Introduction
El Mirón is a large cave that dominates a stretch of the upper Asón River valley at the eastern end of the province of Cantabria in northern Atlantic Spain, near the border of the Basque Country. Discovered at the same time in 1903 and by the same amateur archaeologists (Hermilio Alcalde del Río and Lorenzo Sierra) as the adjacent and stylistically identical cave art sites of Covalanas and La Haza, El Mirón is at the center of a major cluster of Upper Paleolithic art and living sites that also includes such loci as Venta LaPerra and other caves along the Carranza Gorge, El Horno, La Luz, and Cullalvera. The famous Magdelenian and Azilian site of El Valle, excavated by Sierra, H. Breuil, J. Bouyssonie, and H. Obermaier in 1909–1911, is about 5 km downstream. Despite its obvious potential, El Mirón was largely forgotten and was not systematically excavated until 1996, when the authors of this entry began research in the cave. The excavations have continued ever since,...
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Consuegra, S., C. Garcia Leaniz, A. Serdio, M. Gonzalez Morales, L.G. Straus, D. Knox & L. Verspoor. 2002. Mitochondrial DNA variation in Pleistocene and modern Atlantic salmon from the Iberian glacial refugium. Molecular Ecology 11: 2037-48.
Courty, M.A. & J. Valleverdu. 2001. The microstratigraphic record of abrupt climate changes in cave sediments of the western Mediterranean. Geoarchaeology 16: 467-500.
Cuenca-Bescos, G., L.G. Straus, M. Gonzalez Morales & J. Garcia Pimienta. 2008. Paleoclima y paisaje del final del Cuaternario en Cantabria: los pequeños mamíferos de la Cueva del Mirón (Ramales de la Victoria). Revista Española de Paleontologia 23: 91-126.
Cuenca-Bescos, G., A.B. Marin, I. Martinez, M. Gonzalez Morales & L. G. Straus. 2012. Relationship between Magdalenian subsistence and environmental change: the mammalian evidence from El Miron (Spain). Quaternary International 272-273: 125-37.
Ellwood, B., F. Harrold, S. Benoist, L.G. Straus, M. Gonzalez Morales, K. Petruso, N. Bicho, J. Zilhao & N. Soler. 2001. Paleoclimate and intersite correlations from late Pleistocene/Holocene cave sites: results from southern Europe. Geoarchaeology 16: 433-63.
Garcia Diez, M., M. Gonzalez Morales & L.G. Straus. 2012. Datación estratigráfica del grafismo rupestre paleolítico de la Cueva de El Mirón. Trababjos de Prehistoria 69: 21-36.
Gonzalez Morales, M. & L.G. Straus. 2005. The Magdalenian sequence of El Mirón Cave (Cantabria, Spain): an approach to the problems of definition of the Lower Magdalenian in Cantabrian Spain, in V. Dujardin (ed.) Industrie osseuse et parures du Solutréen au Magdalénien en Europe (Mémoires de la Société Préhistorique Française 39): 209-19. Paris: Societe Prehistorique Francaise.
- 2009. Extraordinary early Magdalenian finds from El Mirón Cave, Cantabria (Spain). Antiquity 83: 267-81.
Gonzalez Morales, M., L.G. Straus & A.B. Marin. 2007. Los omóplatos decorados magdalenienses de la Cueva del Mirón y su relación con las cuevas del Castillo, Altamira y El Juyo, in J.M. Maillo & E. Baquedano (ed.) Miscelánea en homenaje a Victoria, I. Zona Arqueológica 7: 482-94. Alcalá de Henares: Museo Arqueológica Regional.
Marin, A.B. 2009. Exploitation of the montane zone of Cantabrian Spain during the Late Glacial: faunal evidence from El Miron Cave. Journal of Anthropological Research 65: 69-102.
- 2010. Arqueozoología en el Cantábrico Oriental durante la Transición Pleistoceno/Holoceno: La Cueva del Mirón. Santander: Ediciones de la Universidad de Cantabria.
Nakazawa, Y., L.G. Straus, M. Gonzalez Morales, D. Cuenca & J. Caro. 2009. On stone-boiling technology in the Upper Paleolithic: behavioral implications from an early Magdalenian hearth in El Mirón Cave, Cantabria, Spain. Journal of Archaeological Science 36: 684-93.
Peña-Chocarro, L., L. Zapata, M.J. Iriarte, M. Gonzalez Morales & L.G. Straus. 2005. The oldest agriculture in northern Atlantic Spain: new evidence from El Mirón Cave (Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria). Journal of Archaeological Science 32: 579-87.
Straus, L.G. & M. Gonzalez Morales. 2003. El Mirón Cave and the 14C chronology of Cantabrian Spain. Radiocarbon 45: 41-58.
- 2007a. Further radiocarbon dates for the Upper Paleolithic of El Mirón Cave. Radiocarbon 49: 1-10.
- 2007b. Early Tardiglacial human uses of El Mirón Cave (Cantabria, Spain), in M. Kornfeld, S. Vasil’ev & L. Miotti (ed.) On shelter’s ledge (British Archaeological Reports International series 1655): 83-93. Oxford: Hadrian Books.
- 2009. A preliminary description of Solutrean occupations in El Mirón Cave (Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria). Munibe 60: 117-37.
- 2010. The radiocarbon chronology of El Mirón (Cantabria, Spain): new dates for the initial Magdalenian occupations. Radiocarbon 52: 33-9.
- (ed.) 2012a. El Miron Cave, Cantabrian Spain: the site and its Holocene record. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
- 2012b. The Magdalenian settlement of the Cantabrian regions (northern Spain): the view from El Miron Cave. Quaternary International 272-273: 111-24.
Straus, L.G., M. Gonzalez Morales & E. Stewart. 2008. Early Magdalenian variability: new evidence from El Mirón Cave (Cantabria, Spain). Journal of Field Archaeology 33: 197-218, 367-69.
Straus, L.G., M. Gonzalez Morales, W. Farrand & W. Hubbard. 2001. Sedimentological and stratigraphic observations in El Mirón, a late Quaternary cave site in the Cantabrian Cordillera, northern Spain. Geoarchaeology 16: 603-30.
Straus, L.G., M. Gonzalez Morales & J.M. Carretero. 2011a. Lower Magdalenian secondary human burial in El Mirón Cave, Cantabria, Spain. Antiquity 85:1151-64.
Straus, L.G., M. Gonzalez Morales, I. Gutierrez Zugasti & M.J. Iriarte. 2011b. Further Solutrean evidence in El Mirón Cave (Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria). Munibe 62: 117-33.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Straus, L.G., Morales, M.R.G. (2014). El Miron Cave: Geography and Culture. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_2247
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_2247
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-0426-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-0465-2
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law