The archaeological cave site of El Mirón is located in the Rio Asón valley of eastern Cantabria, Spain. The cave opening is in the western face of Monte Pando, about 260 meters (~850 feet) above sea level. The interior is currently about 30 m deep by 8-16 m (26-52 ft) wide and 13 m (43 ft) high. El Mirón is remarkable for its long occupation history and thus for its long unbroken sequence of history and prehistory of Cantabria, Spain, between 17,000-10,300 radiocarbon years before the present (RCYBP) and calibrated to 20,000-12,000 cal BP.
The site includes human occupations between the Middle Paleolithic (ca 41,000 years ago) to AD 1400, including Mousterian, Early Upper Paleolithic, Solutrean, Magdalenian, Azilian, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Bronze Age deposits.
Neolithic at El Mirón
The intensive Neolithic occupation includes a series of levels, and the presence of charred wheat grains representing emmer, einkorn and durum wheat at dates of 5550 +/-40 BP. Also in the assemblage are domestic sheep, goats, cattle and pigs, and some wild red deer.
The Early Magdalenian
The Upper Paleolithic Magdalenian levels date between ~17,000-13,000 BP, and are characterized by dense deposits of animal bones, stone and bone tools, ochre and fire cracked rock. Animal bone represented in the Magdalenenia include ibex, red deer and fish bones, as well as perforated marine shell beads. In addition to several pieces of portable art, El Miron has engravings on the bedrock wall and on a very large block that has fallen from the ceiling.
Recent studies of the Upper Paleolithic period at El Miron (ca. 15,500 RCYBP), shows evidence of a hearth and possible evidence of stone boiling-an important method of grease rendering used by hunter-gatherers.
The evidence of grease-rendering is an abundance of highly fragmented fire-cracked rock-the fragmentation--a result of frequent reuse, in association with fragmented animal bones, and hammerstones with anvils in shallow basin hearths.
Human Burial
In 2010, a partial human burial was discovered at the site, located between the engraved block and the rear cave wall. The burial is of a young adult human being, covered in red ochre. The adjacent block was also found to be stained with red ochre, leading researchers to postulate that the burial had been defleshed and buried in a secondary deposit. However, disturbance of this region of the cave is in evidence, and additional work has yet to be completed.
The site has been excavated since the mid-1990s by the El Mirón Prehistoric Project, led by Lawrence Guy Straus and Manuel González Morales.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to Upper Paleolithic, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Nakazawa Y, Straus LG, González-Morales MR, Cuenca Solana D, and Caro Saiz J. 2009. On stone-boiling technology in the Upper Paleolithic behavioral implications from an Early Magdalenian hearth in El Mirón Cave, Cantabria, Spain. Journal of Archaeological Science 36(3):684-693.
Peña-Chocarro L, Zapata L, Iriarte MJ, González Morales M, and Straus LG. 2005. The oldest agriculture in northern Atlantic Spain: new evidence from El Mirón Cave (Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria). Journal of Archaeological Science 32:579–587.
Straus LG. 2006. Of stones and bones: Interpreting site function in the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic of Western Europe. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 25:500-509.
Straus LG, Gonzalez Morales MR, and Carretero JM. 2011. Lower Magdalenian secondary human burial in El Mirón Cave, Cantabria, Spain. Antiquity 85(330):1151-1164.
Straus LG, González Morales MR, Martínez MÁF, and García-Gelabert MP. 2002. Last Glacial Human Settlement in Eastern Cantabria (Northern Spain). Journal of Archaeological Science 29(12):1403-1414.
