Excavations at a 400,000-year-old hunter-gatherer campsite in La Cansaladeta, La Riba

A research team led by archaeologists Andreu Ollé and Josep Maria Vergès, researchers at IPHES-CERCA, is carrying out excavations from 4 to 20 May at the La Cansaladeta site, in La Riba (Alt Camp, Catalonia), a hunter-gatherer settlement dating back around 400,000 years. The main objective of this year’s campaign is to continue excavating the extension opened last year and to deepen the study of Level L, one of the archaeological units with the greatest potential at the site.

Previous excavation campaigns at La Cansaladeta have uncovered numerous very well-preserved stone tools, providing highly significant data on the technology used 400,000 years ago. In addition, an exceptional feature linked to the excellent preservation of the archaeological record is the presence of numerous refits from the stone-tool production process, enabling researchers to study in great detail the sequences of technical gestures involved in the manufacture of different types of tools. In this context, a refit consists of lithic artefacts that fit together. In other words, the pieces can be reassembled, allowing partial reconstruction of the knapping sequences carried out at the site.

Located on the left bank of the Francolí River, at the Roixeles gorge, La Cansaladeta represents one of the oldest pieces of evidence for human presence in the Camp de Tarragona region. The site forms part of a territory occupied by the earliest human groups for nearly one million years, as demonstrated by the findings at Barranc de la Boella, considered one of the oldest Acheulean assemblages in Europe.

The 2026 campaign also coincides with the defence of the doctoral thesis of Görkem Cenk Yeşilova, scheduled for 22 May, focusing on the study of the archaeological materials from La Cansaladeta. Developed within the PhD programme in Quaternary and Prehistory at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, the research analyses the bipolar technique applied to the site’s lithic tools from an experimental and functional perspective.

Funding

The excavation involves three researchers from IPHES-CERCA, four students from the Erasmus Mundus Master’s Degree in Quaternary Archaeology and Human Evolution, and one student from the Bachelor’s Degree in Art History and Archaeology, all taught at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili. The excavation work is carried out within the framework of the four-year research project “Palaeoenvironmental Evolution and Prehistoric Settlement in the Tarragona Regions” and has the collaboration of La Riba Town Council.