A study led by the CENIEH presents the results of the investigations undertaken at the site of Portalón del Tejadilla, in Segovia, which have confirmed the presence of species adapted to an extremely arid and cold environment, and which occupied the Segovian plateau from 39,000 to 34,000 years ago.
A study just published by the journal Quaternary Science Reviews, headed by Nohemi Sala, an expert on taphonomy at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), presents the results of the investigations carried out in the cave site of Portalón del Tejadilla in Segovia, which confirm a cold and extremely arid climate at a latitude never previously documented in the Iberian Peninsula.
The current archaeological evidence points to a hiatus in Paleolithic populations in the center of the Peninsula coinciding with the peak of the climatic period termed Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3), between 42,000 and 28,000 years ago. This paucity in the archaeological record makes the task of reconstructing the climatic and ecological conditions of the Iberian Peninsula and therefore hampers understanding of the extent to which the climate influenced the dynamics of the human populations.
Analysis of the faunal remains at Portalón del Tejadilla has made it possible to infer climatic conditions indicating a period of extreme aridity and cold in an open environment, compatible with the ecosystems of Eurasian steppe-tundra.
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