Rare Upper Paleolithic Human Remains Found at the Cova Gran de Santa Linya Site

At the Cova Gran de Santa Linya site (La Noguera, Lleida), the remains of a female attributed to H. sapiens were discovered by scientists of the Centro Nacional de Investigación Sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH). The carbon-14 record of the sediments in the natural vessel where her remains were discovered shows that she lived in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the Upper Paleolithic, around 14,000 years ago.

The history of the populations living in the Pre-Pyrenees of Lleida over the last 50,000 years, from Neanderthals to the first Homo sapiens to the earliest farmers, is possible to reconstruct, thanks to the innumerable buried vestiges of the sediments preserved in Cova Gran.

Previously, material records from between 45,000 and 4000 years ago were found by a team of researchers from the Archaeological Heritage Center at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (CEPARQ-UAB) and the CENIEH, since they began studying Cova Gran upon its discovery in 2002. Until the 2020 excavation campaign, no bone remains of the individuals who inhabited it had been located.

The CENIEH researcher Alfonso Benito Calvo explains that they recovered bone remains belonging to a human skeleton, still partly connected, two meters beneath the ground of a side zone of the excavation. A location that didn’t foresee the appearance of this kind of remains.

This week, the initial paleoanthropological characterization of all the remains recovered was announced, suggesting that the pelvic girdle is from an adult woman, probably a small one, and who has been named “Linya, the La Noguera woman.” The remains include two femurs, one still attached to the pelvis, long bones from the upper limbs (humerus, radius/ulna) and lower ones (tibia and fibula), and scattered metapodials and phalanges. Despite being present, the skull and axial skeleton (vertebrae and ribs) are poorly represented.

Funerary treatment

In a place considered to be a natural receptacle formed by multiple large blocks which had fallen from the shelter roof, Linya was found. Her entire body was placed in this space, and the arrangement of the femurs suggests it rested directly on the ground in the supine position.

Presently, the team is investigating elements of possible grave goods, a common practice among H. sapiens burials. Samples of the sediment from the receptacle are collected to determine the processes the body was subjected to and to search for microresidues that could hint whether it was covered with skins or plant fibers, justifying an intention of depositing the cadaver without requiring to excavate a grave.

Funerary treatment varies among hunter-gatherers, from intentional burial to secondary burial, depositing only part of the body, cannibalism, or accidental death. According to Benito Clavo the results, provided by the excavation of the natural receptacle where the remains appeared will determine these scenarios’ evaluation.

A key site

The Cova Gran de Santa Linya site is regarded as the key to investigating human presence in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula. Traces of “transition” moments were identified – such as that of the last Neanderthals (45,000 years ago) and the appearance of the first modern humans (between 37,000 and 30,000 years ago), the continuation of the latter during the Last Glacial Maximum (20,000 to 15,000 years ago) and the rise of the first farmers (7000 and 4000 years ago) – on this site, extending over 2500 m2. This makes it one of the few sites Mediterranean region with these traces.

Benito Clavo adds that prehistoric remains of modern humans in the Iberian Peninsula are very scarce. The study of Linya will allow us to learn more about the hunter-gatherers of the northeast of the Peninsula and how they lived.

Originally published on Phys.org. Read the original article