The anthracological results from la Cova del Sardo (Parc Nacional d’Agüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici, Central Pyrenees)

Abstract

Thanks to the research developed in the Parc Nacional d’Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici (PNAESM) by the GAAM group (Grup d’Arqueologia d’Alta Muntanya) since the early 2000s, more than 350 sites of archaeological interest have been documented. Most of them are related to grazing activity and, although its intensity must have changed through time, some of them show large sequences of occupations. In this poster we present the anthracological data from the prehistorical phases in the Sardo Cave (Parc Nacional d’Aigüestortes I Estany de Sant Maurici, Central Pyrenees), a small settlement facing south at 1790m asl, in the middle of the slope in the Sant Nicolau valley. It was intensely occupied between 4600-2500 cal BC with, usually, two or three hearths per phase. It seems that firewood would have been collected around the site although nowadays, some of the taxa identified grow a little bit far from the site, some meters below as it is the case for deciduous "Quercus". Since wood was also used as building material, the forest around the site was strongly altered by human activities becoming a more open space full of "Juniperus communis".