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The discovery of a complete skull from 5,000 years ago in the Cova del Randero de Pedreguer has completed the work on the XI Excavation Campaign of the MARQ. For yet another year, this archaeological site of the The Marina Alta has yielded new and interesting findings that have substantially boosted research into the use of the cave as a funerary space.
The work of this last season, which concluded on 8 September, has also focused on excavating the levels corresponding to the last uses of the caveas habitat and shelter for livestock by neolithic groupsin the area of the cavity known as the "Interior Room". The project, directed by the MARQ archaeological team formed by Jorge A. Soler, Consuelo Roca de Togores, Olga Gómez and Elisa DomènechThe project is supported by Pedreguer Town Council and involves around twenty professionals and students from the universities of León, Pamplona, Valencia and Alicante.
The investigation of the funerary enclosure of the Cave, located in the Gallery that penetrates from the Inner Room to the bottom of the cavity, dated by C14 in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC.- c.2700 BC - was begun in the 2016 campaign. This is a sector completely filled with sediment that has been partially excavated this year, resulting in the most relevant finding from this season, a complete skull, which was preserved in a vertical arrangement, i.e., with the base of the skull embedded in the sediment and its face oriented towards the ceiling of the cave.
In addition to human remainsIn the Gallery, fragments of ceramic vessels, pendants made of perforated shells and arrowheads made of flint, materials corresponding to the trousseaus and offerings accompanying the deceased.
This type of funeral rituals are characteristic of the Late Neolithic-Chalcolithicperiod when cavities were used as niches for the deposition of the dead. relevant people in the community. Once the space for corpses had been filled, those that had already been skeletonised were relocated by their descendants to make room for the newly deceased. However, the skulls were given a ritual treatment This is particularly true of the Cova del Randero.
From now on, the laboratory work, studies anthropological and palaeopathologicalThe MARQ's specialists carried out a series of research projects to study the characteristics of the objects found in greater depth. In 2015 the discovery of a large neolithic vase The 6,000 year old specimens were an incentive to continue the field and laboratory work, which, season after season, is providing invaluable information for the knowledge of the activities and livelihoods of these first agricultural and livestock societies in the province of Alicante.
