Sedimentological and stratigraphic observations in El Mirón, a late Quaternary cave site in the Cantabrian Cordillera, Northern Spain

El Miron cave on the northern edge of the Cantabrian Cordillera is one of the first montane sites in this area to be the object of modern interdisciplinary research. Five excavation seasons have revealed an archaeological sequence attributable to the Medieval, Bronze, Chalcolithic, Neolithic, Mesolithic, Azilian, Magdalenian, and Solutrean periods, and early Upper and Middle Paleolithic levels have just been reached. Forty-four radiocarbon ages range from 900 to 41,000 14C yr B.P. Sediments in the vestibule include sediment redeposited from an ancient colluvial fill in the inner cave, limestone rock fragments, biogenic CaCO3 generated by cryptogamic and vegetation growth on the cave ceiling, eolian silts, bird droppings, and anthropogenic lithic and faunal remains. Sedimentological analyses of the cave fill reported here document the transition from a sandy silt facies with rounded cobbles in the inner vestibule to a carbonate-rich silt facies with angular limestone clasts near the cave mouth. There is no clear regional paleoclimatic signal in the bulk sediment analyses because of the heavy influence of local input and human disturbance. Micromorphology by M.-A. Courty (see Courty and Vallverdu [this issue]; and also Courty et al. [1989]) reveals subtle evidence for some short-term variations that can be correlated with regional paleoclimates, such as the Younger Dryas event. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.