Elhuyar Fundazioa

The Basque Country was dinosaur territory between 55 and 75 millionyears ago. Remains have been found in Álava, specifically in Treviño (inthe Lañu mine) and in Izki. We have visited the Lañu site. It is one of themost important dinosaur sites in Europe. A team of geologists and palaeontologistsfrom the University of the Basque Country – UPV/EHU haveidentified 40 species there, of which more than ten are dinosaurs, bothcarnivores and herbivores. And thanks to the bone remains of a herbivoredinosaur found in Lañu, a new species has been identified: LirainosauriusAstibiae. We’ll learn more about the era in which those dinosaurs lived.

The Sierra de Aralar is an enclave especially rich in prehistorical remains. In this report from the Teknopolis Programme, Professor of the University of the Basque Country, Joxean Mujika, offers a tour of its most representative remains, among which can be found dolmens, menhirs and cromlechs. As well as getting to know these important megalithic constructions, we will discover the latest finding made by archaeologists: a place inhabited around 5,000 years ago.

Mankind's oldest works of art are found in Palaeolithic cave manifestations. Northern Spain is characterised by being one of the richest areas in paintings and engravings from this period. Caves such as Santimamiñe, Atxurra and Ekain, in the Basque Country, and Castillo cave, in Cantabria, house an immense collection of artistic testimonies. Archaeologists and speleologists strive to find works which have remained hidden for thousands of years as they carefully study cave art.

The Antxieta Archaeology group was created some fifty years ago in Azpeitia. Since then, they have gone out every Sunday to prospect in the Urola Valley, in search of new archaeological sites. Among their findings are important enclaves of Basque Prehistory like Ekain cave, in which the Paleolithic paintings were located for the first time in 1968. One of its discoverers, Rafael Rezabal, tells us about this amazing discovery first-hand. Educational Section. Place: Conference Hall Amaia K.Z. (Irun)

From the Iron Age to the 14th century, iron was produced in hillside forges and furnaces using just manual force. Hundreds of such forges have been catalogued in the Basque Country and, although they have been described in detail, the technique used in these furnaces is still not fully understood. In their search to recover this former means of production, archaeologists are using Experimental Archaeology and are reproducing the work process followed in the haizeola furnaces.

When out in the mountains or in natural areas, it is common to throw the cores and stones of the fruit we eat on the ground, assuming that they will simply biodegrade. And this is true more often than not. However, if a series of highly specific environmental conditions are met, it is possible for this organic matter to be preserved for hundreds of years. One of the tasks of archaeologists and archaeobotanists of the Arkeolan Foundation is to search for and study these materials in order to learn about the diet, clothing and utensils of our ancestors.

Scientific advances often have interesting applications in the field of Archaeology. This is the case of new techniques for analysing mitochondrial DNA, which can be carried out on human remains from the past. In this case, the University of the Basque Country leads the investigation into the Metal Ages skeletal remains of the Santimamiñe Cave, relating them to the current population of Kortezubi.