Short, but repeated Neanderthal visits to Teixoneres Cave (MIS 3, Barcelona, Spain): a combined analysis of tooth microwear patterns and seasonality

A new approach combining two proxies is presented with the aim to provide valuable data to better understand the patterns of human occupations in Palaeolithic sites. We employed the analysis of tooth microwear patterns combined with an estimation of the seasonality through tooth eruption and wear patterns of the ungulates. Each proxy brings different types of information. The variability in tooth microwear patterns allows for the estimation of the duration of occupational events at a site while the estimation of seasonality permits to situate temporally these events through the year. The research involved four Middle Palaeolithic archaeological levels from Teixoneres Cave (Moià, Spain). The combined analysis allowed for the identification of different patterns of occupation at the site: (1) short seasonal occupations at a single season such as in level IIa at the beginning of the summer and in level IIb in autumn and early winter, (2) repeated seasonal occupations of the site at all seasons such as in the underlying level IIIa, and (3) repeated seasonal settlements at two specific seasons (summer and winter) as in level IIIb. Our results show congruence between the two methods which imply that combined approaches would allow a better knowledge about the occupations that occurred in the cave, in particular about the duration of Neanderthal occupations.