The Cueva de Los Murciélagos, hanging from a narrow ravine in the Granada town of Albuñol, was exploited in the 19th century to extract bat guano and use it as fertilizer. Later, it became a kind of natural stable to protect the cattle, until a vein of galena appeared and the miners arrived with their picks and shovels. It was then, when removing the blocks to access the mineral, when the cave discovered its true treasure: an interior gallery with partially mummified corpses and extraordinary archaeological remains that at the time they did not know how to preserve adequately, so much of what was there It had ended up destroyed, burned as if it were stubble or in the workers’ houses as a souvenir. Part of the remains that were recovered were taken to the National Archaeological Museum (MAN) in Madrid, where they are still exhibited. However, it has not been until now that a team led by researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) has managed to accurately identify and date the archery equipment of a Neolithic population that used the cave as a burial place ago. about 7,000 years. Among the finds are three cane and wood arrows, one of them preserved with its original bird feathers, and two bowstrings made from animal tendons. These ropes are the oldest found so far in Europe. Nothing remains of the arch itself. science_0059Neolithic weaponry«The identification of these ropes marks a crucial step in the study of Neolithic weaponry. Not only have we been able to confirm the use of animal tendons to manufacture them, we have also been able to identify the species of animal from which they come,” explains Ingrid Bertin, researcher at the UAB and first author of the article published this Thursday in the magazine ‘Scientific Report’. The tendons, also used to fix the feathers and the different elements of the arrows, came from goats, pigs and deer. They were twisted together to create ropes of sufficient length, strong and flexible. Related News standard Yes Did they ever meet? They find for the first time footprints of two different human species crossing each other on the shores of a lake José Manuel Nieves The footprints are 1.5 million years old and, according to researchers, they were left, at most, a few hours apart About 23 centimeters the most complete, «the arrows are very special, a rarity. They are the oldest with feathers attached that have ever been found. We assumed that the shafts had feathers at one end for aerodynamics, but until now this had not been documented,” explains Raquel Piqué, also a researcher at the UAB and co-author of the study. For the shafts, local cane and willow and olive wood were used. “This integration offers a hard and dense front section, complemented by a light rear section, which improves the ballistic properties of the arrows, whose points are made of wood without stone or bone projectiles.” says Bertin. The shafts were coated with birch pitch, a substance that had not been previously identified in prehistoric times in the south of the Iberian Peninsula. The resin was obtained through a controlled heat treatment of the bark of this tree, used not only for its protective properties, but also, probably, decorative.Three Neolithic arrows recovered in the Albuñol cave: made of wood and cane, (above) and details of tied tendon fibers, feathers and adhesives Mutermur ProjectFor Piqué, the study represents “an unprecedented level of analysis. The Bat Cave illustrates to us what is never preserved in archaeological sites, the organic elements, and gives us information that we could not intuit. From a point of lithic stone we know that there is a shaft, but we don’t know what it looks like,” the researcher emphasizes. These organic elements, which generally disappear over time, have survived to this day thanks to the dry conditions of the grotto, “a miracle of conservation,” according to Piqué. They were identified with different techniques, such as lipid analysis and mass spectrometry, a tool that allows determining the distribution of the molecules of a substance based on its mass.Hunting and violenceThese Neolithic settlers used their weapons to hunt prey such as roe deer or wild boars, common species in the area. Perhaps also for attack or personal defense, although no evidence of that type of violence has been found in the cave. «The weapons may also have a symbolic value of social position, since they were deposited next to the bodies in the burial place. When the miners appeared there, the human remains were still mummified, with their clothing and associated objects, but, unfortunately, they have not survived to this day. “This cave with impressive potential was found at an inopportune time,” laments the researcher. Those buried in La Cueva de los Murciélagos were part of the first agricultural and livestock societies that inhabited the peninsula. Communities of several probably sedentary families who grew cereals and had domestic animals. «The findings tell us about a population with complex technological knowledge, capable of exploiting the resources of the environment with techniques that require a significant investment of work, planning, organization, knowing how to transform the properties of materials… The cane and cane technique “The wood we have in the shafts was not documented in Europe,” says Piqué. MORE INFORMATION news Yes The impact of two large asteroids that barely affected the Earth news No Animal experiments in Spain are picking up again due to massive tests with sea bass. They are not the only prehistoric organic elements that have survived in the Granada cave. The oldest baskets in southern Europe were also found there, dating back 9,500 years, and some esparto sandals that are between 7,200 and 6,200 years old, the oldest footwear on the continent. Therefore, it would not be strange if there are still treasures from the grotto to be revealed.
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