The Abrigo de la Quebrada is an archaeological site in the municipality of

Chelva Chelva is a municipality in the ''comarca'' of Los Serranos in the Valencian Community, Spain. Its name in Valencian is ''Xelva'', but the local language is Spanish and not Valencian. Geography Chelva has an area of about 192 km2. The tow ...

, in the Spanish

Province of Valencia Valencia ( ca-valencia, València) is a province of Spain, in the central part of the autonomous Valencian Community. Of the province's over 2.5 million people (2018), one-third live in the capital, Valencia, which is also the capital of the au ...

, ca. 65 km northwest of the city of Valencia. It shows evidence of frequent occupation by

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While th ...

Location and description

The site is on the left bank of a small ravine, the Barranco de Ahillas; it is a

rock shelter A rock shelter (also rockhouse, crepuscular cave, bluff shelter, or abri) is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff. In contrast to solutional caves (karst), which are often many miles long, rock shelters are almost alway ...

between 2 and 9 meters deep, and 38 meters long, facing the northwest. Because of the lack of direct sunshine and its exposure, the site was occupied only from June to October, according to

Phytolith Phytoliths (from Greek, "plant stone") are rigid, microscopic structures made of silica, found in some plant tissues and persisting after the decay of the plant. These plants take up silica from the soil, whereupon it is deposited within different ...

s and other evidence, including the reuse and resharpening of stone tools. The area is bordered by two rivers, the Rio Tuejar and the Turia, and two mountain formations, the

Sierra de Javalambre Sierra de Javalambre ( an, Sierra de Chabalambre) is a long mountain range in the Gúdar-Javalambre comarca of Aragon and the Rincón de Ademuz and Serrans comarcas of the Valencian Community, Spain. Highway N-234 winds its way between Sier ...

(part of the

Sistema Ibérico The Iberian System ( es, Sistema Ibérico, ) is one of the major systems of mountain ranges in Spain. It consists of a vast and complex area of mostly relatively high and rugged mountain chains and massifs located in the central region of th ...

) and the Serra d’Utiel. The site's location, at the entrance of a valley with a dead end, allowed for hunting and trapping large herbivores. The river that (intermittently) runs through the canyon opens onto a plain, and thus the site accessed three different biotopes: the riverside, the mountains, and a plain, so many different kinds of prey could be hunted. The deposit is around 3 meters thick, and is divided into eight units by archaeologists. The upper layer is disturbed by recent use of the shelter as a sheep pen. There is evidence of human occupation in all but one layer (number 6). Samples of charcoal were dated by way of

accelerator mass spectrometry Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is a form of mass spectrometry that accelerates ions to extraordinarily high kinetic energies before mass analysis. The special strength of AMS among the mass spectrometric methods is its power to separate a r ...

; one sample in level 3 was 40,500 year old, and two samples in level 4 were 43,930 and 50,800 years old.

Human occupation and remains

Flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

tools found at the site give evidence of extensive traffic of Neanderthal populations in the area. Occupations in level 4 were frequent and intense, but short term. While much of the flint was procured locally ( Domeño), some of it came from over 100 kilometers away;

knapping Knapping is the shaping of flint, chert, obsidian, or other conchoidal fracturing stone through the process of lithic reduction to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing ...

was done also by way of the

Levallois technique The Levallois technique () is a name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of stone knapping developed around 250,000 to 300,000 years ago during the Middle Palaeolithic period. It is part of the Mousterian stone tool industry, and was u ...

. Remains of most animals of all four major families (

Equidae Equidae (sometimes known as the horse family) is the taxonomic family of horses and related animals, including the extant horses, asses, and zebras, and many other species known only from fossils. All extant species are in the genus '' Equus'', ...

Deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

Caprinae The subfamily Caprinae, also sometimes referred to as the tribe Caprini, is part of the ruminant family Bovidae, and consists of mostly medium-sized bovids. A member of this subfamily is called a caprine, or, more informally, a goat-antelope (a ...

Leporidae Leporidae is the family of rabbits and hares, containing over 60 species of extant mammals in all. The Latin word ''Leporidae'' means "those that resemble ''lepus''" (hare). Together with the pikas, the Leporidae constitute the mammalian order ...

) were found, including red deer, ibex, and horse, besides small birds and tortoise. Meat and marrow were eaten.

Gallery

Foto Panorámica Quebrada (barranco y llanura)

References

Notes

Bibliography