MARPA museum opens exhibition on Paleolithic hunter-gatherers

The Archaeological and Paleontological Museum of the Community of Madrid (MARPA) has opened a free exhibition titled ‘El Abrigo del Monte: un grupo magdaleniense en la sierra de Madrid’. The exhibit focuses on a site located in El Vellón, which provides significant evidence of human presence in the interior of the Iberian Peninsula during the Upper Paleolithic period.

The exhibition explores the lives of hunter-gatherer groups who inhabited the Sierra Norte approximately 16,000 years ago at the end of the last glaciation. On display are various artifacts, including stone tools made of flint and rock crystal, bone industry remains, and personal ornaments such as four perforated fox canines.

The exhibition is dedicated to the late prehistorian Luis Gerardo Vega Toscano, who discovered the site. It is part of the MARPA initiative ‘El presente de la arqueología madrileña’, which aims to present relevant archaeological research findings to the public through small-format displays.