Archaeologists from the High Mountain Archaeology Group (GAAM), composed of researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), who are excavating in the Dead Man’s Cave (Cova de l’Home Mort) in the town of Soriguera, Pallars Sobirà county in the north of the province of Lleida in the Pyrenees, found numerous human remains and objects associated with the Bronze Age, dating back between 3500 and 3600 years.
The cave has two galleries and is located at an altitude of about 1800 meters. Among the objects found are numerous examples of pottery and other unique artifacts, such as a bronze arrowhead.
It is a very valuable object for Pyrenean archaeological heritage, given the scarcity of similar pieces found so far, the researchers explain.
They also found human remains from the same era, mainly of children and elderly people, which are among the oldest recovered in the western Pyrenees of Catalonia.
Other remains, due to their characteristics, appear to be from the late Neolithic or Chalcolithic, 5000-4500 years ago, including fragments of Bell Beaker pottery.
However, the most notable discovery has been pieces of Roman pottery, some of them of North African origin, confirming that the Dead Man’s Cave served as a refuge during the turbulent times of the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
This discovery confirms that the Cova de l’Home Mort, in addition to the Bronze Age, hosted human occupations at the end of the Roman Empire (5th century AD) and consolidates the data from recent years, indicating that the valleys of Pallars Sobirà were not isolated from historical dynamics in Roman times, as has traditionally been suggested on several occasions, said Ermengol Gassiot, director of the GAAM from the Department of Prehistory at the UAB.
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