Utillaje faunístico inédito de las labores de cobre prehistóricas de La Profunda (León) y su datación C14 (AMS)

Abstract

La Profunda mine, in Leon, has been acknowledged for decades as a prehistoric mining, site generally attributed to the Bronze Age on account of the appearance of several copper axes (never duly described and which have now disappeared), a strange piece of the same metal and the characteristic, though chrono-culturally ambiguous pebble hammers. The recent finding of tools made from animal material, namely deer antler and tibia (Cervus elaphus) as well as goat horn (Capra hircus), provide knowledge not only of a type of instrument well-documented in the significant copper mines of nearby Asturias (prehistoric workings at El Aramo and El Milagro), but also radiocarbon dating that situates the mining works of La Profunda in the second half of the third millennium B.C. This rich copper vein was to provide ore and metal to societies of a much greater scope than that corresponding to the mountainous area where the mines were opened, reaching Copper Age village communities (the so-called “Horizonte las Pozas”) in the sedimentary lands of the northern plateau of Castile and also, probably, the authors of the Chalcolithic walled settlements that existed at the time in the south-eastern sector of the extensive Duero River Basin.