The Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) has started the 24th excavation campaign at the Molí del Salt site, in Vimbodí (Conca de Barberà). The researchers hope to find more remains of a Homo Sapiens, from 15,000 years ago, after discovering, last year, the jaw of an individual.
The archaeologists are also working with a stone structure that could be "associated" with the jaw and, therefore, with a "funeral construction", explains the director of the excavation, Manuel Vaquero. The archaeological works will last for five weeks and have a team from IPHES and two students, one from Albania and the other from Morocco.
During last year's campaign, the oldest human remains in southern Catalonia were found at this site, a jaw belonging to a four or five-year-old child. It is a fossil from the Upper Paleolithic, from 15,000 years ago. This encounter, from a scientific point of view, "takes us to another dimension", assesses the director of the excavation, who describes it as "exceptional".
Since 1999, various archaeologists have extracted pieces of art from the Molí del Salt, obtaining the most important collection in Catalonia, according to Vaquero. They are pieces with representations of animals and humans. In 2015, an outstanding piece was also found, an engraving with seven cabins from a hunter-gatherer village. "It is a unique representation in Paleolithic art," recalls the researcher.
The Molí de Salt site houses a small cave to the south of the municipality of Vimbodí, near the Milans River. It was a "privileged" space, says Vaquero, next to the Muntanyes de Prades, the river and in a "natural communication axis" between the interior of Catalonia and the coast. According to the findings they have studied, nomadic populations of hunters and gatherers settled in this cave for 2,000 years, between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago. Proof of this are the “domestic” tools that they have discovered, utensils for working with skins or meat.
At a site, “very meticulous” work is done, says the director. They use tools such as brushes and screwdrivers to remove the sand, and as they find pieces of value, they classify and place them in space, through coordinates that they have previously delimited. Later, in the laboratory, they will analyze how all the remains were distributed. “It is very important to understand the behavior of these populations, how they settled and how they organized themselves”, concludes Vaquero.
