Thursday, February 23, 2017

“The Red Lady of El Mirón”

Red Lady of El Mirón bones stained in 'blood-like' paint baffle archaeologists | Daily Mail Online
A robust, relatively tall, apparently healthy, probably female adult was buried at the rear of the living area in El Mirón Cave in the Cantabrian Cordillera of Spain about 18,700 calendar years ago. She had lived in the cold, open environment of Oldest Dryas, with a subsistence based on hunting mainly ibex and red deer, fishing salmon and some gathering of plants, including some starchy seeds and mushrooms. The technology of her group included the manufacture and use of stone tools and weapon elements made on both excellent-quality non-local flint and local non-flints, as well as antler projectile tips and bone needles. Her burial may have been marked by rock engravings suggestive of a female personage, by red ochre staining of a large block adjacent to her skeleton, and by engravings on the adjacent cave wall, and the burial layer itself was intensely stained with red ochre rich in specular hematite specially obtained from an apparently non-local source. 

Read More Here @ Daily Mail and Here @ Science Direct

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