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Abstract: This paper will focus on the ecology of the first Anatomically Modern Humans in SW Iberia based on the rock shelter of Vale Boi (Algarve, Portugal), a site with a long stratigraphic record starting with Late Middle Paleolithic followed by early Gravettian, Proto-Solutrean, Solutrean, and Magdalenian. Early Gravettian remains are present in various areas and different levels of the site, and are dated to c. 32 ka cal BP, corresponding to the earliest modern human occupation in SW Iberia. These communities most likely came from the Iberian Mediterranean coast as bone technology and body ornaments seem to confirm. The Gravettian of Vale Boi provides clear evidence of an intensification and diversification of dietary resources from very early, including the use of grease-rendering. Here, reconstruction of the Gravettian human ecology at Vale Boi is based on the diversity of human occupations, focusing mostly on diachronic changes in the patterns of resources acquisition and land-use, but also on subsistence, technological, social and symbolic elements. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The coastal site of Vale Boi is unique in southern Portugal for its well-preserved and lengthy Upper Paleolithic cultural record. The archaeological context of Vale Boi suggests that the site was treated as a seasonal residential camp. Long-term exploitation of marine resources is indicated by marine shellfish remains and tentative evidence of fishing. High-level exploitation of rabbits (Oryctolagus) began with the initial use of Vale Boi (c. 28,000 BP) and continued throughout the duration of site occupation. Intensive grease-rendering of ungulate bones is demonstrated by the presence of impact features, reduced presence of skeletal portions associated with increased quantities of bone grease and a significant correlation between the fragmentation of red deer (Cervus elaphus) remains and the quantities of marrow and bone grease within these portions. Although grease rendering at Vale Boi pre-dates other known sites in Eurasia by several thousand years, faunal assemblages in Mediterranean Spain suggest that resource diversification connected with intensification may have appeared there coevally with Vale Boi. The application of models of diet breadth and patch-choice suggests that southern Iberia may not have had the large and medium game to easily support human consumer demand. Instead, foragers may have had to turn to novel approaches of resource harvesting to maintain their needs. This set of circumstances may have arisen from a patchy landscape, where resources were either spatially and/or seasonally restricted. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Before the 90s, data on Paleolithic human occupation of southern Portugal was very scarce. During the last decade, the knowledge of the Upper Paleolithic of Algarve increased substantially due to the work of a research team based at the University of Algarve. The present paper is a report on the recent results from Algarve, focusing specially on the site of Vale Boi. It will present the chronology and stratigraphy of different human occupations from the early Upper Paleolithic up to the early Neolithic. It will focus on aspects of zooarchaeology and the exploitation of large and medium mammals as well as on marine fauna. In addition, we will present new data on stone and bone tools. Finally, we will also refer to the social and symbolic aspects present at the site, base on shell and teeth pendants and to an engraved plaquette with animal motifs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]