La Riera is a small cave in the karstic complex of La Llera ridge on the coastal plain of eastern Asturias, in Posada de Llanes, halfway between Santander and Oviedo (northern Spain). Other nearby Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites include Cueto de la Mina, Bricia, Coberizas, Tres Calabres, Balmori, Quintanal, Fonfria, Arnero, etc. The deposits in La Riera both overlap and complement the important culture-stratigraphic sequence in the adjacent rock-shelter of Cueto de la Mina, which spans some 18,000 years between the Gravettian and the Asturian. La Riera, Cueto de la Mina, and the other sites were discovered and excavated in the 1910s by the Conde de la Vega del Sella, whose palace is located nearby. His monographs on Cueto de la Mina, La Riera, and Balmori (Vega del Sella 1916, 1930), and Hugo Obermaier’s observations thereon in Fossil Man in Spain (1924), provided information of extraordinary quality and value for the period. In 1917–1918, La Riera specifically yielded a series of...
References
Altuna, J. 1986. The mammalian faunas from the prehistoric site of La Riera. In La Riera Cave, ed. L.G. Straus and G.A. Clark, 237–274. Tempe: Arizona State University. 421–480.
Clark, G.A. 1976. El Asturiense Cantábrico. (Bibliotheca Praehistorica Hispana 13). Madrid: CSIC.
Clark, G.A., and L.G. Straus. 1986. Synthesis and conclusions–Part I: Upper paleolithic and mesolithic hunter-gatherer subsistence in northern Spain. In La Riera Cave, ed. L.G. Straus and G.A. Clark, 351–366. Tempe: Arizona State University.
Clark, G.A., D. Young, L.G. Straus, and R. Jewett. 1986. Multivariate analyses of La Riera industries and fauna. In La Riera Cave, ed. L.G. Straus and G.A. Clark, 325–350. Tempe: Arizona State University.
Craighead, A. 1999. Climate change and patterns in the exploitation of economic resources (marine mollusca and ungulate fauna) in Cantabrian Spain at the endo of the Pleistocene, ca. 21–6.5 kyr BP. In Zooarchaeology of the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary, British archaeological reports international series 800, ed. J.C. Driver, 9–20. Oxford: Hadrian Books.
Deith, M., and N. Shackleton. 1986. Seasonal exploitation of marine molluscs: Oxygen isotope analysis of shell from La Riera Cave. In La Riera Cave, ed. L.G. Straus and G.A. Clark, 299–314. Tempe: Arizona State University.
Eastham, A. 1986. The La Riera avifaunas. In La Riera Cave, ed. L.G. Straus and G.A. Clark, 275–284. Tempe: Arizona State University.
Freeman, L.G. 1973. The significance of mammalian faunas from Paleolithic occupations in Cantabrian Spain. American Antiquity 38: 3–44.
Gonzalez Echegaray, J., and L.G. Freeman. 1971. Cueva MorÃn: Excavaciones 1966–1968. Santander: Patronato de las Cuevas Prehistóricas.
Gonzalez Echegaray, J., and L.G. Freeman. 1973. Cueva MorÃn: Excavaciones 1969. Santander: Patronato de las Cuevas Prehistóricas.
Gonzalez Morales, M.R. 1986. La Riera bone and antler artifact assemblages. In La Riera Cave, ed. L.G. Straus and G.A. Clark, 209–218. Tempe: Arizona State University, 385–420.
Guttierez Zugasti, F.I. 2009. La Explotación de Moluscos y Otros Recursos Litorales en la Región Cantábrica durante el Pleistoceno Final y el Holoceno Inicial. Santander: Universidad de Cantabria.
Laville, H. 1986. Stratigraphy, sedimentology and chronology of the La Riera Cave deposits. In La Riera Cave, ed. L.G. Straus and G.A. Clark, 25–56. Tempe: Arizona State University.
Leroi-Gourhan, A. 1986. The palynology of La Riera Cave. In La Riera Cave, ed. L.G. Straus and G.A. Clark, 59–64. Tempe: Arizona State University.
Menendez, D.E., M. La Hoz, L.G. Straus, and G.A. Clark. 1986. The ichthyology of La Riera Cave. In La Riera Cave, ed. L.G. Straus and G.A. Clark, 285–288. Tempe: Arizona State University.
Ortea, J. 1986. The malacology of La Riera Cave. In La Riera Cave, ed. L.G. Straus and G.A. Clark, 289–298. Tempe: Arizona State University.
Obermaier, H. 1924. Fossil Man in Spain. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Soares, A. Monge, I. Gutierrez-Zugasti, M. Gonzalez-Morales, J. Matos Martins, D. Cuenca-Solana, and G. Bailey. 2016. Marine radiocarbon reservoir effect in late Pleistocene and early Holocene coastal waters off northern Iberia. Radiocarbon 58(4): 869–883. https://doi.org/10.1017/RDC.2016.71.
Straus, L.G. 1977. Of deer slayers and mountain men: Paleolithic faunal exploitation in Cantabrian Spain. In For theory building in archaeology, ed. L.R. Binford, 41–76. New York: Academic Press.
Straus, L.G. 1983. El Solutrense Vasco-Cantábrico: Una Nueva Perspectiva, MonografÃas del Centro de Investigación y Museo de Altamira 10. Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura.
Straus, L.G., and G.A. Clark, eds. 1986a. La Riera Cave: Stone age hunter-gatherer adaptations in Northern Spain, Anthropological research papers 36. Tempe: Arizona State University.
Straus, L.G., and G.A. Clark. 1986b. La Riera: Archaeological remains–level content and characteristics. In La Riera Cave, ed. L.G. Straus and G.A. Clark, 75–188. Tempe: Arizona State University.
Straus, L.G., and G.A. Clark. 1986c. Synthesis and conclusions–Part II: The La Riera excavation, paleoenvironments and cultural sequence in perspective. In La Riera Cave, ed. L.G. Straus and G.A. Clark, 367–384. Tempe: Arizona State University.
Straus, L.G., G.A. Clark, J. Ordaz, L. Suarez, and R. Esbert. 1986. Patterns of lithic raw material variation at La Riera. In La Riera Cave, ed. L.G. Straus and G.A. Clark, 189–208. Tempe: Arizona State University.
Vega del Sella, Conde De La. 1916. PaleolÃtico de Cueto de la Mina (Memoria 13). Madrid: Comisión de Investigaciones Paleontológicas y Prehistóricas.
Vega del Sella, Conde De La 1930. Las Cuevas de La Riera y Balmori (Asturias) (Memoria 38). Comisión de Investigaciones Paleontológicas y Prehistóricas.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Straus, L.G., Clark, G.A. (2018). La Riera Cave: Geography and Culture. In: Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_1327-2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_1327-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51726-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51726-1
eBook Packages: Springer Reference HistoryReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities