In the hottest summer in history, the semi-desert area of Los Monegros, Spain, provides us with an extraordinary story of adaptation and survival to climate changes around 6200 BC. A team of archaeologists from the University of Pisa engaged in the ‘MesoHistories’ project, directed by Niccolò Mazzucco, Professor at the University of Pisa and Javier Rey Lanaspa, archaeologist from the Government of Aragon, have found the traces.
“The scenario that is unfolding is of great interest not only archaeologically,” explains Professor Niccolò Mazzucco. “In almost a month of excavations at the site called ‘PBM’, located in Sariñena (Huesca, Spain), we have unearthed the remains of at least one hut, with post holes, four hearths in a pit, charred remains, some triangular and trapezoidal shape arrow heads, characteristic of the Mesolithic period, and a flint working area.
“This is the oldest site discovered in the Los Monegros area so far: an open-air encampment from the Mesolithic period, which takes us back to the time of the last nomadic hunters, gatherers, fishermen who lived here at a time of severe climatic crisis, one of the coldest and driest periods of the current geological era, the Holocene”, Professor Mazzucco continues. The remains found will help us understand how these human beings tried to adapt themselves to the new environmental condition brought about by what is referred to as event 8.2 ka, i.e., the abrupt cooling of 1-3 °C that affected a large part of the northern hemisphere about 8,200 years ago and lasted about 160 years”.
The investigation of the archaeological finds is still ongoing, but the first results of the pollen analyses tell us of an environment that was extremely different from that of today. The data, in fact, indicate that in that prehistoric period the excavation site would have been characterised mainly by a semi-open landscape, dominated by species such as cypress and juniper. In addition to this, a swamp appears to have been present in this corner of the current Los Monegros desert.
It was on its shores that the group of nomadic hunters, gatherers, probably small, had built their camp, for hunting mammals and birds, as evidenced by some bone remains found during the excavation and which tell us of a significant change in diet.
“Bird hunting was not very common and it is often difficult to document it archaeologically. In the case of ‘PBM’, the abundance of bird and small mammal bones found, might suggest a change in the diet of these hunters, gatherers and fishermen who had adapted to the new, harsher climatic conditions,” Niccolò Mazzucco concludes. “The increase in the number and type of prey hunted compared to a diet otherwise mainly based on hunting large ungulates, such as deer, wild boar, or wild goats, is often a reflection of an adaptation to new environmental conditions, to a change in the mobility and economic strategies of these groups. Although it is still too early to draw conclusions given that only laboratory analyses will be able to clarify the actual composition of the hunted species, ‘PBM’ is a site that may offer new insights into the interpretation of this last phase of life of European hunter-gatherer-fishermen, at the dawn of the Neolithic revolution, which a few centuries after 6200 BC brought new upheavals with the arrival of the domestication of animals and the beginning of agriculture.
The excavation campaign, which started in July, is the third one at the ‘PBM’ site, it is part of the ‘MesoHistories’ project, directed by Niccolò Mazzucco, Professor at the University of Pisa (Italy), and Javier Rey Lanaspa, archaeologist at the Government of Aragon. In the scientific group are Aitor Ruiz-Redondo, Professor at the University of Zaragoza and researcher at the University of Zaragoza, Ignacio Clemente Conte, researcher at IMF-CSIC, and Ermengol Gassiot from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. This third campaign involved the participation of students from the Universities of Pisa and Zaragoza and it lasted approximately three weeks, during which the excavation operations were concluded, defining more precisely the extent of the occupation and the activities carried out, as well as the collection of new samples for chronological and environmental analyses.
Follow the Instagram profile @mesohistories for updating on the PBM excavation.