Nouvelles données sur le Magdalénien inférieur de la Région Cantabrique : le Niveau F de la grotte de El Cierro (Ribadesella, Asturies, Espagne)

El Cierro Cave (Ribadesella, Asturias, Spain), located near the mouth of the River Sella, has yielded one of the most important Upper Palaeolithic sequences in northern Spain. To date, three major occupation periods at the cave have been identified and dated. The first was at the beginning of the Holocene (ca. 8500 BP; ca. 9000 cal BP); the second at the end of the Upper Palaeolithic, in the Younger Dryas (YD) or Greenland Stadial 1 (GS1) (ca. 11.200 BP; 12.700 cal BP) and the third during Greenland Stadial 2 (GS2) (ca. 16.300-15.500 BP; ca. 19.200-18.700 cal BP). This paper describes the stratigraphy documented in the excavations performed by F. Jordá Cerdá and A. Gómez-Fuentes between 1977 and 1979 and presents the first radiocarbon determinations for the first two occupation periods, together with the study of the archaeological materials found in Level F. This level, dated to 15.500 BP (ca. 18.700 cal BP) is characterised by specialised red deer hunting and the gathering of marine resources (winkles). Various artefacts made from animal raw materials have been documented; both finished products and items in the process of being manufactured, as well as portable art objects. The lithic assemblage, consisting mainly of local raw materials with a small proportion of allochthonous flint, is characterised by an abundance of small bladelet cores and backed bladelets. These archaeological remains and the radiocarbon date mean Level F can be attributed to the so-called “Cantabrian Lower Magdalenian”. This period has been documented archaeologically and dated to a similar time at other sites in the River Sella valley and in the rest of northern Spain.