The Benzú rockshelter: a Middle Palaeolithic site on the North African coast

The rockshelter of Benzú has a Middle-Upper Pleistocene stratigraphic sequence with ten levels, seven with evidence of human occupation. Speleothems have been dated by U/Th and the sedimentary levels by OSL and TL, showing that the sequence extends from 250 ka to 70 ka. In this paper, we summarise the results of geomorphology, chronostratigraphy and excavation, and provide preliminary results on the pollen, faunal and lithic remains. The location of the site on the North African coast of the Strait of Gibraltar offers the potential to throw light on contacts and relationships between prehistoric communities in North Africa and the South Iberian Peninsula, for whom the Strait may have served as a bridge rather than a barrier.
This Project is the result of collaboration between the Autonomous City of Ceuta and the University of Cádiz (Project OT2006/217) and is part of the International Cooperation Proyects AECI A/2893/05 and A/6728/06, in collaboration with Dr. Ali Maate (UAE, Tetouan, Morocco) and Ramon Morán. We would like to thank Mabel Deu, Fernando Villada, Maria Teresa Troya and Gabriel Fernández for their Institutional help. We would also like to thank Paloma Uzquiano for the anthracological data, Alfonso Arribas and Isabel Cáceres for their study of the faunal assemblage, Joaquín Rodríguez-Vidal for geomorphological data from the Gibraltar area, Clive Finlayson for inviting us to contribute this paper, and to the editors for improving the English. Finally, we thank all the specialists, archaeologists, students and volunteers that have participated in the excavations and studies during the Benzú Project.