archaeology

Excavations in Plaça de la Lluna also reveal a 14th-century medieval palace

Excavations reveal the cliff where the city was located and the rocky spur that protected the first port 

Mayor demands official recognition as most elevated municipality

5,500-year-old fragments of precious mineral malachite, lithic industry, ceramics and bones discovered on latest dig

Excavations at Roc de les Orenetes reveal Bronze Age bones in "exceptional" condition

City known as Tarraco in ancient times saw port move site to make space for theatre

Archaeologists return to cave system in Central Catalonia hoping to find more remains of cave bears and Neanderthals

Graves discovered by archaeologists at site of future Sagrera high speed train station

University researchers from all over the world excavate together in the Abric Romaní in Catalonia in this 35th campaign

The archaeological site of Empúries, on the Costa Brava, continues to provide new discoveries.After three weeks of excavations,  a ceramic-vase containing 200 silver denarius dating from the 1st century B.C was found. It is the largest treasure that has ever appeared on the Roman site. Archaeologists believe that the treasure would have been hidden by its owner in one of the rooms of the houses which are also being excavated and that he would have lost it forever due to a fire which hit the property. The discovery is in very good conditions and the experts will no analyse all the pieces to find out its origins. Besides this treasure, 24 amphorae of wine have been discovered in the cellar ??the house, a slab of bronze -'simpulum'- to extract wine and two bracelets. 

The archaeological site known as Abric Romaní is currently being excavated for the 31^st year in order to continue documenting and understanding how Neanderthals lived and organised communities in the north-eastern Iberian Peninsula. The archaeologist, palaeontologist and Director of excavations, Eudald Carbonell, has explained to the CNA that this campaign will be “very interesting” as the dig will be in the level corresponding to the time when the Neanderthals lived “their maximum expansion period”. Carbonell, who is one of the directors of Atapuerca site (where the Homo Antecessor was discovered), leads a team of 20 including research staff and doctoral students. The site is located some 50 kilometres west of Barcelona city and is open for the public to visit.

The new species has been named “Nievisia sossiensis” and has been discovered by researchers at the Catalan Paleontology Institute. Described as a small primate that weighed between 100 and 150 grams and lived in the Eocen epoch, the remains have been found at the archeological site of Sossís near the town of Conca de Dalt (Lleida Pyrenees). The research has been published this month in the international magazine ‘Journal of Human Evolution’, specialized in Paleolithic Archaeology and Primatology.

Extraordinary 5th century Early Christian tombstone lid on show, in Mataró, a Coastal town some 30 km north of Barcelona. It is a unique archaeological piece in Spain, which was found in one piece, with a cross in relief at the head. It needed to be restored and is now on show, placed in the old baptistery of Mataró’s Santa Maria Basilica. This piece is one of the first examples of the consolidation of Christianity at a local level after the last Roman period. It was found in 1958, was then exhibited in a local museum, but afterwards it ended up in the church’s crypt and deteriorated.