CUEVA NEGRA DEL ESTRECHO DEL RÍO QUÍPAR (Black Cave of the River Quípar Gorge)

Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Rio Quipar lies at 780 metres above sea level and 40 metres above the river. The cave is a natural rock shelter below a cliff at the foot of the northern slopes of nearby mountains. Its mouth is about 12 metres wide, and it extends back about 12 metres. It was partly filled up by ancient fluvio-lacustrine sediment that also incorporates wind-blown dust (called loess). Palaeontological and palaeolithic finds correspond to a period >650,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene. There are also three bones and six teeth of prehistoric humans, probably Middle Pleistocene Homo heidelbergensis fore-runners of the Upper Pleistocene Neanderthal folk. Excavation of sealed levels has demonstrated the presence together of Palaeolithic artefacts of both Acheulian bifacial core-tool type (hand-axe), flakes removed by Levalloisian reduction of cores (ending up as so-called discoidal cores) and artifacts with abrupt Mousterian retouched edges.

Until 2004 we had been content to regard the site as later Middle or even early Upper Pleistocene, as several of our early publications testify; we even suggested the pollen analysis supported it. Since 2003, however, it became increasingly clear that the site is very much older. An age of half-a-million years ago began to seem likely from preliminary optical sediment luminescence (OSL) determinations at Oxford and our identification of extinct rodent species, and this was proposed in an article about Cueva Negra we published in 2006 in Eurasian Prehistory. Cueva Negra may well be older still, because unpublished OSL determinations in 2007 point to an age of at least 650,000 years ago.

A visit to the Pleistocene

In 1981 preliminary soundings were made in the cave, though it was not until 1990 that systematic excavation began at the site. The first target was to establish an excavation area and to evaluate its stratigraphy. The northeastern half of the rock-shelter was chosen for this purpose, because in the southwestern half there was both a deep pit, dug as a hide-out at the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) that had been extended by the 1981 exploration, and a deep solution fissure alongside the western rock wall of the cave. In 1990, excavation was confined to the interior of the north-eastern half of the rock-shelter, behind enormous boulders that had fallen from the roof of the cave mouth, but these were broken up in 1991 so that archaeological excavation could extend from inside the rock-shelter outwards to the cave mouth. Just outside the cave mouth there we found traces of what seems to have been the base of a small temporary hut for a shepherd, built as a lean-to against the fallen boulders, where we excavated an iron clasp-knife and modern pottery.

The finds

Among the remains found, the hominid fossils are of particular importance, including six teeth, all with morphological characteristics that point to the Neanderthal folk (Homo neanderthalensis) and their immediate fore-runners (known as Homo heidelbergensis), which formed a lineage in Europe that was quite different and separate from the one which gave rise in Africa to a less robust human form which is Homo sapiens (us, in short!).

The larger mammals include elephantids, rhinocerotids and megaceroids (giant deer), bison, aurochs, macaque, hyaena, horse, ibex, boar and red deer. Small mammal species identified are Mimomys savini, Allophaiomys chalinei, Arvicola cf. deucalion, Pliomys episcopalis, Microtus brecciensis brecciensis, Terricola (Pitymys) huescarensis huescarensis, Allocricetus bursae, Apodemus flavicollis, cf. A. aff. mystacinus, and Prolagus calpensis. There is also the tortoise Eurotestudo hermanni, a fore-runner of the species found nowadays in southeastern Spain (Testudo graeci). There are over sixty bird species, among which waterfowl stand out which, alongside geological research near the cave, point to the presence of long-vanished Middle Pleistocene lakes, and pollen analysis also indicates that moisture-loving plants and trees were present.  

Excavation of sealed levels has demonstrated the presence together of Palaeolithic artefacts of both Acheulian bifacial core-tool type (hand-axe) made by fashioning limestone cobbles, flakes removed by Levalloisian reduction of chert and limestone cores (ending up as so-called discoidal cores) and artifacts with abrupt Mousterian retouched edges. Often flakes were retouched as scrapers and denticulate or notched pieces. The raw materials come mainly from nearby conglomerate outcrops, though some better-quality flint may have been brought from further afield (maybe from a flint outcrop near the village of Los Royos de Arriba, about 15 kilometres upstream from our cave in the upper part of the Quípar valley known as the Rambla de Tarragolla). We have also excavated hammer-stones with which Neanderthal folk knapped stone tools and antler crown-beam fragments of soft hammers.