From hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies to the Agricultural Revolution: Disentangling Energy Regimes as a complement to cultural phases in Northern Spain

Abstract

The Holocene is defined by the impact of agricultural societies on their natural environments and resources, a paradigmatic shift triggered by the Agricultural Revolution. In Cantabrian Spain, the adoption of a sedentary economy (ca. 7000 cal yr BP) remains misunderstood, with contemporary Mesolithic and Neolithic sites apparently random dispersed. Energy Regimes, a time-independent and functional analysis of past societies, considers two cultures that cohabit and/or cooperate, based on their differential pattern of use of energy and resources, as well as on the variation in land-use strategies. We test and implement the framework of Energy Regimes through a targeted review, to examine the hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies in Cantabrian Spain. Archeological proxies such as demography, mobility, complexity of society, economy, and overexploitation of resources identified in 95 articles and books, allow us to apply Energy Regimes to reexamine transitions in hunter-gatherer societies. Neolithization in Cantabrian Spain is the result of a long process that started with the Solutrean cultural phase ca. 24,000 cal yr BP, during the Last Glacial Maximum. Hunter-gatherers developed onward novel subsistence strategies with subtle changes in energy use until the transition toward a sedentary economy. Energy Regimes provide new insights for other regional contexts where time-bounded analyses conceal the complexity of energy transition processes in Europe and beyond.