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This image released by the Diputacion Floral de Bizkaia on Friday May 27, 2016, shows a cave drawing. Spanish archaeologists say they have discovered an exceptional set of Paleolithic-era cave drawings that could rank among the best in a country that already boasts some of the world's most important cave art. Chief site archaeologist Diego Garate said Friday that an estimated 70 drawings were found on ledges 300 meters (1,000 feet) underground in the Atxurra cave, Berriatua, in the northern Basque region. He described the site as being in "the Champions' League" of cave art, among the top 10 sites...

The cave joins that at Altamira as one of Spain’s most exciting and best-preserved set of cave paintings and for Garate, marks a career high. "Without doubt it is the most important discovery of my career," he told The Local. "I have been searching the caves of the Basque Country for ten years and have discovered lots of new caves but none as important as Atxurra. It could very well be the cave with the most animal figures in the Basque Country," he added. The Atxurra caves were originally discovered in 1929, but as the paintings are at a depth...

The burial of the so-called Red Lady, dating back to the Upper Palaeolithic, was discovered in El Mirón cave (Cantabria) in 2010. The Journal of Archaeological Science has devoted a special edition to all the studies conducted at this unique burial site, because there are hardly any Palaeolithic tombs like this one which is intact and which has not been contaminated. One study is the research led by the UPV/EHU's Ikerbasque lecturer Mª José Iriarte, who analysed the remains of fossilised pollen dating back more than 16,000 years ago and which appeared on the tomb. "They put whole flowers on...

Aged between 35 and 40 when she died, she was laid to rest alongside a large engraved stone, her body seemingly daubed in sparkling red pigment. Small, yellow flowers may even have adorned her grave 18,700 years ago -- a time when cave burials, let alone one so elaborate, appear to have been very rare. It was a momentous honour, and no one knows why she was given it... Her remains were discovered when Straus's team began digging behind this block in 2010. Radiocarbon dating reveals that the block fell from the ceiling at most only a few hundred years...