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Marta Sánchez de la Torre, Profesora agregada de Prehistoria, Universitat de Barcelona

Homo sapiens regularly crossed the Pyrenees during the Ice Age – here’s what they took with them

Pyrenean glaciers like the Pico Viñamala (pictured), are the last remaining traces of the frozen masses formed during the Ice Age. Pascale Bourget/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

A fine mist accompanies the clan as the sun rises and they begin their journey. There are 12 people in total, some of them adults, some children, and others so small that they have to travel on the backs of the women.

This is one of the human groups that frequented the Pyrenean Mountains during the period known as the Last Glacial Maximum, or Ice Age. These Homo sapiens – nomadic hunter-gatherers who populated Western Europe between 11,000 and 35,000 years ago – carry with them a leather rucksack containing objects of value: mostly flint cores and flakes that they will use on the journey as hunting tools, or as ornaments. These are pieces of their homeland.

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