Magdalenians South of the Douro: La Peña de Estebanvela (Segovia)

• Timeframe: 2006-2009
• Lead institution: MAN, en el marco del convenio de colaboración que existe entre el Museo Arqueológico Nacional y el CCHS del CSIC. Código de proyecto: CyL-IA-40.024.0002.01. (Convenio firmado entre Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas y la Consejería de Cultura de la Junta de Castilla y León).
• Lead researcher: Carmen Cacho Quesada (MAN) y Pilar López García (CCHS, CSIC).
• MAN researchers: Juan Antonio Martos Romero y Ruth Maicas Ramos.

Este proyecto es fruto de un convenio de colaboración entre el Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas y la Consejería de Cultura y Turismo de la Junta de Castilla y León. Se inscribe en el marco del convenio de colaboración que existe entre el Museo Arqueológico Nacional y el CCHS del CSIC.

Our understanding of the settlement history of Spain’s Central Plateau during the Upper Palaeolithic has changed significantly in recent years in light of new research. The project at La Peña de Estebanvela (Segovia) has contributed to this new interpretative framework and become the principal reference for research into the Magdalenian period in the region given the diversity of its archaeological record, which features an abundant faunal (64,155 macrofauna remains) and lithic repertoire (51,000 pieces) as well as bone industry, ornamental elements, portable art and habitation structures

It contains a broad sequence that has been subjected to very stringent chronostratigraphic control and has provided the most complete series of radiocarbon dates on the Central Plateau for the late Upper Pleistocene. The site was researched by applying a multidisciplinary methodology, with geoarchaeological, chronostratigraphic, zooarchaeological, taphonomic and technological analyses, as well as spatial analysis, traceology and palaeo-environmental reconstruction.