Work on the prehistoric site, resumed after the pandemic, confirms that the area was already inhabited 900,000 years ago
The Cueva Negra de La Encarnación, in Caravaca, continues to surprise scientists. The excavation campaign carried out in recent weeks has shown the first evidence of human occupation in the area 900,000 years ago, and the work yielded findings on the way of life of these first European inhabitants. The experts, who arrived from different countries at the prehistoric site, showed the results of the campaign on Wednesday, recovered after two years of hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.
At the foot of the site, they showed some of the numerous localized finds, which correspond to remains of varied fauna, mostly extinct species, as well as tools made by man about a million years ago, as indicated by the archaeologist and co-director of the excavation, Mariano López, and the mayor of Caravaca de la Cruz, José Francisco García.
The mayor had words of thanks for the entire work team displaced to the site and “in a very particular way for Professor Michael Walker, who for thirty years has studied the place, being in charge of the excavation campaigns, and who is currently going through health problems that forced him a few days ago to be absent from the cave to receive hospital care. García highlighted “the international category of this site, a true jewel of the municipality that attracts the attention of the scientific world, since it does not let surprises with valuable information on the origin of the human being and its evolution”.
Fragments of extinct species
Among the remains located by the team of the 31 Paleoanthropological and Archaeological Excavations Campaign, there are remains of a wide variety of fauna, such as the fragments of an antler of ‘Megaloceros novacarthaginiensis’ (a large deer, similar to the elk), as well as bones of bison, rhinos, hyenas, horses and turtles. To this are added the findings related to the lithic industry.
«It is precisely the presence of these tools made of flint, as well as the faunal remains in which the cut marks are clearly observed, which indicates that they were consumed by hominids and this attests to the human presence in the oldest levels of Cueva Negra. », highlighted Lopez.
The range of stone carving techniques, together with the control of fire and the use of mineral and biological resources present in the Alto Quípar and Rambla de Tarragoya, offer an important insight into manual dexterity, technical aptitude, and above all , the cognitive versatility of the inhabitants of this site almost a million years ago.
The archaeologist co-director of the excavation explained that “in these deeper levels of excavation we have been able to confirm what we already suspected after the 2019 campaign and that is that, at least in the last documented moments of occupation in the cave, it was frequented by both hominids and hyenas, the traces of the activities of these two species alternating in the fossil record.
Remains of fire and an ax
The excavations carried out in the last thirty years have provided valuable information on the first hominids. The cave was frequented by human beings who left traces of their presence in the form of fire remains and a hand axe, both being the oldest in Europe. This Paleolithic site is between 900,000 and 800,000 years old, which corresponds to the end of the Early (or Lower) Pleistocene.
Ancient humans probably belonged to the extinct species of Homo heidelbergensis that inhabited Europe between 900,000 and 150,000 years ago in the Pleistocene and was the ancestral species of ‘Neanderthal Man’ or ‘Homo neanderthalensis’ that lived between 150,000 and 40,000 years in Europe.
Until the excavation of the Cueva Negra, neither fire remains nor a paleolithic set with an ‘Acheulean’ hand ax had been found in Europe in Old Pleistocene sediments. On the other hand, the set of Palaeolithic elements of flint, limestone and quartzite occurs in all the excavated layers of the sediments, which reach a depth of 5 metres. These offer a wide range of forms that reflect different carving techniques practiced in the cave.
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