The Middle-Upper Quaternary in the eastern Bay of Málaga. Transgresive surface of erosion and archaeologicals, continentals and marines deposits

Abstract

El Candado-La Araña coastline is modelled in such a way that it points to a polygenic origin which is closely linked to sea level eustatic changes. The identified landforms are related to platforms of marine abrasion and to sea or continental deposits (concealed and on surface); in many instances archaeological and paleontologic materials have been detected, and thanks to this we have been able to assess chronostratigrafically some of these series. In this paper we review the main geomorphologic traits linked to the glacioeustatic; and from a historiographic revision and prospections we reach a geomorphologic and archaeological sequence of data. In the studied area, the following gemorphological and archeological registers are to be underlined: a) Two marine abrasion platforms: The Candado-La Araña, widely mentioned in the bibliography and located between +30-60 meters; the Cantera Principal (the main quarry), which up to the present time remains difficult to identify, but new data allow to recognise this statement as well as to limit it between +120-135 meters. b) Fossil marine terraces and fillers of sea origin: the amount of registers of fossil marine terraces has been increased and up to 9 levels have been established; fillers of joints and cavities with marine sediments appear up to +80 meters level, although in terms of chronology they are inferior to beach deposits. c) Continental deposits, from which we shall point out: talud slopes, wich repeat a prograding model related to marine regressions and carbonate crusts (caliches), whose interest lies in its climatic meaning and in the fact that they fossilize and protect the underlying (continental and marine) deposits which are dated in a loose way, and deposits with archaeological materials, whose 33 sites and locations with traces of anthropic origin allow to precise chronologically some of the features of the paleogeographic sequence of the area. As to the chrono-cultural sequence of the recent Quaternary in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, although good series exist such as Cueva Bajondillo and Cueva de Nerja, the enclaves of the kartisc complex of La Araña represent a special potential resource in order to expand, qualify and enrich the cultural, economical and social dynamics of the human population between c. 125.000 and 5.000 years before present. To sum up, the eastern part of the Bay of Málaga is a highly interesting geographical area for the study of the coastline evolution in the southern part of the Iberian peninsula as well as for the search of the paleoclimatic dynamic an chronocultural elements during the Upper Pleistocene in the SW tip of Europe.