and only 22 percent were old individuals. These percentages are a nearly perfect match for the age structure of a living population, suggesting that the animals were killed as they were randomly encountered rather than as selected targets.

  Considering the constricted dimensions of La Riera Cave, we suggest that more than fourteen people would have pushed its livability and thus that it was likely occupied by an extended family. We estimate that the occupants of levels 2–3 consumed a minimum of 6,424 pounds of meat in total (table 8.1).5 This amounts to 2,443 person eating days, which could support a group of fourteen people for approximately six months.6 That length of time matches the duration of the occupations of these levels as indicated by the seasonal distribution of the animals killed. If this was a continuous occupation, by the end of those six months accessible firewood would have been exhausted, the general area would have been soiled, and local game would have been scarce. The people probably moved to an area where horses and bison were still available, along with a fresh supply of fuel.

  The next use of the cave (levels 4–6) took place during a cool and dry period, when hunters set up temporary camps there to process their game. During this time the remains of whole animals were brought for processing, the less economically important portions were discarded in the cave, and those parts bearing the majority of the meat were transported to another location for consumption.

  Several more features of levels 4–6 set them apart from the other Solutrean occupations of the cave: all of the indented base point fragments found in situ came from these levels; all of the Solutrean artifacts made from stone imported from outside the valley are from these levels; the occupants of levels 4–5 brought up extraordinary amounts of mollusk from the coast; two-thirds of the anadromous fish remains come from these levels; the only seal bones are from these levels; both of the self-barbed spear points or pikes at the site came from level 4 (for an example, see figure 5.4c);7 these levels’ hunters selected prime-age animals; there is no evidence that the cave was used in the late spring or summer seasons; and the thinness of the occupation lenses (accumulated debris from human habitation) and presence of simple surface fire hearths rather than large rock-lined cooking features. All of these details imply that these levels were temporary camps used by hunters based in a residential camp elsewhere in the region.

  Since the faunal data support the idea that these levels were not primary habitation locations and because these levels show a marked increase in food remains obtained from estuarine and riverine environments, we propose that the hunters who occupied the cave during this period came from base camps located near the coast, some 10 kilometers downstream. The faunal analyst Jesús Ortea suggests that women and children traveled to the coast to gather shellfish during their daily foraging rounds while the men were off hunting ibex.8 That may well have been the case, but unless there was an estuary extending up a river, such a foraging expedition would have amounted to a linear round trip of at least 20 kilometers, which is 4 more than the average daily round-trip distances calculated by Louis Binford for present-day women foragers.9 Why would women travel so far for food when fresh ibex meat was probably entering the camp? Why would they bother to bring home a heavy load of mollusk in the first place, which require more energy to obtain and transport than would be gained by their consumption?

  TABLE 8.1. Faunal Remains from the Solutrean Levels of La Riera Cave

  If, on the other hand, these people were operating out of a base camp 10 kilometers away from La Riera, near an estuary or on the beach, the distance to the cave falls within the range calculated by Binford for daily foraging trips by male hunters. At an average speed of 2.5 kilometers per hour, a trip to the cave and back would have taken roughly 4 hours each way, allowing little time for hunting, stalking, killing, field dressing any animals killed that day, and returning home. Hence, the cave might have been used for overnight stays or more likely for several days depending on hunting success and weather conditions. Unless the trip included fishing or other animal-killing activities, it would have been necessary to bring trail food—for instance, mollusks. After a successful hunt higher in the mountains the next day, the hunters could have brought their game to the cave for secondary processing, which involved cutting up the desired parts into transportable packages.

  Why use mollusks as trail food? The marine limpet Patella vulgata accounts for more than 98 percent of the mollusks in the Solutrean occupation of the cave. This species can survive up to three or four weeks when stored at temperatures of 5–12°C if protected by a covering of damp seaweed. They could not only last at least several days on the trail but also be eaten raw. Packed away in the cave, they would also provide tiding-over food before fresh meat was obtained. The presence of seal flipper bones in level 4 is likewise suggestive: coastal Inuit peoples historically used seal flippers as a handy and nutritious trail food.

  Although one is struck by the abundance of mollusk in these levels, converting this source to caloric values gives a different impression. Ortea has calculated that these specimens are relatively large in comparison to those gathered along the Asturian coast today, a difference he attributes to later systematic human exploitation. By his estimate, larger individuals from areas not heavily exploited at present have an average fresh meat weight of 11.9 grams and a dry meat weight of 3.5 grams. Applying these larger fresh meat weights to La Riera gives a minimum of 12,495 grams (27 pounds) in level 4, which would support five hunters for two days; 16,422 grams (36 pounds) in level 5, which would support six hunters for two days; 1,511 grams (4 pounds) in level 6; and 6,985 grams (15.4 pounds) in level 7. One white-tailed deer provides more calories than a metric ton of fresh shellfish meat.

  The occupations in these levels probably represent brief encampments primarily for upland ibex and red deer hunting. The hunters who used them selected prime-age animals, generally targeting the largest and best nourished in the herd. Such target selection hunting strategies require a relatively accurate weapon system that employs a projectile propelled by mechanical means, such as a spear thrower or a bow and arrow. The narrow seasonal use of the cave suggests that deer and goat were hunted in the late summer and fall, when they were in prime condition, also coincident with the fall salmon runs. This repeated seasonal hunting pattern suggests that such activities focused on other habitats during the winter through early summer, such as hunting sea mammals on the coast.

  The climate shifted to a warmer, more humid phase during the last eleven Solutrean occupations of
the cave (levels 7–17). At this time it was used once again as a residential location, and hunting was oriented primarily toward red deer. The majority of the animal bones are from the anatomical parts that contain high-yield muscle masses, strongly indicating local meat consumption. Although some juvenile red deer and ibex were slaughtered, prime-age adults dominated the sample. Such an age profile is not likely to result from random-encounter hunting and supports Straus and Clark’s conclusion that efficient trapping techniques had been developed to capture large numbers of targeted individuals. This suggests that the Solutreans offset the effects of reduced biomass or territorial prescription by increasing their efficiency in procuring those animals still available. Such tactics would require cooperation among a number of hunters and tighter, possibly hierarchical (hunt chief, hereditary leader, etc.) social organization.

  The sample size in some of these upper levels was sufficient for Altuna to assess more accurately the months during which the animals were killed, which in turn identifies the time of year and the duration of occupation of the cave. Level 7 is unique in having remains of animals killed throughout all seasons of the year. Converting the amount of meat represented by the MNI into consumption per person per day indicates that there would have been enough food for an extended family of fourteen for about a year. A group of this size would have been large enough to accomplish the tactical hunting implied by the age and sex distribution of the animals represented.