This presentation offers new information about the remains of marine invertebrates (molluscs and crustaceans) from two sites with late Pleistocene levels in the Province of Malaga (southeast Spain): Mina Chamber in Nerja Cave (Maro) and Victoria Cave (Rincón de la Victoria).
The mollusc assemblages, from Levels 15 and 16 at Nerja and the shell-midden at Cueva Victoria, dated to ca. 12,100 BP (ca. 14,200 cal BP), consist mostly of grooved carpet clams Ruditapes decussatus (>75%). Mussels (Mytilus edulis), limpets (Patella sp.) and turbinate monodonts (Phorcus turbinatus) are also present. Additionally, some shells of mollusc species with no nutritional value were picked up on beaches and turned into beads (e.g. Littorina obtusata and Tritia pellucida)
In turn, an opportunistic gathering of different crab species has been observed. Crustaceans have also provided indirect evidence of the consumption of beached cetaceans at both sites. The presence of plates of Tubicinella major, a barnacle endemic to the southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) shows that meat and fat of this cetacean were consumed by the hunting-gathering-shellfishing groups that lived on the Mediterranean coasts of Iberia in the upper Magdalenian