Flint Tools From Spain May Be One Million Years Old

BARCELONA, SPAIN—An excavation led by scientists from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleo-Ecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) in the La Mina area at Barranc de la Boella has uncovered 50 flint tools estimated to be between 800,000 and one million years old. Well-preserved remains of deer, horses, cattle, rhinoceros, and hyenas were also found, in addition to hyena coprolites. IPHES researcher Josep Vallverdú told the Catalan News Agency that the site “contains the oldest files on human evolution in Catalonia and on the Iberian Peninsula." Plans are being made for the continued excavation of the site, which is located in the Francolí River Basin.

5,000-Year-Old Livestock Pen Examined in Spain

BARCELONA, SPAIN—A rock shelter in the Sierra de Cantabria mountains in northern Spain was repeatedly used as an animal pen some 5,000 years ago, according to a study conducted by scientists from the University of Barcelona, the University of the Basque Country, and the Spanish National Research Council. Analysis of charcoal, pollen, seeds, and other plant remains recovered during the investigation indicate that Copper Age herders held their goats and/or sheep in the rock shelter intermittently, probably to take advantage of hazelnut and acorn trees that grew in the area. “We also know thanks to the microscopic study of the sediments that every now and again they used to burn the debris that had built up, probably to clean up the space that had been occupied,” archaeologist Ana Polo-Diaz of the University of the Basque Country said in a UPI report.

Evidence of Early Campfires Found in Europe

MURCIA, SPAIN—Science News reports that paleontologist Michael Walker of the University of Murcia and his colleagues have found evidence for the earliest controlled use of small fires in Europe at Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar. The cave, located in southeastern Spain, has yielded more than 165 stones and stone artifacts and 2,300 heated or charred animal-bone fragments. Microscopic and chemical analysis of these objects indicates that they were heated to between 750 and 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, temperatures consistent with having been burned in fire. Walker thinks the fires were started by human ancestors some 800,000 years ago, based upon the identification of a reversal in the Earth’s magnetic field some 780,000 years ago in sediments above the burned artifacts. Fossils of extinct animals have also been found with the stone tools. Some scientists question the early date and think the tools are at most 600,000 years old. That would still make the fires the earliest known in Europe.