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In Castelldefels we can get an idea of when rhinos walked in the past through this Baix Llobregat town. This is attested by the archaeological and paleontological site of the Cova del Rinoceront, which we have visited in Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia.
This enclave that opens a portal to the past is located between the neighborhoods of Bellamar and Montmar, in the first softer foothills of the Garraf limestone massif, just where it comes into contact with the southern end of the Holocene plain of the Llobregat river delta. .
Currently, the cavity is vertically sectioned by the last exploitation front of the Ca n'Aymerich quarry, formerly known as Altissent quarry.
The truth is that the massive extraction of limestone has greatly disfigured the original relief and has destroyed most of the Rhinoceros cave, as well as its original entrance.
At the site, numerous vertebrate remains have been recovered, especially herbivores, consumed and transported to the cavity by carnivores.
In the same way, some lithic remains of flint and quartz have been recovered that show the human presence in the site during the Middle Paleolithic by Neanderthals.
The lithic remains correspond to small-format objects, surely pieces transported by Neanderthals. They are the oldest human evidence in the Garraf massif.
The Cova del Rinoceront was formed naturally by the dissolution of calcareous rock and the fall of blocks. Subsequently, and for almost 100,000 years, the cavity was filled with sediment until it completely closed off access from the outside.
