Bolomor Cave is a karst rockshelter located along the central Mediterranean coast of Spain in Valencia, approximately 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the town of Tavernes. It is located about 100 meters above sea level, in the Valldigna valley, a narrow divide between a wide coastal plain leading into the Mediterranean Sea, and the Iberian and Prebetic mountain ranges. The site contains important Lower and Middle Paleolithic (350,000-100,000 years) human occupations in cave deposits up to a maximum thickness of 14 meters (46 feet), including evidence of some of the earliest hearths in Europe; and some of the earliest evidence of small-animal consumption as well.
Based on the stone tool industry and the handful of fragmented human teeth and bones recovered from the site, researchers believe Bolomor cave was occupied by Middle Paleolithic Neanderthals.
Chronology at Bolomor Cave
Excavations at Bolomor have identified seventeen stratigraphic levels, dated from Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 9 (~334,000 years ago) to 5e (~115,000 years ago). MIS (also known as OIS or Oxygen Isotope Stages) are a relative dating tool created by paleoclimatologists to correspond with broad climatic changes over time, describing the relative warm or cool periods during the Pleistocene.
Unit levels at Bolomor fall into four phases associated with broad paleoclimatic conditions.
- Phase IV (Level 7, MIS 5e), thermoluminescence (TL) ~121,000 +/- 18,000. Temperate and humid climate with some less warm phases
- Phase III (Levels 12, 11, 9, and 8, MIS 6). Cold climatic period, humid in the older levels, cold and arid towards the end
- Phase II (Levels 14 and 13, MIS 7, TL dates between 152,000-233,000 years ago. Warm period with a humid interstadial
- Phase I (Levels 17-15, MIS 9-8, dated by amino acid racemization (AAR) to ~525,000 +/- 125,000) Initial occupation, Cold period with seasonal humidity.
Stone Tools at Bolomor
The human occupations at Bolomor used a stone tool industry characterized by a good quality, locally available flint, limestone and quartzite used to make retouched scrapers and lateral denticulates. Intensive reuse and recycling is evident; all stages of the chaine operatoire method of stone tool manufacture are represented, although these tools do not represent the full range of tools identified as either Acheulean or Mousterian. Researchers Blasco and Fernandez Peris categorize the lithics as "pre-Mousterian" and leave it at that.
Animals and Diet
The occupants processed a wide range of animals, including everything from rabbits, tortoise and birds to deer, horses and pigs to hippopotamus and rhinoceros. Although there are scavenger carnivores within the animal bones recovered (wolf, hyena), evidenced by gnaw-marks, and evidence of trampling, many of the remains show deliberate cutmarks and burning, suggested they were processed and cooked by the cave's occupants.
Evidence for butchery has been identified on bird, rabbits and tortoise remains, the earliest of which date to the 17th level, in MIS 9. This evidence includes cutmarks, intentional breakage, human toothmarks and patterned burning. The reliance on small animals, as well as larger bodied animals, is implicit evidence that Neanderthals living at Bolomor cave were practicing a broad spectrum subsistence.
Examination of damaged bone at Bolomor has revealed that human scavenging of meat from other carnivores was a persistent, if sporadic, behavior of the occupants.
Hearths at Bolomor Cave
Bolomor Cave's deposits included at least fourteen separate hearths, recovered from levels 2, 4, 9 and 13. The hearths are simple, fires built directly on the floor, with diameters between 30-120 centimeters (12-47 inches) and ash lenses averaging 5-10 cm (2-4 in) in thickness. The oldest hearths, recovered from level 13c, date to MIS 7c (225,000-240,000 years ago, dated by AAR to 229,000 +/- 53,000 years ago.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the guide to Middle Paleolithic, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Blasco R. 2008. Human consumption of tortoises at Level IV of Bolomor Cave (Valencia, Spain). Journal of Archaeological Science 35(10):2839-2848.
Blasco R, and Fernández Peris J. 2012. A uniquely broad spectrum diet during the Middle Pleistocene at Bolomor Cave (Valencia, Spain). Quaternary International 252(0):16-31.
Blasco R, Fernández Peris J, and Rosell J. 2010. Several different strategies for obtaining animal resources in the late Middle Pleistocene: The case of level XII at Bolomor Cave (Valencia, Spain). Comptes Rendus Palevol 9(4):171-184.
Blasco R, and Rosell J. 2009. Who was the first? An experimental application of carnivore and hominid overlapping marks at the Pleistocene archaeological sites. Comptes Rendus Palevol 8(6):579-592.
Blasco R, Rosell J, Fernández Peris J, Cáceres I, and Vergès JM. 2008. A new element of trampling: an experimental application on the Level XII faunal record of Bolomor Cave (Valencia, Spain). Journal of Archaeological Science 35(6):1605-1618.
Fernández Peris J, González VB, Blasco R, Cuartero F, Fluck H, Sañudo P, and Verdasco C. 2012. The earliest evidence of hearths in Southern Europe: The case of Bolomor Cave (Valencia, Spain). Quaternary International 247(0):267-277.
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