News

Neanderthal populations in southern Europe collected shellfish throughout the year, with a marked preference for the colder months, according to a new international study led by researchers from ICTA-UAB, the IsoTOPIK Lab at the University of Burgos (UBU), and the Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Cantabria at the University of Cantabria (UC).

The UAB presents Roca dels Bous Immersive, a new model for visitors that integrates scientific discoveries with hyperrealistic and interactive technology and makes the archaeological heritage of this site more accessible, understandable and attractive for everyone.

A research team led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and IPHES-CERCA documents in Cave 338, located at 2,235 meters above sea level in the Núria Valley, recurrent human occupations spanning more than 5,000 years and provides some of the earliest evidence of copper-rich mineral exploitation in Western Europe.

The study of skull fragments from the Olèrdola (Olèrdola, Barcelona) and Molí d'Espígol (Tornabous, Lleida) sites has provided new evidence that would allow the ritual of "severed heads" from the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula to be located, for the first time, among the Iberian groups of Cessetani and Ilergetes. The discovery, led by UAB researchers, allows the southern border of this practice, traditionally associated with the Indigetes and Laietani who lived north of the Llobregat River, to be expanded.

Alberto García Piquer, researcher at the Department of Prehistory, is autor and co-editor of the book The Archaeology of Seafaring in Small-Scale Societies. The book explores through numerous examples the development of maritime technology and how the availability of canoes and small boats became a key element of livelihood and social transformation in many parts of the world. Published by the University Press of Florida, it is available in an open access edition with the support of Lund University, Sweden.

The hunting of large whales goes back much further in time than previously thought. New research from ICTA-UAB and the Department of Prehistory of the UAB reveals that Indigenous communities in southern Brazil were hunting large cetaceans 5,000 years ago, around a thousand years before the earliest documented evidence from Arctic and North Pacific societies.

The documentary Off the Archeological Record, produced by the UAB and the Pastwomen network, received the EITB Award for gender perspective in the 25th edition of the recently held International Archaeological Film Festival of the Bidasoa (FICAB). The jury awarded the film for its detailed treatment of the experiences of several generations of women archaeologists.

The Centre for the Study of Prehistoric Archaeological Heritage of the Department of Prehistory (CEPAP-UAB) will highlight the archaeological heritage of the Tabac Cave (Camarasa) site through a new interactive exhibition that connects heritage, technology and society. The exhibition “Traces of a New World: The First Neolithic People of the Tabac Cave” will be carried out with the support of a social impact grant from the Government of Catalonia (IMPACTE), which promotes equality, sustainability and open science as cross-cutting themes.

An innovative study published in Science which included the involvement of UAB archaeologists reveals that the remarkable diversity characterising dogs today began some 11,000 years ago. The study thus questions traditional hypotheses that point to this diversity being largely the result of the selective breeding done by Victorian kennel clubs.

The production of El Argar pottery was organized in specialised workshops located next to specific clay deposits, far from the main centres of power, according to a new study lead by UAB researchers and published in in the Journal of Archaeological Science. This production model reinforces the existence of a complex, hierarchical, supra-local organisation in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula during the Bronze Age.