Barcelona discovered in Neanderthal hunting base – HispanTV, Nexo Latino (Press Release)

50,000 years ago, Neanderthals groups settled in Teixoneres Cave in Moià (the Spanish city of Barcelona), with a single purpose:. Hunting

This is demonstrated a collection of over twenty spearheads found during the excavation campaign this year in this field, under the leadership of the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES), media reported Monday this communication.

The dams of Neanderthals who lived in Moià 50,000 years ago were very different, so it is conceivable that the groups that used the cave during that period did not have a particular preference for none of them, says the IPHES.

According to experts, it happens that many of these tips are broken as a result of being hit on hard surfaces, probably on the bones of their prey . This makes a real Teixoneres hunting season and at the site of Catalonia, and probably one of the Iberian Peninsula, with most useful of this type.

The IPHES pointed out that Neanderthals dams who they lived in Moià 50,000 years ago were very different, so it is conceivable that the groups that used the cave during that period had no particular preference for any of them.

So, numerous remains of horses, deer, aurochs, wild donkeys, deer, goats, chamois, rhinos and rabbits are scattered throughout the area used the site, showing signs of having been intensely roasted and eaten to the core.

Tools with local materials

This represents a substantial change in the dynamics of occupation that had seen so far in the cave. The information obtained in previous campaigns indicated that Teixoneres was commonly used by large carnivores, primarily hyenas cave as a shelter, and that Neanderthal groups visiting the cave on an occasional basis during their transit through the territory.

paleontologists during the excavation campaign in the Cave of Teixoneres.

Instead, the level that has been discovered this year has very little evidence of the presence of carnivores and shows greater occupational stability of human groups. This can be seen especially from the materials they developed their tools. Previously dominated allochthonous materials (from outside the territory where found), as the corneal flint and slate, but now they are local, mostly quartz, which can be found in the form of rounded pebbles in the vicinity of the cave.

habits

Meanwhile, also worked on the Toll Cave. This site is known to contain one of the collections bear the most important caves of the Iberian Peninsula. This year has been excavated one too dated to 50,000 years surface, the same timeline that has hunters camp Teixoneres.

IPHES indicates that the number and quality of the recovered remains is spectacular, 300 remains of cave bear. Including a skull and several long bones of an adult who has been named in honor of Pyro older male there today in the Pyrenees it stands.

These findings help to meet the habits of these animals, which often could compete with Neanderthals for the use of the caves. For those responsible for this campaign, the continuity and quality of the results over ten years ago are finding themselves in the caves of Toll, it is being reflected in the high number of scientific publications in international journals of impact being generating in recent years, with a current ratio of two per year.

mah / KTG / nal