A new dating places the Incarcal site at 860,000 years and resolves a scientific enigma of more than half a century
The teeth of an ancient hippopotamus provide the first robust numerical chronology for one of Catalonia’s classic Early Pleistocene sites
An international team of specialists led by CENIEH, with participation from IPHES-CERCA, has obtained for the first time a precise numerical age for the paleontological site of Incarcal-I (Crespià, Pla de l’Estany), placing it at around 860,000 years old, in the late Early Pleistocene. This chronology resolves a problem that has remained open for more than fifty years and situates Incarcal at a key moment in the evolution of fauna in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula.
This is the main conclusion of a paper published in the Journal of Quaternary Science, led by Dr. Mathieu Duval (CENIEH), with contributions from Dr. Bienvenido Martínez-Navarro, ICREA researcher at IPHES-CERCA and former director of the Incarcal excavation, Dr. Joan Madurell-Malapeira (University of Florence), co-director of the research project, Dr. Oriol Oms (UAB), among others. The study combines paleomagnetism with ESR and U-Series dating applied to teeth of Hippopotamus antiquus, one of the most representative species at Incarcal-I. The integrated application of these techniques has yielded a secure chronological interval between 0.9 and 0.77 million years, with a central estimate of 862 ± 52 ka.
A scientific enigma open for decades
Despite being a classic site, identified in 1968 and excavated extensively during the 1970s and 1980s, its exact age had never been determined with precision. Previous bio-stratigraphic estimates placed it between 0.8 and 1.6 million years, an interval too broad to properly interpret the faunal and environmental sequence of the region. The new dates make it possible, for the first time, to establish a solid chronology that constrains the accumulation of the site with unprecedented precision.
According to Joan Madurell-Malapeira, paleontologist at the University of Florence and director of the Incarcal excavations, “for more than fifty years, Incarcal has been a reference site but without a reliable numerical date. Now, for the first time, we can place it precisely at a key moment in the evolution of fauna in northeastern Iberia.”
Bienvenido Martínez-Navarro, ICREA researcher at IPHES-CERCA and former director of the Incarcal excavation, adds: “Faunas around one million years ago represent a critical moment in Europe’s biological history. It is when many of the ecosystems that later gave rise to Middle Pleistocene communities were formed. Thanks to the new dating, Incarcal is no longer an exceptionally rich but imprecise site—it becomes a key piece for understanding this ecological mosaic in transformation.”
An exceptional site with sabre-toothed cats and hippopotamuses
Incarcal-I is a unique karstic deposit containing more than 2,000 remains of large mammals, representing at least fifteen species. The site presents an exceptional faunal combination: a very high proportion of carnivores (up to 30% of the assemblage), including the sabre-toothed cat (Homotherium latidens) and the giant hyena (Pachycrocuta brevirostris), along with a notable presence of hippopotamuses (Hippopotamus antiquus), rare in continental sites and essential for achieving the new date. The fauna became trapped in a karstic doline due to mud flows, a process that favoured exceptional preservation and produced a paleontological record of extraordinary singularity.
A new reference point for the Early Pleistocene in Catalonia and Iberia
The new dates place Incarcal-I as coeval with other key Iberian sites, such as the oldest levels of the Atapuerca complex (Burgos) or the faunas of Vallparadís (Terrassa). Although this chronological overlap does not imply a direct relationship, it reinforces the importance of Incarcal for reconstructing the landscape, fauna, and ecosystems of northeastern Iberia nearly one million years ago.
With a precise and robust chronology, Incarcal-I now forms part of the select group of late Early Pleistocene sites with reliable numerical dating, consolidating itself as a key element for understanding the evolution of European megafauna and the impact of climatic and ecological changes on past ecosystems.
Reference
Duval M., Oms O., Martínez-Navarro B., Madurell-Malapeira J., et al. (2025). New dating results at Incarcal-I (Spain) shed light on the exceptionally rich late Early Pleistocene fossil record of the Iberian Peninsula. Journal of Quaternary Science, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.70028