The Iberian Peninsula is a key region for unraveling human settlement histories of Eurasia during the period spanning the decline of Neandertals and the emergence of anatomically modern humans (AMH). There is no evidence of human occupation in central Iberia after the disappearance of Neandertals ~42,000 years ago until approximately 26,000 years ago, rendering the region "nobody's land" during the Aurignacian period. The Abrigo de la Malia provides irrefutable evidence of human settlements dating back to 36,200 to 31,760 calibrated years before the present (cal B.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAtxurra cave has a decorated assemblage composed of more than a hundred engraved animal depictions. All of them are located in deep parts of the cave and most of them are hidden in raised areas, away from the main path. The main sector is the "Ledge of the Horses", located at 330 m from the entrance of the cave.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Modern period in Europe is marked by the introduction of deep agricultural changes. In the Basque Country (northern Spain), the implantation of an intensive crop rotation was made possible by the expansion of agricultural liming, although the extent and implications of this practice have not been previously explored in depth. The present paper proposes a multidisciplinary approach to this question, based on the combined analysis of archival sources, toponymy, visual prospection focused on the presence of limekilns, and agricultural soil coring in four local contexts of the Atlantic Basque Country.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe renewal of the archaeological record, mainly through the discovery of unpublished sites, provides information that sometimes qualifies or even reformulates previous approaches. One of the latter cases is represented by the three new decorated caves found in 2015 in Aitzbitarte Hill. Their exhaustive study shows the presence of engraved animals, mainly bison, with formal characteristics unknown so far in the Palaeolithic art of the northern Iberian Peninsula.
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