Iberian Neandertal fossils: Exploring funerary practices in a paleoclimatic context.

Script for Mapping Neanderthal fossil Distribution in the Iberian Peninsula

Overview

This repository contains an R script and associated datasets developed as supplementary material for research publication "Iberian Neandertal fossils: Exploring funerary practices in a paleoclimatic context". The script plots Neanderthal fossil sites on an elevation model of the Iberian Peninsula. While originally designed to visualise the distribution of Neanderthal fossil remains, the script can be easily adapted to plot any dataset with spatial coordinates in the region.

Figure. Map generated using the Rscript provided in this repository. Site names were added manually.

📁 Directory structure:

├── Data/
│   ├── World_Countries/                          # Shapefiles for world political boundaries
│   │   ├── TM_WORLD_BORDERS-0.3.dbf
│   │   ├── TM_WORLD_BORDERS-0.3.prj
│   │   ├── TM_WORLD_BORDERS-0.3.shp
│   │   ├── TM_WORLD_BORDERS-0.3.shx
│   │   └── download_info.txt                     # Source and licensing info
│   └── IbP_Neanderthal_sites.csv                 # Database of Iberian Neanderthal fossil sites
├── Outputs/
│   └── Expected_outcome.pdf                      # Representation of the expected result (pdf)
├── images/
│   └── Neanderthals_Iberian_Peninsula_Map.png    # Figure (image)
├── Supplementary_Script_Map.R                    # R script for map generation
└── README.md

📊 Data Description

• Neanderthal fossil sites
  The dataset IbP_Neanderthal_sites.csv includes all recognised Neanderthal fossil sites within the Iberian Peninsula as of January 2025. Coordinates are presented in the WGS 84 coordinate reference system.

• Shapefiles
  The folder Data/World_Countries/ contains vector data for modern country boundaries. The script uses these to define geopolitical context in the final map.

• Automatically downloaded data
  Using the geodata package, the script downloads:

  • Level-1 administrative boundaries for Spain and Portugal
  • Elevation data at 30 arc-seconds resolution for the Iberian Peninsula

⚙️ How to use it

Download ZIP or clone repository.

Run the script Supplementary_Script_Map in Rstudio.

The script will generate a PDF map file under the Outputs/ directory.

📌 Note:

• This script uses relative paths and assumes no modification of the folder hierarchy.
• Please ensure that the folders Data/ and Outputs/ remain in the same directory as the script.
• Input data should be stored in the Data/ folder.

Requirements

• Internet connection is required to download elevation and administrative boundary data from geodata

install.packages(c("terra", "car", "smoothr", "geodata"))

Citation

If you use this repository in your research, please cite: Arteaga-Brieba, A. (2025). Iberian Neandertal fossils: Exploring funerary practices in a paleoclimatic context (v1.0) [Supplementary material]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15683451

Licence

CC-BY-4.0