Bjerck et al./Marine Ventures, 2. Shells on the Hill

La Garma Archaeological Zone hosts one of the most spectacular archaeological ensembles in European Prehistory. Ten caves and an open-air site have been discovered, in which an unusually large and complete sequence of occupations from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages has been studied. This paper makes a first assessment of the archaeological remains with a marine origin found in the cave deposits. Molluscs are the most abundant remains of marine resources, most of which (different limpet and topshell species) were gathered as food on the rocky shores near La Garma Hill, in the inter-tidal zone. Some small shells, from both Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, were made into beads. The other marine animals (crustaceans, echinoderms, fish, birds and mammals) are much less abundant. The different archaeozoological evidence is analysed from taxonomical, quantitative and taphonomic points of view, and an assessment is made of changes in the use of the marine environment by human groups from the late Upper Pleistocene to the early Holocene.