El Abrigo de la Castañera (Cantabria, Spain): A Chalcolithic cattle stable?

This paper discusses the use of El Abrigo de la Castañera (Cantabria, Spain) as a stable during the Chalcolithic. Several lines of archaeological evidence support the use of the rock shelter as a corral. First, in the stratigraphy several fumiers were identified, which were composed of several lenses of gray and black ashes, rich in charcoal and organic matter and accumulated between 3000 and 2200 cal BP. Second, within those fumiers a rich macrofaunal assemblage was recovered. The results of the zooarchaeology study indicate that cattle was the most common species exploited at that time, followed by pigs, while Ovis/Capra are relatively scarce. This particular livestock composition is relatively uncommon within the Iberian context. However, a comparative study with other contemporaneous European sites has shown that the changes in animal exploitation depend on the particular climatic conditions on the Cantabrian region, more similar to the Atlantic ones than the Mediterranean.