A subjective introduction by Ramón L. Seco

The work at Peñaa Oviedo and La Calvera rockshelter continues this year with new aproachings to cantabric prehistory. Through Landscape Archaeology we are trying to investigate the developement of human movements in Picos de Europa (northern Spain mountains). For its location and potential The Peñaa Oviedo archaeological site offers us the perfect conditions we are looking for.

Research did not begun this year. I've working in the area for a few years, but the whole team started working several years ago.

In 1997 I wrote:

"I think that Agustín Diez was working in La Calvera almost before I knew I was going to be an archaeologist. My contribution to this project has been little more than nothing (I worked in the rock shelter last year, nothing more) but the way we worked, the landscape, the stones (and maybe a bone!) we found there at last... I really liked them! Since I'm interested on Agustin's hypothesis, I've had no doubt that if anyone ever had an special archaeological 6th sense, that's him. I think that the review article we give below (about the state of the study of La Calvera), far demostrates my words.

Part of Picos de Europa is in Cantabria (with capital in Santander), and there's where we work -half of the staff are galicians; Galicia is a well diferenced historic community of north-west Spain-. There's a long archeological tradition in Cantabria, but it's oriended in cave searching (remember Altamira? It's in Cantabria!). The main efforts of the scolarship in University of Cantabria is dedicated to archaeological research but not like the one chosen for this page".

It had passed three years since I wrote this. On one side, I guess the surviving of Peñaa Oviedo project through all this time is a clear evidence of its success & achievements. On the other side, Diez Casitillo's PhD dissertation completed in 1996 (director and organizer of all this story, u know?) has been recently published as a monograph titled Utilización de los recursos en la Marina y Montaña cantábricas: una prehistoria ecológica de los valles del Deva y Nansa. Now, with good will and a strong support from several investigators with diverse backgrounds, we start Peñaa Oviedo's last campaign of the Millenium.

Ramón López Seco de Herrera

Institute of Tecnological Research
System Lab (University of Santiago de Compostela)
adorno@usc.es