A Catalan rock shelter preserves a uncommon document of the transition from hunter-gathering to farming.
For 1000’s of years, individuals repeatedly returned to a rock shelter above the Montsant River, abandoning traces of a profound change in human life. Excavations at Coves del Fem (Ulldemolins, Priorat), inside Serra de Montsant Pure Park, have now uncovered new proof that might make clear the prehistory of the northeastern Iberian Peninsula.
The sphere marketing campaign ran from Could 30 to June 28, 2026. Researchers from the Division of Prehistory on the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Milà i Fontanals Establishment for Analysis within the Humanities of the Spanish Nationwide Analysis Council (CSIC-IMF) led the work, supported by the Ulldemolins City Council and Serra de Montsant Pure Park via the Catalan Ministry for Tradition’s four-year archaeology program.
Twenty-five lecturers, researchers, and college students took half within the four-week excavation. Archaeology college students from UAB additionally used the dig to finish sensible area coaching for his or her bachelor’s diploma.
Storage pits reveal early farming life
The excavation uncovered intensive proof of occupation from the Early Neolithic Cardial interval. Archaeologists documented two hearths and eight pits minimize into the bottom that seem to have begun as storage silos.
After the pits have been not used for storage, residents stuffed them with family waste. Inside, researchers discovered embellished pottery fragments, flint instruments, particles from stone instrument manufacturing, stays of animals that had been eaten, carbonized seeds and fruits, and different supplies linked to the every day lives of the Montsant Valley’s first farming communities.
Collectively, these stays provide a more in-depth view of how early Neolithic teams organized their economies, obtained and consumed meals, and lived. Digging, utilizing, and later abandoning the pits additionally disturbed older layers with out pottery that probably got here from Mesolithic occupations already documented elsewhere on the web site.
Mesolithic layers protect an older world
One of the crucial necessary outcomes from the 2026 marketing campaign was the identification of two unusually well-preserved Mesolithic layers, not like these encountered throughout earlier excavations. The deposits include three related hearths and a wealthy assortment of surviving archaeological materials.
Researchers recovered flint artifacts, animal stays, and a considerable group of archaeobotanical stays, which embody preserved proof of historical crops. These supplies might assist reconstruct the atmosphere and actions of the ultimate hunter-gatherer communities that occupied the world.
The importance of the Mesolithic layers extends past Coves del Fem itself. They provide a uncommon alternative to analyze the social and financial modifications that occurred when hunter-gatherers gave option to the primary farming and herding communities in an inland mountain panorama such because the Montsant massif.
This transformation, often called Neolithization, stays poorly understood within the northeastern Iberian Peninsula. Few websites protect archaeological layers which might be as intensive and nicely maintained because the sequence at Coves del Fem.
Additional evaluation of the recovered supplies might reveal how these communities obtained meals, moved throughout the panorama, used pure assets, and reorganized social life as agriculture and livestock farming turned established.
One shelter information a significant transition
Coves del Fem is a big rock shelter masking roughly 300 m² above the Montsant River within the municipality of Ulldemolins. Archaeologists have excavated the location constantly since 2013, and it has develop into an necessary location for learning latest prehistory in Catalonia.
Its archaeological document captures a significant however nonetheless poorly understood interval of social and financial change. Supplies recovered throughout latest campaigns strengthen the location’s significance for analyzing the transition from the final hunter-gatherer societies to the primary communities that produced meals via farming and herding within the northeastern Iberian Peninsula.
Excavations performed in recent times have documented almost steady human occupation from the Late Mesolithic (round 6000 BC) via the Early Neolithic (round 4500 BC). This sequence begins with the ultimate hunter-gatherer occupations and continues via the arrival and institution of the area’s first farming communities.
Researchers have additionally discovered scattered proof of earlier exercise which will date to the closing levels of the Higher Paleolithic. Different stays come from later intervals of prehistory, together with the top of the Neolithic and the start of the Metallic Age.
Such continuity is unusual amongst Catalan websites from this era. It makes Coves del Fem an unusually worthwhile place for tracing the cultural, technological, and financial modifications related to the Neolithization of the northeastern Iberian Peninsula.
The four-week excavation was a part of the archaeology and paleontology analysis undertaking “Coves del Fem: Land Use and Exploitation within the Higher Montsant Basin (8000–2000 BC)” (2026–2029), a four-year undertaking awarded to UAB. Its objective is to higher perceive the prehistoric communities that lived within the space, together with how they used the encompassing panorama, obtained assets, and adjusted their atmosphere. The work was made doable by the Borrull household, who personal Coves del Fem.
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