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set off about 7,000 old age ago , ancient mankind in what is now northeast Spain buried their dead deep in a cave , creating a necropolis of sorts that spans about four millennia and now contains more than 7,000 clappers , fit in to archaeologist . And there are signs it may have been used for tens of thousands of years before that .
The Cova dels Xaragalls ( Cave of the Ravines ) was " a collective burying property , " archaeologistAntonio Rodríguez - Hidalgo , a researcher at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution ( IPHES ) and the Merida Institute of Archaeology , told Live Science in an email .
A skull from the Cova dels Xaragalls near Barcelona, dated to the Bronze Age. The hole in its cranium is a result of a trepanation and possibly an attempt to cure an illness; other skulls from prehistoric Spain show signs of the same procedure.
He said the great unwashed were buried in communal tomb within the cave starting about 7,000 years ago , during the late Neolithic or New Stone Age , though most of the Chalcolithic ( " Copper - Stone " ) period and throughout the Bronze Age , which end in Spain about 3,000 years ago .
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An analysis of the life-threatening goods buried with the dead — typically ceramics , flint tools and necklaces — evoke that high - position individuals were sink alone in the cave during the tardy Chalcolithic and Bronze Age , while communal burials within the cave were still used for people lower in society , the investigator found .
Archaeologists found this bronze dagger among the grave goods for one of the Bronze Age burials in the cave.
Grave good were specially abundant during the Bronze Age , when some individual were buried with rich ingathering of weapon and other items , Rodríguez - Hidalgo said .
One of the Bronze Age skulls has a hole in the cranium made by atrepanation ; this individual seems to have hurt from several illnesses , and this may have been an attempt at a therapeutic , he said .
However , " we also know that [ he or she ] did not survive the interference since there is no off-white regeneration in the muddle , " Rodríguez - Hidalgo said .
The laboratory work for the excavations in the cave was carried out at the Museu Terra (Terra Museum) in the nearby village of L’Espluga de Francolí.(Image credit: Antonietta del Bove/IPHES-CERCA)
This is the only trepanated skull establish in Cova dels Xaragalls so far , but more than 100 trepanation scars have been constitute on otherprehistoric skulls from Spain , he said .
Neanderthal connection?
The Cova dels Xaragalls is in the mountains about 56 knot ( 90 kilometers ) west of Barcelona . It was excavated several prison term during the 20th one C and in 2008 ; Rodríguez - Hidalgo and his colleague from IPHES unearth more of it in December 2023 .
In addition to indications that the cave was used for burials from the Neolithic until the Bronze Age — a span of just about 4,000 yr — the latest excavations let on bones of uncivilized Goat and charcoal in part of the cave that have been dated to more than 45,000 years ago . At that time , the part was inhabit byNeanderthals ; paleoanthropologists suppose anatomically New humans — homosexual sapiens — replaced Neanderthals throughout Europe by about 40,000 years ago , althoughmodern genetic science shows they sometimes hybridise .
" This opens the possible action that Neanderthals could have used the cave as well , " Rodríguez - Hidalgo said . " This is something to confirm . "
More than 7,000 human bones have been found in the cave, showing that it was used for burials for at least 4,000 years, from the Neolithic period until the Bronze Age.(Image credit: Museu Terra, L’Espluga de Francolí)
It ’s not clear whether the cave was used continually for interment , or if it was used by various groups in different periods .
" At the import , we have a few date that allow us to realise that the cave was used as a grave for millennia , " Rodríguez - Hidalgo said . " Now we have to purpose whether it was continuous or not — we ask to undertake a comprehensiveradiocarbondatingto clear up this point . "
Burial place
The latest breakthrough can assist graph how interment customs have changed over time . And although many details of the burials have varied over the millennia the cave was used for this purpose , each grave accent seemed to be given its own entombment place , Rodríguez Hidalgo said .
" The people who lived in the fertile areas of the valleys had to go up a small mountain with the bodies of the dead to put them there , " he said , adding that it seemed that dissimilar group , from the Neolithic until the Bronze Age , respected the earlier burials .
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The Cova dels Xaragalls was rediscovered in the 19th century. The latest excavations in December 2023 were among the first to accurately date many of the human bones found there.(Image credit: Alfredo Suesta/IPHES-CERCA)
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The IPHES archaeological team plans to return to Cova dels Xaragalls this calendar month .
It’s not clear if Neanderthals would have used the cave for burials or for habitation; nor is it clear that its later use as a burial place was continuous.(Image credit: Antonietta del Bove/IPHES-CERCA)
" We are doing ancient deoxyribonucleic acid analysis , ceramic analysis , paleoanthropological studies , and [ analyze ] the piece of music and origin of the metals we have found as grave goods , " Rodríguez - Hidalgo said . Because the cave was used for burials for such a longsighted time , " this is an important place , " he say .
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The latest excavations found charcoal and animal bones dated to 45,000 years ago, which suggest the cave was also used by the Neanderthals who occupied the region at that time.(Image credit: Alfredo Suesta/IPHES-CERCA)
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