Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar (Murcia, Spain): A late Early Pleistocene hominin site with an “Acheulo-Levalloiso-Mousteroid” Palaeolithic assemblage M.J. Walker a, * , M. López-Martínez b , J.S. Carrión-García c , T. Rodríguez-Estrella d , M. San-Nicolás del-Toro e , J.-L. Schwenninger f , A. López-Jiménez a , J. Ortega-Rodrigáñez a , M. Haber-Uriarte g , J.-L. Polo-Camacho h , J. García-Torres i , M. Campillo-Boj j , A. Avilés-Fernández k , W. Zack l a Área de Antropología Física, Departamento de Zoología y Antropología Física, Universidad de Murcia, Facultad de Biología, Campus Universitario de Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain b Calle Pintor Joaquín 10 - 4 a - I, 30009 Murcia, Spain c Área de Botánica, Departamento de Biología Vegetal y Botánica, Universidad de Murcia, Facultad de Biología, Campus Universitario de Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain d Escuela de Ingeniería Minera, Geológica y Cartográfica, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Avenida Alfonso XIII, Cartagena, Murcia, Spain e Servicio de Patrimonio Histórico, Dirrección General de Cultura, Consejería de Educación y Cultura, Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia, 30001 Murcia, Spain f Luminescence Dating Laboratory, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX13QY, UK g Área de Prehistoria, Departamento de Prehistoria, Arqueología, Historia Antigua e Historia Medieval, Facultad de Letras, Campus de la Merced, Universidad de Murcia, 30001 Murcia, Spain h Departamento de Química Inorgánica, Universidad de Murcia, Facultad de Químicas, Campus Universitario de Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain i Departamento de las Ciencias de la Comunicación, Universidad Católica San Antonio, Murcia, Spain j Calle Bélmez 15, 03190 El Pilar de la Horadada, Alicante, Spain k Calle Trébol 2, 30739 San Javier, Murcia, Spain l Department of Geography, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA article info Article history: Available online xxx abstract At Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar biostratigraphy and palaeomagnetism indicate a time in the late Early Pleistocene (i.e. somewhat before the Matuyama-Brunhes boundary of 780,000 a, 0.78 Ma), for the entire 5 m thick sedimentary fill excavated in the rock-shelter, from which there are hominin teeth (cf. Homo heidelbergensis), a rich palaeontological and palaeopalynological record demonstrating warm moist environmental conditions (possibly MIS 21), a fundamentally homogeneous artifact assemblage throughout the sedimentary deposit, and evidence of fire at over 4 m depth. A brief introduction to the site and the assemblage is offered. Palaeolithic artifacts were produced by three different reduction sequences, because: (a) an “Acheulian” hand-axe was flaked bifacially on a flat limestone cobble; (b) several excavated chert flakes had been struck off small cores by recurrent flaking, with one flake showing a facetted striking platform, whilst two surface finds of small discoidal cores bear the broad central concave scar that in a “Levalloisian” prepared-core reduction sequence would correspond to centripetal removal of the final flake; and (c) abundant small artifacts (25e60 mm), mainly of chert, reflect expedient removal of small flakes or fragments from cores, by both unipolar and bipolar reduction techniques, including many keeled pieces that could be residual cores which have notches, slender spurs or beaks (“becs”), or a planoconvex (“slug”-like or “limace”) shape, all of which may be remnants of cores subjected to bipolar knapping, in addition to very small pointed and “awl”-like pieces, and several fragments and flakes with steep abrupt (“Mousteroid”) edge-retouch, and abundant knapping spalls and waste. Although the site had been interpreted conservatively in earlier publications as early Middle Pleistocene, recent palaeomagnetic findings show that the entire sedimentary fill corresponds to the late Early Pleistocene, somewhat over 780,000 a (0.78 Ma), an age which is acceptable from the standpoint of the biostratigraphical data. Among the aims of this paper are: (1) a consideration of the Palaeolithic assemblage in relation to local availability of raw materials of appropriate shapes and petrology for knapping in a palaeoenvironmental context far different from that of today; (2) consideration of the implications for human cognitive and technological evolution in the European late Early Pleistocene; and * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: walker@um.es (M.J. Walker), marianolopez@hotmail.com (M. López-Martínez), carrion@um.es (J.S. Carrión-García), tomas.rodriguez@upct.es (T. Rodríguez-Estrella), miguel.sannicolas@carm.es (M. San-Nicolás del-Toro), jean-luc.schwenninger@rlaha.ox.ac.uk (J.-L. Schwenninger), antlop@um.es (A. López- Jiménez), jonor@um.es (J. Ortega-Rodrigáñez), mariahaber@um.es (M. Haber-Uriarte), jlpolo@um.es (J.-L. Polo-Camacho), jesusgator@hotmail.com (J. García-Torres), matitorero@hotmail.com (M. Campillo-Boj), azuavi@hotmail.com (A. Avilés-Fernández), wzack@email.arizona.edu (W. Zack). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Quaternary International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint 1040-6182/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2012.04.038 Quaternary International xxx (2012) 1e25 Please cite this article in press as: Walker, M.J., et al., Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar (Murcia, Spain): A late Early Pleistocene hominin site with an “Acheulo-Levalloiso-Mousteroid” Palaeolithic assemblage, Quaternary International (2012), doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2012.04.038