La cueva de las Orcillas 1: una estación de los últimos cazadores-recolectores en La Berrueza (Mendaza-Acedo, Navarra) [The cave of Las Orcillas 1: a base for the last hunter-gatherers in la Berrueza (Mendaza-Acedo, Navarra)]

Abstract

The following pages set out the results of the study of the material retrieved from the cave of Las Orcillas 1 (Mendaza-Acedo, Navarra).

The site suffered from the uncontrolled action of one or more clandestine elements who altered all the sediment in the cave. Nevertheless, the archaeological remains still found at the site were systematically retrieved. Following painstaking analysis, we can state that the cave was occupied, firstly, at the beginning of the Holocene, by a group of hunter-gatherers who left remains of industry corresponding to an Epipaleolithic microlaminar tradition (8610±50 BP). The second use given to the cave was funerary and corresponds to the Copper Age (4490±40 BP), just a few objects and barely any human remains at all...