People have used a cave in southern Spain as a cloth and burial site for more than 50,000 years, according to a study just published.
Cueva de Ardales Cave in Malaga, Spain is famous for hiding more than a thousand paintings and inscriptions even by the so-called prehistoric, but artifacts and human remains here have already been discovered by experts.
However, the nature of human use of the cave is not well defined yet.
The PLOS ONE RIn a study published in the scientific journal, the authors now present the results of the first excavations in the cave, which shed light on the history of human culture in the Iberian Peninsula.
The so-called radioactive dating and analysis of remains and artefacts in the cave prove that the first inhabitants of the place were probably Neanderthals more than 65,000 years ago. Said José Ramos Muñoz from the University of Cadiz in Spain Heritage Online science portal. Modern people arrived later, about 35,000 years ago, and used the cave intermittently until the beginning of the Chalcolithic.
He added that the oldest cave rock art consisted of abstract signs such as red-tinted hand-drawn dots and patterns, while later works depict figurative paintings such as animals. Human remains indicate that the cave was also used as a Holocene burial site, but the evidence for activity here is very weak, indicating that researchers did not only live in the cave.
These findings have now confirmed the importance of the Cueva de Ardales as a symbolic site. The area offers an incredible history of human activity in Spain, and together with similar sites – with more than 30 caves in the area with similar paintings – make the Iberian Peninsula a prime location for exploring the deep history of European culture.
Our research presents a well-ordered series of more than 50 radiological histories of Cueva de Ardales that confirm the antiquity of Paleolithic art over 58,000 years ago. – stressed the researchers. – This proves that the cave may have been the site of special activities related to art, since many fragments of ocher were discovered here also at the level of the Middle Paleolithic.
