In north-east Spain is an enormous rockshelter known as Abric Romaní, which has produced some of the most important data on Neanderthals in the past three decades. When excavations began in 1909 there was little indication that an astonishing archive lay concealed beneath its attractive yet ordinary travertine overhang. In fact, it’s the same calcium carbonate waters which formed the overhang that make this place special: layers of flowstone were repeatedly deposited across the floor of the rockshelter. Each covered the detritus from Neanderthal occupations, conserving it in breathtaking
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