Abstract: We reconstruct the subsistence strategies of foragers during the Cantabrian Lower Magdalenian (19.3?18ka cal BP) based on an extensive archaeofaunal assemblage from El Miron´ Cave. The cave, situated in the montane interior of northern Atlantic Iberia, likely served as a repeatedly occupied, long-term residential base camp for mobile hunter-gatherers in the post-LGM period. The exploitation of ungulates was intensive and versatile, as evidenced by skinning, disarticulation, filleting cut marks, and impact marks on cancellous and long bones (for extraction of grease and marrow) from Spanish ibex and red deer. El Miron´ Cave was an integral site in a Lower Magdalenian band territory centered on a major river valley in eastern Cantabria (the Ason), ´ serving both logistical and residential purposes (sensu L.R. Binford). Our detailed multifactorial analysis of animal remains from a complex palimpsest accumulation (so typical of the Cantabrian Lower Magdalenian at classic coastal zone sites such as Altamira, El Juyo, or El Castillo) provides valuable insights into the specific subsistence and set tlement dynamics of hunter-gatherers in the Cantabrian mountains during the post-LGM period when there is genetic evidence for important human population changes in Western Europe

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