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Lower Magdalenian secondary human burial in El Mirón Cave, Cantabria, Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2011

Lawrence Guy Straus ,
Manuel R. González Morales  and
Jose Miguel Carretero
Lawrence Guy Straus
Affiliation:
1Department of Anthropology MSC01 1040, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001, USA (Email: [email protected]) 2Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas, Universidad de Cantabria, 39005 Santander, Spain
Manuel R. González Morales
Affiliation:
2Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas, Universidad de Cantabria, 39005 Santander, Spain
Jose Miguel Carretero
Affiliation:
3Laboratorio de Evolución Humana, Departamento de Ciencias Históricas y Geografía, Universidad de Burgos, 09001 Burgos, Spain
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Extract

The authors describe the discovery of the first human burial of Magdalenian age to be found in the Iberian Peninsula—the partial skeleton of a young adult whose bones were stained with red ochre. The burial was well stratified in a sequence at the vestibule rear running from the Mousterian to the Mesolithic, and was adjacent to a large block that had fallen from the cave roof and been subsequently engraved. A preliminary AMS radiocarbon date on associated faunal remains from the ochre-stained, galena speckled burial layer yielded a date of 15700 BP, while a hearth directly above the burial is dated to 15 100 BP, placing the interment of this individual in the Lower Cantabrian Magdalenian, the period of most intensive human occupation of El Mirón Cave during the Upper Palaeolithic.

Keywords

El Mirón CaveCantabrian SpainLower MagdalenianUpper Palaeolithichuman burial
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 330 , December 2011 , pp. 1151 - 1164
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

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