La Dama Roja de la cueva de El Mirón

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As La Dama Roja de la cueva de El Mirón ( Spanish for: the Red Lady of the cave of El Miron ') denote its discoverers at least 18,700 ( Cal BP ) years old, incomplete skeleton of an alleged 35 to 40-year-old wife Cro-Magnon people . The body was buried in the Cueva de El Mirón cave , in the east of the Spanish autonomous community of Cantabria , and her body was sprinkled with red ocher and flowers. The find that was recovered from 2010 is the oldest evidence of a burial in the Magdalenian era on the Iberian Peninsula . The Magdalenian is an archaeological cultural stage in the later section of the Upper Paleolithic in Central and Western Europe at the end of the last Ice Age .

The name “Red Lady” is based on a similarly decorated, but almost twice as old find from South Wales , the Red Lady of Paviland .

Distribution area of ​​the Magdalenian culture with important sites. The Cueva de El Mirón cave is located near the “Altamira” site indicated in the graphic with the number “7 ”.

Find situation

The remains of the "Red Lady" - initially her lower jaw and a shin - were exposed behind a massive, two-meter-wide limestone block in a narrow space to the cave wall. The woman lay on the left side of her body with her legs bent ( burial rite ). Both the cave wall and the side of the limestone block visible from the entrance to the cave show numerous intersecting lines which, according to the dating, were scratched at the same time as the body of the "Red Lady" was placed there. There are multiple triangles that, according to the researchers, could possibly have been a symbol of femininity . If this interpretation is correct, the conclusion expressly referred to as “speculation”, these signs could have been intended as an indication that there is a woman behind the limestone block. The dead would have been buried next to a tombstone .

One of the peculiarities of the find is that the skull and various large tubular bones are missing and that the shin bone is damaged by corpse damage - according to the notches by an animal the size of a wolf . After this damage, both the lower jaw and the shin were again sprinkled with red ocher . Based on the circumstances of the find, the researchers suspect that the missing bones were removed by residents of the cave after the corpses were eaten and possibly deposited elsewhere.

One of the special features of the find is that an unusually high amount of pollen from plants from the group of goosefoot plants (Chenopodiaceae) could be detected in the immediate vicinity of the skeleton . a. the spinach and various other food and medicinal plants belong. The pollen, however, suggests that flowering plants have been deposited, which, in addition to the pigments, suggests a second form of corpse jewelry.

nutrition

Based on the preserved, toothed lower jaw, the diet of the “Red Lady” could be reconstructed, who - after the ice age maximum cold around 21,000 years ago - lived in a still very cold, open steppe . The composition of the isotopes of the tooth enamel , traces of abrasion and food residues between the teeth provided evidence of an extremely protein-rich “ paleodiet ”: According to the analyzes, 80 percent of the diet consisted of the meat of ungulates such as red deer and goats , plus considerable amounts of fish, especially fish Salmon . In contrast, the proportion of plants - mostly seeds - and fungi was very low .

literature

  • Lawrence Guy Straus and Manuel R. González Morales (Eds.): El Mirón Cave, Cantabrian Spain: The Site and Its Holocene Archaeological Record. University of New Mexico Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0826351487
  • Manuel R. González Morales and Lawrence Guy Straus: La Cueva del Mirón (Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria): Excavaciones 1996–1999. In: Trabajos de Prehistoria. Volume 57, No. 1, 2000, pp. 121-133, full text
  • Lawrence Guy Straus et al .: Las ocupaciones humanas de la cueva del Mirón (Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria, España) durante el Último Máximo Glacial y el periodo Solutrense. In: Espacio, Tiempo y Forma. Series I, Nueva época Prehistoria y Arqueología. Volume 5, 2012, pp. 413–426, doi: 10.5944 / etf i.5.5351 , full text (mostly English)
  • Robert C. Power et al .: Microremains from El Mirón Cave human dental calculus suggest a mixed plant-animal subsistence economy during the Magdalenian in Northern Iberia. In: Journal of Archaeological Science. Volume 60, 2015, pp. 39-46, doi: 10.1016 / j.jas.2015.04.003 , full text

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chapter 3 in: Lawrence Guy Straus and Manuel R. González Morales (Eds.): El Mirón Cave, Cantabrian Spain: The Site and Its Holocene Archaeological Record. University of New Mexico Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0826351487 , abstract
  2. ^ Romualdo Seva Román et al .: Analysis of the red ocher of the El Mirón burial (Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria, Spain). In: Journal of Archaeological Science. Volume 60, 2015, pp. 84-98, doi: 10.1016 / j.jas.2015.03.033
  3. ↑ Lawrence Guy Straus, Manuel R. González Morales, David Cuenca-Solanab: The Magdalenian human burial of El Mirón Cave (Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria, Spain): introduction, background, discovery and context. In: Journal of Archaeological Science. Volume 60, 2015, pp. 1–9, doi: 10.1016 / j.jas.2015.02.018
  4. ↑ Manuel R. González Morales and Lawrence G. Straus: Magdalenian-age graphic activity associated with the El Mirón Cave human burial. In: Journal of Archaeological Science. Volume 60, 2015, pp. 125-133, doi: 10.1016 / j.jas.2015.02.025
  5. ↑ Penny Sarchet: Red Lady cave burial Reveals Stone Age secrets. On: newscientist.com of March 18, 2015. Also under the title Unveiling the Read Lady of El Mirón in New Scientist of March 21, 2015, p. 8
  6. ^ Jeanne Marie Geiling, Ana B. Marín-Arroyo: Spatial distribution analysis of the Lower Magdalenian human burial in El Mirón Cave (Cantabria, Spain). In: Journal of Archaeological Science. Volume 60, 2015, pp. 47-56, doi: 10.1016 / j.jas.2015.03.005
  7. ^ Ana B. Marín-Arroyo: Taphonomic study of the human remains from the Magdalenian burial in El Mirón Cave (Cantabria, Spain). In: Journal of Archaeological Science. Volume 60, 2015, pp. 57-65, doi: 10.1016 / j.jas.2015.03.032
  8. ↑ María-José Iriarte-Chiapusso, Alvaro Arrizabalaga, Gloria Cuenca-Bescós: The vegetational and climatic contexts of the Lower Magdalenian human burial in El Mirón Cave (Cantabria, Spain): implications related to human behavior. In: Journal of Archaeological Science. Volume 60, 2015, pp. 66-74, doi: 10.1016 / j.jas.2015.02.008
  9. ↑ Lawrence G. Straus et al .: "The Red Lady of El Mirón". Lower Magdalenian life and death in Oldest Dryas Cantabrian Spain: an overview. In: Journal of Archaeological Science. Volume 60, 2015, pp. 134-137, doi: 10.1016 / j.jas.2015.02.034
  10. ^ Rebeca García-González et al .: Dietary inferences through dental microwear and isotope analyzes of the Lower Magdalenian individual from El Mirón Cave (Cantabria, Spain). In: Journal of Archaeological Science. Volume 60, 2015, pp. 28-38, doi: 10.1016 / j.jas.2015.03.020