This hybrid dissertation explores how hunter-gatherer groups who lived during the Initial and Lower Magdalenian archaeological periods (c.17-14,000 uncal. BP) adapted their lithic technological organization to environmental complexity in the Vasco-Cantabrian region of north coastal Spain. Four manuscripts that examine aspects of Last Glacial hunter-gatherer adaptations are presented in this dissertation. The first paper focuses on how archaeologists examine prehistoric transitions using a case study from Urtiaga cave, Giupuzcoa. This case demonstrates that lithic maintenance was a significant factor in Initial Magdalenian landscape-level adaptations. The second paper summarizes the lithic and osseous industries (the latter studied by L. Straus), recovered from the El Miron cave and demonstrates the sites' importance as a Lower Magdalenian residential site in central Cantabria. The third manuscript explores hunter-gatherer lithic conveyance patterns based on four sites in central Cantabria (Altamira, El Juyo, El Rascano, and El Miron) and proposes that the Lower Magdalenian groups who occupied these sites shared an economic territory that expanded from Cantabria into western Navarra. Local raw material conveyance shows that shifting environmental zones was an important factor in how groups mover through the diverse Cantabrian landscape. The fourth manuscript investigates how Lower Magdalenian groups procured raw materials using a mathematical model that predicts toolstone production efficiency. Using samples from the same four central Cantabrian contexts, the paper explores the relationships among toolstone efficiency, lithic procurement, and Last Glacial mobility. Each case study presented as part of this dissertation contributes to archaeological understanding of how human groups adapted---particularly through technological management and movement---to the complex environments of north coastal Spain during the early Magdalenian period.
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