Bajondillo cave

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Map of the Iberian Peninsula with localities of marine molluscs from the Middle Paleolithic marked on it . The Bajondillo Cave is in the middle, below.

The Bajondillo Cave is an archaeological site in the El Bajondillo district of Torremolinos in southern Spain . The oldest evidence of the consumption of snails and mussels by Neanderthals was discovered in this cave .

The cave - an abri - is about 30 meters long and was created within a travertine formation that is almost 30 meters thick . It is 15 meters above today's mean sea ​​level and around 250 meters from today's coastline . Although the sea level during the recent interglacial periods was significantly higher than today, the cave was even in these times above sea level, so that none of you received in stratigraphic Fund horizons by natural entry from the Mediterranean has emerged. The cave has been explored since 1989.

In the Bajondillo cave, a total of 20 archaeological find layers can be distinguished. Their thickness is 5.40 meters; they cover a period of time from around 7,000 years to around 150,000 years ago, and the majority of them contain references to a use first by Neanderthals and later by anatomically modern Cro-Magnons ( Homo sapiens ). Among other things, charcoal and processed flint were proven .

From the second oldest layer of finds (Bj19) numerous stone tools of the Levallois type were recovered, as well as various shells of mussels and snails that can be ascribed to the Neanderthals and are considered the oldest evidence of the consumption of mollusks by Neanderthals.

According to a study published in 2019, the cave was already used almost 45,000 to 43,000 years ago ( cal BP ) by anatomically modern people, long before the cold snap known as Heinrich Event 4 - according to more recent dating - 40,200 up to 38,300 years (cal BP). This radiocarbon dating was interpreted to mean that southwestern Europe was colonized by Homo sapiens at a similar early stage as Central Europe.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Miguel Cortés-Sánchez et al .: Earliest Known Use of Marine Resources by Neanderthals. In: PLoS ONE. Volume 6, No. 9, e24026, 2011, doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0024026
  2. ↑ Miguel Cortés-Sánchez, Francisco J. Jiménez-Espejo, María D. Simón-Vallejo, Chris Stringer et al .: An early Aurignacian arrival in southwestern Europe. In: Nature Ecology & Evolution. Online publication from January 21, 2019, doi: 10.1038 / s41559-018-0753-6
    A surprisingly early replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans in southern Spain. On: eurekalert.org of January 21, 2019

  • Mollusks from the layer from Bj19: Mytilus galloprovincialis (1–6), Glycymeris spec. (7), Balanus trigonus (8, 11-12), Donacilla cornea (9), Stramonita haemastoma (10), pearls from M. galloprovincialis (13-14), Melanopsis laevigata (15), Rumina decollate (16), Iberus marmoratus (17) and fragments of M. galloprovincialis (18).

  • Processed stone utensils from the layer Bj19: flint (1–13), quartzite (14).


Coordinates: 36 ° 37'19.1 "  N , 4 ° 29'59.8"  W.