Cova de Can Sadurní

Can Sadurní Cave is located in the Garraf Mountains, in the central Catalan coast, at a height of 425 m asl. Excavations at the site started in 1978. Since then, more than 30 archaeological strata have been identified, dated to the last 12,000 years. The stratigraphy is particularly interesting for the Early and Middle Neolithic. We excavated the Middle Neolithic layers during the last decade and we are now starting to enter into the transition between the Early and the Middle Neolithic (the so-called Epicardial Neolithic).

Some of the most remarkable results for the Middle Neolithic episodes include two well-preserved in situ burials and the exceptional finding of an anthropomorphic ceramic figurine, the so-called l’Encantat.

Since 2009, 20,000 litres of sediment were processed by flotation for archaeobotanical analyses. This also allowed an excellent recovery of small animals, some insect remains and a few fish bones. A very intensive sampling for the recovery of microremains from sedimentary deposits and artefacts and lipid residues from ceramics is also ongoing.

One of the future tasks involves the digitalization of the spatial information in a GIS software as well as implementing a more modern field methodology. We need to put together all the data gathered since 1978 and make them searchable and usable for future research.