The Mirón Cave (Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria): Excavations 1996-1999

Abstract

The four excavation campaigns carried out to date in El Miron Cave, with a complete stratigraphic sequence from the early Bronze Age through the Solutrean, have demonstrated the importance of this site to the understanding of human societies in the montane interior of the Cantabrian Region during much of its prehistory. The excavation methods that have been applied especially document in detail residential areas pertaining to the Chalcolithic, Neolithic, and early-mid Magdalenian periods within this large cave. They also have provided large quantities of paleoenvironmental and cultural data that are currently under analysis. Numerous examples of parietal engravings have been discovered and, in some cases, stratigraphically dated to the Magdalenian. The forty radiocarbon dates obtained so far already constitute the largest series for any Cantabrian site and include a number of important dates for the beginning of the regional Neolithic sequence at c. 5800 BP (uncal.). Results of geophysical survey indicate the existence of a sedimentary infilling in the cave vestibule that could include archeological deposits well below the 19,000 year-old Solutrean layers reached so far.