Researchers from several European institutions, led by scientists from the University of Barcelona and the University of Alcalá, have demonstrated that the hunter-gatherers who inhabited the interior of the Iberian Peninsula during the Last Glacial Maximum (between approximately 26,000 and 19,000 years ago) were part of large-scale social networks capable of connecting vast territories in western Europe. The study, published in the journal Science Advances , also documents very long-distance contacts, up to 600-700 kilometres, between the centre of the Iberian Peninsula and southwestern France.
The study is based on the archaeo-petrological and geochemical analysis of knapped stone tools from the Solutrean period recovered at the Peña Capón site (Muriel, Tamajón, Guadalajara). The results show that some of these objects were made from flint sourced from geological outcrops in southwestern France, which is the greatest confirmed distance in the European Palaeolithic between the origin of a lithic raw material and the place where it was discarded.
the lithic raw materials used to manufacture the tools abandoned in the
shelter during the Solutrean period. The territory is zoned according to the
time-cost separating the site from the outcrops, as well as characteristic
pieces from most of them. Image modified from Sánchez de la Torre et al.
