Early people weathered the Last Ice Age in the significantly cooler uplands of central Spain, eschewing the warmer coastlines, according to a new archaeological survey. Its findings counter the prevailing wisdom that hunter-gatherers stuck close to the Mediterranean and Atlantic shorelines of the Iberian Peninsula, which include modern-day Spain and Portugal.
The relative scarcity of evidence for inland settlement is not because the sites themselves are scarce, a statement from the researchers said in a press release. “[It’s] a result of modern research hitherto prioritizing study of coastal regions and neglecting the inland.”
In 2018, a team led by Manuel Alcaraz-Castaño, an archaeologist and historian at the University of Alcalá in Spain, set out to correct the record by embarking on a systematic field survey of inland Iberia, the peninsula that includes modern-day Spain and Portugal. Their work led them to Guadalajara Province northeast of Madrid and close to the ...
