Stone Pages - Archaeo News (Iberian Penisnula)

Pendant could be the oldest found at open-air digs in Spain

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 12:51:33 +0100

A pendant discovered last Summer at the Irikaitz archaeological site in Zestoa (in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa, Spain) may be as old as 25,000 years, which would make it the oldest found at open-air excavations throughout the whole of the Iberian Peninsula. The stone is nine centimetres long, has a hole through one end, and was used to sharpen tools. Team leader Alvaro Arrizabalaga: "Almost every year some archaeological artefact of great value is discovered; at times, even 8 or 10. It is a highly fruitful location".
Irikaitz lies behind the bath spa in Zestoa, on the other side of the river Urola. Mr Arrizabalaga - from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) - has been carrying out excavations here summer after summer, together with students and researchers from this and other universities and in cooperation with Aranzadi Science Society. Since 1998 they have uncovered 32 square metres, compared to the 8 hectares or more this site covers.
According to Arrizabalaga, when they started, "We did not know what to expect - either about its chronology or about the kinds of remains likely to be uncovered". They were fascinated when they came across 'totally exotic' raw material: volcanic stones. Says Arrizabalaga, "It is a geological rarity. In the Urola River valley there is a layer of volcanic stones; the river cut through these, took them to the surface and brought them to this place. This is why humans from prehistory came here - there was no other place in the Basque Country with stones like these".
Dating in Irikaitz is very difficult, as there are hardly any organic remains - the earth is so acidic that it has consumed almost everything, leaving only stone tools and plant fossils - thus there are few means for dating certain finds.
There were two periods of human occupation in Irikaitz, the most recent being 25,000 years ago - the pendant discovered this summer being from that time. The older occupation dates from the early Stone Age (Lower Palaeolithic), between 500,000 and 150,000 years ago - a margin of 350,000 years - and the team are currently applying tests in an effort to determine more precise dates for this level.

Edited from Basque Research, Physorg.com, ScienceDaily (27 December 2011)

Brain structures separate us from Neanderthals

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 10:27:30 +0100

Modern humans possess brain structures larger than their Neanderthal counterparts, suggesting we are distinguished from them by different mental capacities. We are currently the only extant human lineage, but Neanderthals, our closest-known evolutionary relatives, still walked the Earth as recently as 24,000 years ago.
To find out more, researchers used CT scanners to map the interiors of five Neanderthal skulls as well as four fossil and 75 contemporary human skulls to determine the shapes of their brains in three dimensions. The investigators discovered modern humans possess larger olfactory bulbs at the base of their brains. This area is linked primarily with smell, but also with other key mental functions such as memory and learning. Intriguingly, smell may also play a social role, such as for recognising family and friends and reinforcing group cohesion.
Compared with Neanderthals, modern humans also possess larger temporal lobes, an area near the base of the brain. "Neuroscientists relate temporal lobes with language functions, long-term memory, theory of mind (the ability to consider the perspective of others), and also emotions," says Markus Bastir, a paleo-anthropologist at Spain's National Museum of Natural Sciences, in Madrid. We also have a relatively wider orbito-frontal cortex than Neanderthals, a part of the brain immediately above the eyes. The area is linked with decision-making.
All in all, it remains unclear exactly how these brain differences might have set us apart from Neanderthals, Bastir cautioned. We only know how these skulls moulded themselves around these brains, and not the precise structures of the brains in question.

Edited from LiveScience (13 December 2011), ScienceDaily (14 December 2011)

Economic crisis saves Spanish ancient sites

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:06:08 +0100

The Aljarafe region outside the city of Seville in southern Spain is believed to house Europe's most extensive grouping of tholos dolmens, dating back some 5,000 years. Many were buried under new construction during a decade-long building craze that swept across Spain.
Dolmens were erected around Western Europe, from Ireland to the Baltics, starting about 7,000 years ago. Human remains have been found in or near many of them, leading to the theory that they are tombs.
The debt crisis ravaging Spain's economy has saved some of the dolmens by freezing funds for construction, but also means scarce money to explore these little-known Copper Age settlements. Plans to create an archaeological park in Aljarafe with a visitors' centre, museum and route from the dolmens to the nearby Phoenician artefacts of El Carambolo and the Roman city Italica are at a standstill.
Juan Manuel Vargas is head archaeologist in Valencina de la Concepcion, a small town outside of Seville and home to many dolmens, two of which - La Pastora and Matarrubilla - are open to the public and receive about 10,000 visitors a year. La Pastora boasts the longest corridor ever discovered in a passage grave in Europe, while Matarrubilla houses a stone altar inside its burial chamber.
In neighbouring Castilleja de Guzman, the unique two-chamber Montelirio dolmen was nearly suffocated by plans to build a supermarket and a retirement home. In 2007, archaeologists discovered in one chamber the remains of what they thought was a chieftain, and to their surprise, 19 women believed to have drunk a poison in a ritual to accompany their leader on his journey to the netherworld sitting in a circle in the adjacent chamber.
"Montelirio offers important clues into these societies and their possible burial rituals," said archaeologist Vicente Aycart. "Spain has enormous opportunities to further boost cultural tourism linked to music, history, architecture and archaeology," said Jose Luis Zoreda, CEO of Spanish tourist lobby Exceltur. Jorge Arevalo, vice president of a dolmen protection association said, "The real gem of these places is the scientific depth that we don't even know yet. If we don't take care of it, future generations won't be able to enjoy it. We have a responsibility to history."

Edited from Reuters (12 December 2011)

Art hints prehistoric men pierced their privates

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 11:27:45 +0100

Paleolithic phallic art suggests that many early European men scarred, pierced and tattooed their penises. The practice appears to have been most common in France and Spain around 12,000 years ago. The meaning of the symbols remains a mystery, but many match images found on cave art from the same period.
Analysis of phallic decorations in Paleolithic art, described in the December issue of The Journal of Urology, may also show evidence of the world's first known surgery performed on a male genital organ. The alteration, or surgery, might have just been for ornamental purposes, or a piercing, the researchers suggest.
Lead author Javier Angulo, chair of the Department of Urology at Hospital Universitario de Getafe in Spain, explains that, like today, tattooing and manipulation of body parts have always functioned as a way for people to express themselves. "[People] may feel that scars are a written story on the skin," he said. "The face and areas around natural orifices are parts of the body with a higher tendency to be decorated and shown."
Angulo and colleagues Marcos García-Díez and Marc Martínez studied male genital representations in portable, mostly handheld sizes of art made in Europe approximately 38,000 to 11,000 years ago. The pieces, researchers say, frequently mirrored what actually appeared on the male penis. "Modern primitives did modify their bodies, including their genitals, with the use of tattooing, perforations and cuttings (scars) to change their appearance," Angulo said. They therefore believe it is "highly probable that the marks left on these phalli are not decorative for the sake of the piece of art but rather a depiction of real-life details."
Many of the marks are geometric shapes, such as triangles or circles. Some designs appear to match those of figures seen within Paleolithic cave art from the same regions. This suggests that the symbols may have held important meanings for people then. Angulo added that possible explanations for the symbols include: "territorial signs or landmarks, shamanistic repetitive marks in the passage to an unconscious world, some forms of primitive counting, the investigation of non-figurative artistic expression playing with spaces and light and darkness... Who knows?"
What is clear is that phallic decoration became more prevalent among men of the Magdalenian Culture in France and Spain about 12,000 years ago. Another finding of the study is that prehistoric men seemed to favor preputial retraction. As a result, the scientists think it's likely that early males practiced circumcision. To this day, ritual or religious circumcisions occur within several cultures.
For the prehistoric cultures, Angulo believes that their 'canon of beauty' changed over time. Earlier humans of the Gravettian culture appear to have favored more exaggerated depictions of sexuality, as is evident in many of their 'Venus' figurines of naked women. The Magdalenians, on the other hand, had a more naturalistic concept of beauty, according to the authors.

Edited from Discovery News (11 November 2011)

Saving Altamira cave

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 22:25:48 +0100

Scientists and managers of the World Heritage Site of Altamira Cave in the Cantabria region of Spain are deeply concerned that recent calls to reopen the cave, closed to mass tourism since 1977, would lead to the cave paintings' destruction.
Recent studies have shown that intense human traffic caused the deterioration of the paintings, produced by modern humans living in or near the cave between 18,500 and 14,000 years ago.
The cave was first discovered in 1897 by amateur archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, who interpreted the paintings as belonging to the late Palaeolithic era - claims considered controversial until several other similar sites were discovered in 1902. The artwork - which includes images of bison, dear, wild boar, horses, goats, abstract shapes and handprints - was created from pigments made from ochre, hematite and charcoal, and is considered among the most complex Palaeolithic art ever found. In 2008, scientists using Uranium-thorium dating techniques determined that some of the artwork may be between 25,000 and 35,000 years old.

Edited from NewScientist, Popular Archaeology (6 October 2011)

One of the oldest handles in the history of archaeology

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:10:20 +0100

A team from IPHES (the Catalan 'Institute of Human Palaeo-ecology and Social Evolution', in northeast Spain) found the imprint of the oldest wooden handle on record in the history of archaeology. The artefact was found in the Abric Romani site, in Capellades (Barcelona). It is the only object with this shape discovered during more than one hundred years of archaeological studies on this site.
Part of the artefact is the handle and the rest is triangular/oval in shape. Its use or function is unknown, as nothing like it had ever been found before in the records of late Pleistocene, but its form suggests a tool for tending fires. It was made out of coniferous wood, is partially carbonised, and has been preserved by travertine - a type of stone characterising the site. It is 32 centimetres long and 8 centimetres wide.
The level at which this fossil is found is over 55,000 years old, and belongs to the late Pleistocene era. The context in which it appeared indicates that Neanderthal hunter-gatherers occupied this area. A series of houses was found with remains of deer, horses and cattle. Adjacent to these is an important industry based on flint-knapping, and another type of wood that was used for fuel, as well as other objects such as those found on higher levels which could have been used as trays.

Edited from IPHES (October 2011)

'The Girl from the Lozoya Valley'

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:55:23 +0100

There is a very famous archaeological site, near Madrid in Spain, known as the Calvero de la Higuerra site in Pinilla del Valle. Excavations have been carried out there for over ten years, funded by a 180,000 Euro grant from the Spanish Regional Department of Arts, Education and the Environment. This site has proved itself to be one of the richest paleoarchaeological sites in Europe and has yielded more than 3,000 fauna fossils so far.
However, a new find has been described as being so important that the Vice-Premier of the regional government, Ignacio Gonzalez, has orderd the purchase of more land, to expand the excavations. The find is that of four teeth belonging to a two and a half year old girl, dated at approximately 40,000 BCE, placing her with a Neanderthal family.
The child has been nicknamed as 'The Girl from the Lozoya Valley'. The leader of the excavation, Enrique Baquedano, is quoted as saying "It's an extraordinary discovery. Not only because of the enormous quantity of biological and genetic information that the teeth, due to their hardness, provide, but also because the discovery of dental pieces happens in a specific context - that is to say, within a series of elements and references that allow us to generalise the scientific knowledge [the discovery] provides". "There are no previous examples of similar finds in the Madrid area, it is very important in the Iberian Peninsula and, in truth, relevant for Europe".
It is hoped that the study of the DNA extracted from the teeth will enable the team to ascertain her diet, vocal ability annd brain capacity.

Edited from El Pais (15 September 2011)

An early understanding of tides - Part 2

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:54:36 +0100

Back on August 2011 we commented on some findings from South Africa which showed that early Homo Sapiens had developed knowledge of tides, to enable him to harvest brown mussels and sea snails which were only accessible at low tide. As Homo Sapiens migrated north, into the coastal areas of the Mediterranean, he took the knowledge with him, to exploit the seas in his new territories.
It would appear now that he either shared this knowledge with local Neanderthals or they copied him or they developed it themselves. A team comprising archaeologists from Seville University, Spain and the Spanish National Council for Scientific Investigation (CSIC) have been working in a cave in Torremolinos, on Spain's Costa del Sol.
Their finds date from approximately 150,000 BCE and the remains of shellfish and marine animals have been found, similar to those ast Pinnacle Point in South Africa. Some of the remains contained burned mussel shells, which suggests that they preferred their shellfish cooked and there is evidence of tools being used to crack open the shells.
The interesting point to note is that this find is contemporaneous with the South African find, which poses the question as to why both Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens evolved in quite diverse ways when, at one point, they were following the same behavioural path. The leader of the team from Seville University, Miguel Cortes Sanchez, is quoted as saying "It provides evidence for the exploitation of coastal resources by Neanderthals at a much earlier time than any of those previousl reported".

Edited from The Telegraph (15 September 2011)

Stone with 1,200 prehistoric engravings uncovered in Portugal

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 11:09:10 +0100

Recent archaeological investigations in northern Portugal have uncovered a number of prehistoric sites and artefacts, including rock art and engravings at Laje da Churra in the Serra de Santa Luzia near Viana do Castelo. An archaeologist working for ENARDAS, which is coordinating the project, said that the flat stone discovered around 40 years ago in Carreço parish, is today one of the most important artefacts with engravings.
"We are talking about a flat stone, from which our investigation has identified 1,200 engraving motifs, when initially only around 10 were identified. And the stone is broken, which gives us an idea of the size it could have been in prehistory," said Ana Bettencourt. She estimates that the site where the stone was discovered could have been used as a sacred place from as early as 3,000 or 4,000 BCE. "We don't know exactly when the place became sacred or symbolic, for people. But it was used by various communities until the Iron Age," she said.
Aside from the flat stone and engravings of horses, weapons and boats have also been unearthed at the site.
Laje da Churra is one of 10 sites of interest that have been identified since May by archaeologists working in the Serra de Santa Luzia on a project promoted by specialists from Minho University due to last until 2013. The aim of this project is to study prehistoric remains from between 5,000 and 1,000 BCE, making an inventory and studying places with burial rock art and metal deposits.

Edited from The Portugal News Onlone (17 September 2011)

25,000-year-old pendant unearthed in Spain

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:40:01 +0100

A pendant some 25,000 years old has been found in the Irikaitz dig in northern Spain's Basque region by archaeologists from the Sociedad Aranzadi. The piece, an oblong gray smooth stone some 10 centimeters (4 inches) in length, is perforated at one end and apparently was hung from a thong or cord around a person's neck, according to the director of the excavation, Alvaro Arrizabalaga, who added that the other end of the stone was used as a tool to retouch the edges of tools made from flint, like arrows or scrapers.
Arrizabalaga said that the pendant is older than other such items found so far in the Praileaitz cave which are estimated to be some 15,000 years old. In addition, he said that there have been "some 20 pieces from this same epoch" found on the Iberian peninsula to date, with the peculiar unifying element that they have always been found in caves. "The piece is very well preserved and we've been lucky to be able to remove it without damaging it in any way" from the dig near the town of Zestoa, Arrizabalaga said.
The dig leader said the pendant "is not going to need any more restoration," and after experts study it and include it in the collection of Cro Magnon discoveries found at the site, it will be placed in the hands of a public museum. "Twenty-five thousand years ago, human beings of our species came to this place that functioned as a hunting place for wandering groups" the archaeologist said, adding that the groups of humans "moved eight times per year to zones where there were specific types of resources."
The Irikaitz deposit, where archaeologists began working in 1998, is known for being the site of discoveries of pieces up to 250,000 years old, a period when the precursors of Homo sapiens were still in existence.

Edited from Fox News Latino (10 August 2011)

8,000-year-old dog tomb discovered in Portugal

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 16:25:37 +0100

Archaeologists have discovered an unprecedented 8,000-year-old dog tomb - the oldest in southern Europe - in a shell mound near the Portuguese town of Alcaçer do Sal.
Project co-director Mariana Diniz said the find held 'significant importance' because previously there had been no such sign of ancient "'canine symbology' in southern Europe, in contrast to northern parts of the continent. "Eight thousand years ago [southern] communities domesticated dogs, an animal with an economic role, but also a symbolic one", Ms. Diniz said. "The ritual burial of dogs was done with care, not just any way, with special significance", she added of the find.
Lisbon's National Museum of Archaeology has dispatched a specialist team to the site to consolidate and remove the tomb for conservation and future public display. The find was made by archaeologists from Lisbon University and the Spanish University of Cantabria.

Edited from The Portugal News Online (9 July 2011)

More on prehistoric cave art discovered in Basque Country

Fri, 20 May 2011 22:17:12 +0100

In the locally well-known cave of Askondo, near the industrial town of Mañaria in northwest Spain, researchers unexpectedly discovered faint red images of horses and hand prints, dating back some 25,000 years.
Diego Garate of the Archaeological Museum of Biscay in Bilbao, and Joseba Rios-Garaizar of the Max Planck Institute, entered the cave to search for bones, tools, and other artefacts. Only on their way out of the cave did they noticed the paintings that they and many others had missed before. Unlike many other caves, Askondo can still be entered by the same passage used by the painters of the cave.
Says Garate, "The paintings located in the cave of Askondo could be contemporary to the first stage of decoration of Altamira" [where the first European cave art was discovered in 1879]. "There are other caves in the north of Spain with red painted animals near the entrance of the cave, in zones of semi-darkness." [In contrast to many of the more famous caves in Europe, where images are found in the darkest regions.]
Garate explains, "The advantage of the cave of Askondo is that it is halfway between [Spain and France]. This is reflected in the iconography - with some rather Pyrenean (French) elements like bones fitted into the walls, and some Cantabrian (Spanish) elements like twin outlines - and with other more general elements that appear on a large scale throughout Western Europe like the horses with 'duck bills', or the hand prints."

National Geographic News (13 May 2011)

25,000-year-old cave paintings discovered in Spain

Thu, 05 May 2011 19:02:28 +0100

Paintings depicting horses and human hands made by prehistoric humans around 25,000 years ago have been discovered in a cave in northern Spain. The red paintings, found by chance by archaeologists looking for signs of ancient settlements, were made around the same time as the Altamira Cave paintings - some of the world's best prehistoric paintings discovered in Spain in 1879.
"It was a chance finding," archaeologist Diego Garate said. "Although they were difficult to spot because they are badly deteriorated, our experienced eye helped us to identify them." Experts will further explore the caves for evidence of prehistoric utensils or tools, officials said.

Edited from Reuters (4 May 2011)

Earliest evidence for magic mushroom use in Europe

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:09:57 +0100

A prehistoric painting in a cave near the town of Villar del Humo, in the province of Cuenca in east-central Spain, may depict fungi with hallucinogenic properties, suggesting that Europeans may have used magic mushrooms 6000 years ago - the oldest evidence for their use in Europe.
An image of a bull dominates the Selva Pascuala mural, but it is a row of 13 small mushroom-like objects that interests Brian Akers at Pasco-Hernando Community College in New Port Richey, Florida (USA), and Gaston Guzman at the Ecological Institute of Xalapa in Mexico. They believe that the objects are the fungi Psilocybe hispanica, a local species with hallucinogenic properties.
Like the objects depicted in the mural, Psilocybe hispanica has a bell-shaped cap topped with a dome, and lacks an annulus - a ring around the stalk. "Its stalks also vary from straight to sinuous, as they do in the mural," says Akers.
A 7000 to 9000 year old Algerian mural that may show the species Psilocybe mairei is the oldest prehistoric painting thought to depict magic mushrooms.

Edited from NewScientist (6 March 2011)

New insight into Neanderthal family groupings

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:09:36 +0100

Following the discovery of the remains of a group of Neanderthals, in a cave in Northern Spain, analysts have uncovered new information which leads to the belief that rather than living as groups of individuals, they lived in small, related families. The discovery dates back to 47,000 BCE, towards the end of the Neanderthal Era. At first the remains of this mass murder were thought to be victims of the Spanish Civil War, when the cave was used as a hide-out for Republicans. In total, over 1,800 bone fragments were found, mixed up in gravel and mud, which suggested that they had died elsewhere, outside the cave. There were no bones or remains of any animals found in the cave and the only other finds were fragments of Neanderthal stone blades. Link that to the fact that the bone fragments showed signs of cut marks, and the conclusion is reached that they were the victims of cannabalism.
The DNA findings are more interesting. In total, 12 individuals were identified. Following detailed testing it was found that 7 of the 12 had mitochrondial lineage & all 12 shared the same HVR1 and HVR2 stretches of DNA. The conclusion being that they were a closely related family group. Dr Carles Lalueza-Fox, of Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, the leader of the research, explains what this means. "If you go to the street and sample 12 individuals at random, there's no way you're going to find 7 out of 12 with the same mitochrondial lineage. But if you go to the birthday party for a grandmother, chances are you'll find brothers and sisters and first cousins. You'd easily find 7 with the same mitochrondial lineage".
These conclusions have already been challenged. One noteworthy sceptic is Linda Vigilant, an anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. Her work with wild chimpanzees has shown that some primates with identical HVR1 and HVR2 stretches are not closely related. She did, however, think it was "a nice start".

Edited from Science, The New York Times (20 December 2010), BBC News (21 December 2010)