
The University of New Mexico
NEWS RELEASE
Contact: Carolyn Gonzales 277-5920
cgonzal@unm.edu
Jan. 22, 2007
The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology presents its first museum event of 2007: a lecture by University of New Mexico Distinguished Professor Lawrence Straus, presenting “What’s Old & What’s New at El Miron Cave: Paleolithic Life & Art in Cantabrian Spain,” Wednesday, January 31, at 7 p.m. in Anthropology Rm. 163 on the UNM campus. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Straus has been excavating in El Miron Cave since 1996. The cave is located in the Cantabrian Cordillera of northern Spain, surrounded by peaks above 1,000 m. The research, conducted in collaboration with Manuel Gonzalez Morales, Universidad de Cantabria, Santander, has revealed a long series of human occupations from the late Mousterian – the time of the last Neanderthals – through the Bronze Age, as well as evidence of use in the Middle Ages and up to the present. The occupations are dated by over 60 radiocarbon assays ranging from 41,000 BP to AD 1400.
Some of the richest levels pertain to the early Magdalenian (17,000-13,000 BP), with evidence of major human settlements in the cave, including works of portable art typical of the Cantabrian region, dated rock engravings and Mediterranean shells indicative of long-distance social contacts.
Another highlight of the El Miron sequence is the oldest, most complete evidence for the adoption of Neolithic agricultural lifeways in northern Atlantic Spain at 4500 BC.
Straus has been doing Paleolithic research in western Europe for 35 years. A Distinguished Professor in the Anthropology Department, he has taught at UNM since 1975. Since 1995 he has been the editor of UNM’s Journal of Anthropological Research, a publication distributed internationally. Currently, Straus is a member of the United States National Committee for INQUA (International Union for Quaternary Research). He has published 16 books about the Paleolithic period and authored some 450 articles, chapters and reviews.
For more information, contact Mary Beth Hermans, 277-1400.
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