Changes in Molluscan Exploitation Patterns During the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene in Eastern Cantabria (Northern Spain)

Abstract

In the last 30 years, one of the liveliest debates in regional prehistory has revolved around the economic and social changes occurring in hunter-gatherer societies in the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. At the present time, a consensus appears to have been reached among the different authors regarding the existence of a specialisation process in the capture of red deer and ibex during the Solutrean and Magdalenian, and a later diversification in subsistence, with a greater exploitation of other resources, such as smaller mammals, birds, fish, molluscs and crustaceans, as occurred in other parts of Europe and Asia (Flannery 1969; Stiner 2001). Although some authors maintain that, despite the specialisation, diversification began to be evident in the Solutrean (Straus and Clark 1986:353), most researchers agree that the process commenced in the Late Magdalenian and became more generalised in the Azilian and especially during the Mesolithic (Gassiot 2000; González-Morales 1982; González-Sainz 1989; González-Sainz and González- Morales 1986; González-Sainz and González-Urquijo 2007), when it reached its peak, due to a decrease in population mobility and an increase in the occupation and probably the use of the coast (González-Morales 1995).