COVA DE LA SARSA

By Salvador Fuentes Lucas-Torres. of Bachillerato, group B

LOCATIONIt is located in the municipal territory of Bocairent, Alicante, 8 km from the village. It is 895 metres above sea level.

It is in a mountainside, specifically in the north slope of a mountain range of the Iberian System, Sierra de Mariola.

INFORMATION OF INTEREST

• Archaeologists have discovered a double burial.

• Ten corpses were identified during the excavations. All were adults except one child (he/she was between 2 and 4 years old when he/she died).

• The grave goods date to 8,000 years (Early Neolithic).

Entrance Foyer

CAVE

HUMAN FOSSILSScientists have identified:• Dental pathologies: dental losses

are frequent.• Vertebral osteoarthritis: it’s

frequent in old people or people who have been submitted to heavy workloads.

• A head injury: it has been found in the skull of a woman. The cause was probably a hit of a sharp object. The woman didn’t die because the injury is almost healed.

• A trepanation in the child skull: trepanation has been used with medical or mystic purposes. Some cave paintings discovered in other caves tell us that Neolithic man maybe thought that trepanation could heal epilepsy attacks, mental disorders or migraines.

GRAVE GOODS

People in the Early Neolithic made cardial pottery, a type of handmade ceramics decorated with cockle shell imprints of a mollusk called Cardium edulis and later baked.

GRAVE GOODS

Ceramics found in Cova de l’Or and Cova de la Sarsa.

CONCLUSIONSThe grave goods, especially the pottery, tell us that life in Early Neolithic changed a lot with respect to Paleolithic. People were sedentary and they could dedicate more time to other issues: they improved their abilities to produce tools (for example, the wood spoon) and other goods like vessels.

SOURCES• http://www.raco.cat/index.php/RecerquesMuseuAlcoi/article/viewFile/

178833/231203• http://www.museuprehistoriavalencia.es/resources/files/APL/APL01/A

PL1_06_Ponsell.pdf• http://www.academia.edu/634498/La_cova_de_la_Sarsa_Bocairent_Va

lencia_.Osteoarqueologia_de_un_yacimiento_del_Neolitico_Cardial._La_cova_of_la_Sarsa_Bocairent_Valencia_ostaoarqueology_of_a_cardial_neolithic_site

• http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoria_en_la_Comunidad_Valenciana#Paleol.C3.ADtico_Superior

• http://portaldexativa.es/el-ajuar-neolitico-del-museo-de-bocairent-tiene-una-antiguedad-de-8-000-anos/

• http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanaci%C3%B3n• http://

www.aranzadi-zientziak.org/fileadmin/docs/Munibe/2011175195AA.pdf

PRESENTATION MADE BY

SALVADOR FUENTES LUCAS-TORRES

of Bachillerato, group B

October 2014